With twenty ticks left on the clock and the Maine Black Bears pushing for the game-tying goal, Harrison Scott dished a backhand pass onto Josh Nadeau’s tape just inside the left faceoff dot with the game riding on his stick blade.

Earlier in the period, it was a short-handed goal by Scott himself, a hand-eye coordination piece of wizardry where Scott batted the puck out of midair from a Nolan Renwick feed that halved Maine’s deficit.

Scott’s momentum-changing goal, his second of the night against his old team, pumped newfound noise and energy into the nearly six thousand Black Bear fans at Cross Insurance Arena in Portland. Until then, Alfond South grew increasingly frustrated by Maine’s struggles to produce much offense of substance early in the third period, with the Bentley Falcons keeping most of Maine’s offensive arsenal to the perimeter or out of the offensive zone completely.

Scott’s shorty not only rallied the Alfond South’s battle cry but pumped new life into the Black Bears, who spent the remainder of the final frame pressing for the elusive game-tying goal.

So with their tails up, the sold-out crowd behind them, and Bentley desperately clinging on to their lead when Nadeau ripped Maine’s last-gasp chance from prime real estate, Black Bear Nation held their breath, expecting the net to ripple.

But the puck had other ideas.

Instead of a jubilant roar from the home-away-from-home crowd, the sharp pang of rubber-hitting metal rang out around the arena.

Seconds later, Bentley’s Jimmy Doyle threw the puck the length of the ice, which slid into Maine’s empty cage to seal Bentley’s upset victory 4-2.

A game of inches.

Swimming up river

Early in the game, the Black Bears were put in a position that they haven’t had to endure often this season.

Being behind on the scoreboard.

This year, Maine has very seldom trailed during the course of a game. When they have fallen behind, it usually hasn’t been for very long.

Heading into the holiday break, the Black Bears have had the highest percentage of game time in the lead than any other team in the country and the lowest percentage of game time trailing. According to College Hockey News, until December 2nd, when the latest data was available, Maine spent 65.8% of its time on the ice in the lead, 27.7% tied, and only 9.3% behind. They didn't trail for a second in their two games since this latest data set against Stonehill.

Bentley took the lead just 1:42 into the contest when a Frank Djurasevic turnover on a breakout pass allowed the Falcons to drive toward the net, backhanding the puck off the underside of the crossbar for Oliver Salo to slam Bentley onto the scoreboard.

“We didn’t start well, obviously. A bad turnover; their first shot goes in,” Head Coach Ben Barr said after the game.

Then early in the second period, with the Falcons on the power play, Bentley put Maine in an even rarer position, down by two goals when Ethan Leyh doubled the Falcons' advantage with a deflected shot in the middle of the slot.

This season, the Black Bears have only trailed by two goals or more for 10:36 against Northeastern and 11:24 at BC.

“They get a power play, we lose the draw clean, they get a tip, and we’re down 2-0. [Then] you’re swimming upstream the whole game,” Barr said.

Missed opportunities

Nadeau’s late ping off the post wasn’t the only time on Sunday afternoon that the tiniest of margins fell Bentley’s way.

Trailing 1-0 in the first period, Scott was steamrolled by a high elbow that resulted in a five-minute Maine power play. The Black Bears thought they had tied the game late in the man advantage when a Brandon Holt shot ended up squeaking over the goalline in a claustrophobic cluster of a mad goal-mouth scramble.

The officials waved off the goal immediately, overturned the call after a review and then changed course once again after Bentley’s coaching staff challenged for goaltender interference on Scott.

“Scotty was pressing his pad there, so [the call] could have gone either way,” Barr explained.

The Black Bears would end up rueing their missed opportunity, failing to take advantage of the five-minute major.

“I obviously hated that because I wanted that one to go in, but it’s unfortunate, and that’s just the way the game goes,” Harrison Scott said.

Although Scott’s first goal of the game was on the power play, a laser beam bar down from above the top of the left faceoff circle, Maine’s power play struggled overall on Sunday afternoon.

Bentley gave the usually elite, free-scoring Black Bear PP plenty of opportunities, with almost 15 minutes of time in the sin bin. Aside from sending seven shots on net during the five-minute power play, Maine could only register six shots on goal during the following five power play opportunities and did not look particularly convincing during any of them.

On the man advantage and at even strength, Bentley did a fantastic job keeping the Maine attack to the perimeter, maintaining swaths of bodies above the puck,  sustaining their structured shape, and not allowing many Black Bear opportunities in and around the netfront.

“I didn’t think we had the extra juice to get to the net, to get to rebounds; there were a lot of pucks laying there. [Connor Hasley] played really well in net,” Barr said.

Allowing very few open shooting lanes for Maine to exploit, Bentley was brave in sacrificing the body, blocking 27 shots during the game. When the Black Bears could sneak a puck onto the net, Hasley’s strong rebound control, coupled with the Falcons' gutsy, greasy area defense, held Maine at bay.

“You got to get to the net, and they do a good job boxing out. They might give you a shot, but if you can’t get to the rebound, then it’s tough. It’s not that we didn’t have our chances; we had plenty of chances,” Barr said.

Panic instead of poise

Maine’s biggest problem this season has been a pattern of panicking with the puck when feeling the pressure. It improved before the break but once again reared its ugly head on Sunday. Some Black Bears tend to panic when they most need to play with poise, whether deep in their defensive zone, at center ice, or when walking the offensive blueline.

“It’s just a lack of poise; we turn over a puck because we’re stickhandling it, and we’re stickhandling it when we’re scared to have it on our tape. Those are just the fundamentals of the game. We stop moving our feet and start stickhandling, and it ends up in a turnover,” Barr said.

The Black Bears struggled to keep sustained time in the offensive zone. All too often, when a Bentley player pressed a Maine puck carrier, it would trigger a hurried decision, trying to stickhandle out of trouble, or reverting to a rushed and fumbled pass. 

It’s not every Black Bear. Many rise with the puck on their tape in a pressure-packed moment, embracing the challenge of walking the tightrope between making a play and creating a self-inflicted error.

“When we have chances to make plays, half the guys are able to do it, and half are struggling with it. That’s what we’re fighting with; we’ve been fighting with it all year, talking about the same thing all year. That was kind of the same story tonight,” Barr said. “We’re only as good as the weakest link on any given night. That’s the story of our team.”

All hands on deck

If the Black Bears are to achieve the ultimate dream, they will need their depth pieces to consistently raise their game to match the levels set by their star player. They’ve shown that they can do so in flashes, but when the going gets tough, the tough need to get going. Maine needs everyone to step up, and it can’t get away with some weighing the ship down.

“At the end of the day, we just beat ourselves, and that’s just kind of how it’s going to go for us from here on out. I don’t think they did anything too crazy, except we’re just giving them the chances, and they’re just putting them away,” Scott said.

On Sunday, the fourth line was quiet, shockingly so after they performed so well against Stonehill. Meanwhile, many of Maine’s defensemen are still their own worst enemy and must be turning Barr’s hair gray with their shaky play when in possession of the puck.

After the game, Barr made sure to emphasize that these shortcomings have nothing to do with a lack of effort or will of his players, putting the responsibility of fixing these problems solely on his and his coaching staff’s shoulders.

“They’re great kids, they care, they all work extremely hard. The motivation is can we all get to the level of Harrison Scott and Thomas Freel? Can we all get to that level of wanting to be that person instead of giving the puck to somebody else because I don’t want it? That’s the usual thing as a coach to try and figure it out as a staff, but if we don’t, tonight won’t be our only disappointment of the year; that’s the challenge,” Barr said.

Sunday was a measuring stick for the second half of the season, the most important half of the season, and the verdict is in: they’re not where they need to be. 

Not yet.

However, the areas of improvement are clear, and they know what they need to do in order to become a championship-caliber team. They certainly have all the pieces to do so, and their destiny is entirely in their own hands.

“We’re trying to get everybody to the level of being a championship team and we’re not there yet. Even though we won some games at the start [of the season], we knew we weren’t there yet, and we’re still not, so on we go,” Barr said.

If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.

They know what they need to do.

On to Denver. On to 2025.