Maine’s 5-2 Saturday matinee victory over the Stonehill Skyhawks at Alfond Arena saw two drastically different versions of the Black Bears.

It saw Maine at its best, and it saw Maine at its worst — all jammed packed into sixty minutes of topsy-turvy hockey on a freezing yet sunny afternoon in Orono, Maine.

On paper, the gulf between the two teams could not have been greater.

Maine entered the weekend ranked #2 in the Pairwise. Meanwhile, Stonehill, in its second-ever D-1 season, entered ranked #56 out of the 64 Division I teams.

The Black Bears had the third-best goals scored per game average (3.9) in the country and the fourth-highest goals allowed average (1.6). Stonehill’s G/G was (1.84) and GAA (3.3), both bottom-ten in the nation.

Stonehill only allows nine players to receive full scholarships, while Maine awards the NCAA maximum of 18 scholarships.

But of course, the game isn’t played on paper. It’s played on a frozen sheet of ice in front of a roaring crowd where anything can happen.

Ferocious first

This gap in class became visibly apparent immediately from the opening puck drop as the Black Bears put together one of their most dazzlingly dominant periods of the season. 

The early start against a low-ranked opponent on the last weekend before Winter break didn’t keep Maine from coming out of the gates like a bat out of hell. The Black Bears, hunting the puck in packs, smothered Stonehill right from the get-go; their ferocious forechecking machine, well-oiled and clicking on all cylinders, didn’t allow a single Skyhawk stick to touch the puck on the Maine side of the redline until well over five minutes were played.

In the lead-up to the game, Harrison Scott explained that the Black Bears’ first-period game plan is focused on trying to break the opponent’s will with unwavering pressure, hoping that the onslaught grinds them down and eventually exposes the opponent’s fragilities.

“As we like to say, drag them into the cave,” Scott said.

Maine threw Stonehill into a bear pit in the first period.

The Black Bears' front-footed play kept the puck in the Stonehill zone for what felt like minutes at a time. The forecheck and defensemen’s pinches were working like perfectly run pistons in a finely tuned engine, all firing at precisely the right time, in constant movement and sync, filling in for each other's positions when a fellow Black Bear jumped up into the play.

This kept the Skyhawks in the pressure cooker for almost the entire first period. Stonehill must have had six or seven icings alone during the first ten minutes.

“I thought we came out really hard,” Head Coach Ben Barr said after the game.

Taylor Makar continued his return to form from last weekend, opening up the game’s scoring by slamming home a juicy rebound off of a Nolan Renwick shot. The goal came on his 100th collegiate game played and was Makar’s sixth goal of the season and his second in as many games.

Harrison Scott’s 10th goal of the season was Maine’s second of the afternoon. (Photo courtesy of Patience Hanley — UMaine Athletics)

A few minutes later, Maine’s dominance frustrated the Skyhawks, who took an ill-disciplined slashing penalty, allowing the Black Bears’ seventh-most efficient power play in the country (27.4%) to take to the ice. The Maine PP  made quick use of the man-advantage with Scott throwing a puck that had eyes for the back of the net through traffic from the high slot, beating Connor Androlowicz blocker side.

The first period was Black Bear hockey at its best. Simple and efficient with the puck, ferocious and snarling without it, Maine's performance was dizzyingly dominant.

Stonehill looked stunned and shellshocked amongst the swirling Maine attack and a rather packed Alfond for a Saturday afternoon game.

“We were a little bit intimidated by the moment. It’s a great environment and something that we needed to get used to. I just thought we were playing out of sorts and didn’t get our feet under us in the first,” Stonehill Head Coach David Berard said.

Because of the early start, the first period was also the first time the Skyhawks took to the Alfond ice without a day-before-game or morning skates under their legs to get used to their surroundings.

“They got up here late last night and hadn’t skated, and in the first period, that stuff happens to a lot of teams. [The Alfond] is a hard place to play, and then they settled in,” Barr said.

By the time the teams headed off the ice for the first intermission, with the shots on goal tally 18-2 in Maine’s command, the contest was looking like it might turn into a thrashing.

Sloppy second

But with everything going the Black Bears' way, Maine let off the gas. After producing one of their best periods of the season, they came out and delivered perhaps their worst display of the year, looking like a ghost of their former selves.

“[It was] not our best. We like to say keep the line tight, and we certainly had a little slack in it there,” defenseman Grayson Arnott said.

Everything they did so brilliantly in the first, they didn’t do in the second — at all.

“When you’re not willing to put the puck in the dirty areas and forecheck, that’s when you get into trouble. I’ll have to watch it back but I think that’s what we did in the second,” Barr said. “The second period was just not very good.”

The middle frame began with Stonehill’s Leo Chambers pouncing on a shot that dribbled through Albin Boija in the blue paint for his first collegiate goal. Maine’s netminder showed us that he is human, after all.

Although Maine outshot Stonehill 13-10 in the second period, the Skyhawks played full of confidence and gave the Black Bears everything they could handle, looking by now well settled into their surroundings.

“When we came in for the intermission, we were like ‘we just need to play our game and settle down and relax.’ We’re a good hockey team, we have good hockey players, just trust yourself, and I thought we did that, and we got some momentum when we scored the goal, and it gave us a lot of confidence to play a really good period and get the second goal to tie the game,” Berard said.

Stonehill knotted the game at two apiece late in the second by way of a Brady Hunter third-effort chance on the power play that sucked the life out of the Alfond crowd. You could hear a pin drop around the old barn as the Alfonders watched in shocked silence.

“I thought we lost our humility a little bit there in the second period. We just didn’t want to do all the little things that helps you have the puck on your tape, and play in the offensive zone and turn pucks over,” Barr said.

Taking their first-period success for granted, Maine strayed from playing the simple style that worked so well for them early on, trying to play too cute and fancy with the puck, almost always to no success. The Black Bears got outworked, outbattled, and outplayed.

“You just go and assume it’s going to be like [it was in the first] in the second period, and you get your butts kicked,” Barr said. “If you don’t want to just chip it in and go get it, you turn pucks over, take penalties, and we did a lot of that tonight.”

Tremendous third

The right words were undoubtedly spoken, or more likely screamed, in the Maine dressing room during the second intermission because when the Black Bears returned to the ice for the final frame, it was their first-period version of themselves that took to the ice. Jekyll and Hyde.

“[The message in the dressing room] was basically just get everybody going, all the time, no shifts off. One bad shift can lead to another, and it’s kind of a domino effect from there. So just having each guy going all the time was the message,” forward Nicholas Niemo said.

Almost immediately into the third, the Black Bears roared themselves back into the lead from the stick of a most unlikely scorer.

Maine’s junior defenseman from Toronto, Grayson Arnott, had only scored four goals in almost 70 games played for Maine. So it was especially surprising when he wandered himself in front of Stonehill’s net to deflect Renwick’s shot from the blue line past Androlowicz to give Maine the lead.

“I just saw Renny rolling like a D-man almost, so I thought I’d go fill into his spot at the net front, it worked out. It was a great shot by him; [it] beat the guy, and I was fortunate to get a stick on it,” Arnott said.

A few minutes later, another unlikely name put himself onto the scoresheet.

When Nicholas Niemo transferred from Bentley alongside Harrison Scott in the summer of 2023, many in Black Bear Nation thought Niemo might have a higher upside. Since then, Scott has taken Maine by storm, earning 46 points in just 56 games for the Black Bears and almost instantly becoming one of Maine’s most important players.

Meanwhile, Niemo’s time at Maine has been more often in the stands as a healthy scratch than on the ice, skating in just 17 games last season, with most coming in the first half of the year.

“He’s a great kid. Obviously, we’ve been hard on him, but he keeps working, and his teammates love him,” Barr said about Niemo.

Niemo hadn't suited up in the script of Maine since early March of last season but instantaneously made his presence and impact known.

The Vermont native was finally given his chance, and did he ever take it with a vengeance.

“All the guys who are battling just to get a spot in the lineup are just nipping at the bit, so when you do get the chance, it’s something you want to take advantage of for sure,” Niemo said.

Early in the third, a suffocating Black Bear forecheck squeezed Stonehill off the puck, ricocheting off Oskar Kimarov’s skate and onto Niemo’s stick. The junior right-winger strode into the slot before rifling a laser beam over Androlowicz's shoulder to put Maine up 4-2.

“It was awesome to suit up tonight for the first time this year,” Niemo said. “I just took it to the middle and ripped it.”

Down by two after having such a great showing of themselves, the Skyhawks got frustrated and once again fell into penalty trouble, which the Black Bears exploited ruthlessly.

A full two-minute 5-on-3 power play allowed Josh Nadeau to walk from the point into the slot uncontested and pick the spot he wished to shoot at. The spot he chose was no bigger than a postage stamp at the joint between the right post and the crossbar, which rang out loud and clear among the frenzied Alfond Faithful as Nadeau’s bar-down shot sent Maine into a comfortable and commanding three-goal lead.

Nicholas Niemo celebrates his goal under the Balcony. (Photo courtesy of Patience Hanley — UMaine Athletics).

On Saturday afternoon, all five of Maine’s goals came from the Black Bears getting into the greasy areas, taking away Androlowicz’s eyes, and causing as much chaos as possible in front of the Stonehill net.

“We didn’t get in his eyes as much as we needed to. When we did, we scored. I think every goal was with a net front. Whether it was a tip or a rebound, or a guy standing in his face. When you pay the price to go there, good things happen,” Barr said.

Nadeau’s goal was his second in as many games and his third point of the afternoon. Maine’s most cerebral playmaker looks to be heating up as the calendar has flipped to December, producing five points in the last three games. His play has also helped fellow linemates Renwick and Makar, who have surged in the past few weeks since Nadeau moved to their line. Renwick’s two assists on Saturday continued his scoring spree, delivering three points in two games, as well as Makar’s clip of five points in the last three games.

Saturday afternoon showed that when Maine plays to their identity and sticks to the fundamentals, they can swat away opposition like Stonehill with ease.

But when they stray from this game and begin to play out of character, even taking their opponents for granted, the game can quickly spiral out of control, and their vulnerability is exposed.

“But great teams find a way to win, and we did. We flush it and move tomorrow and bring a better effort,” Arnott concluded.

Stonehill no doubt will have learned a massive amount from this first test, and will chomping at the bit to make it even harder for the Black Bears on Sunday afternoon.

Maine must learn to not only drag a team into the bear cave but to keep them there.

Consistency and focus is key.

Consistency and focus is the next step.

The Black Bears salute the Alfond Faithful. (Photo courtesy of Frankie Fina — UMaine Athletics)