Freshman goaltender Patriks Berzins began his morning by receiving a text from Head Coach Ben Barr telling him that he was to get his first collegiate start that afternoon.

“I was waiting for this chance and happy it went like this,” Berzins said.

The Latvian netminder recorded 14 saves, helping the Maine Black Bears earn a 4-2 victory and a weekend sweep over the Stonehill Skyhawks on Sunday.

It was the opportunity Berzins had been patiently waiting for.

A long time.

Berzins biding his time

Berzins was expected to join the Black Bears last season.

He spent the entire summer of 2023 in Orono working out with the team, ready to push Victor Ostman for the starting gig that year.

But just weeks before Maine’s 2023/24 campaign began, the NCAA ruled that Berzins, among many other Lativan players, were deemed ineligible and banned for life from college hockey because of the junior league they played in. The NCAA wrongly believed the Latvian junior league classified these players as professional and therefore lost their amateur status, unable to compete at a collegiate level.

The University of Maine appealed the NCAA’s decision and a later investigation reversed Berzin’s eligibility, yet the NCAA still handed him a 20-game suspension.

Barr and the Black Bears coaching staff decided that they couldn’t risk being without a goalie spot for over half the season and brought in a last-minute addition to replace Berzins.

The goaltender who came in was no other than Albin Boija. Berzins was forced to return to juniors for the season.

The NCAA later negated the 20-game suspension, but it was on the eve of last season’s start and it was too late for the Black Bears to change course yet again

Now finally able to suit up for Maine, Berzins has watched Boija, his original replacement, start all of the Black Bears’ first fifteen games of the season, taking the nation by storm as one of the best goaltenders in the country this year and refusing to relinquish the starting job.

But at long last, years in the making, Berzins had the starting cage all to himself.

He did not disappoint.

“I was ready to take that chance and make the most out of it,” Berzins said.

Patriks Berzins, flanked by Jack Dalton and Harrison Scott, locks in before his first start for the Black Bears. (Photo courtesy of Anthony DelMonaco — UMaine Athletics).

The Latvian goaltender took some time to settle into his first college start, struggling with rebound control and staying square to the puck early on in the contest.

The Skyhawks put two past him, the first coming early in the first period off a faceoff when Stonehill’s Teddy Lagerbäck plowed a slapshot that clipped off a Black Bears defender and squeezed under Berzins’ arm.

“I was tracking the puck and it was coming into my chest and I think it hit someone's pants, I’m not even sure. I just saw that the puck went into the net,” Berzins said.

The second goal against him came in the third period when a Stonehill pass straight to Black Bear Liam Lesakowki’s stick was fluffed at the blue line. This left Berzins out to dry as Stonehill closed in on his net on a 2-on-1 rush that Frank Ireland put away to cut Stonehill’s deficit in half 4-2.

“A brutal breakdown on the second goal, so it's hard to fault [Berzins],” Barr said.

While Berzins only faced 16 shots all afternoon, when the chances did come, they came thick and fast, in bunches, and usually of very high quality.

“When we give up chances, they’re usually pretty good. It’s not like we’re giving up volumes of shots, but the chances we do give up, usually they are really good chances,” Barr said.

It’s not easy for a goaltender to go minutes at a time without feeling the puck and then all of a sudden maintain their laser focus and make a big save to bail out the team. This was the case for Berzins on Sunday as Stonehill went for long stretches without threatening the Black Bear net before a flurry of grade-A scoring chances called Berzins into action.

“Honestly, I didn’t have a lot of jobs to do. It’s my first time being on a team like that where I don’t face a lot of shots, and you have to stay mentally focused in the game, but all the props go to my teammates for helping me out all game,” Berzins said. “It is hard to keep the focus. You just have to stay mentally prepared for the next shot and know that you’re going to stop that next shot.”

Blunders at the back

Without the puck this season, the Maine defensemen have been superb. Tight, suffocating, physical, and proactive. They smother opposition puck carriers and thwart second and third-effort chances proficiently.

But at times, with the puck on their sticks in their own end, their game leaves a lot to be desired.

Many of Stonehill’s high-quality scoring opportunities this weekend came from poor decisions with the puck on breakouts and neutral zone turnovers on the part of several Black Bear blueliners. This has been the story of Maine’s season and, by far, their biggest fatal flaw.

“We’ve got three or four guys fighting the puck. It’s become a bit of an adventure right now. We had a good start, then the BC and BU weekends, and it came back again this weekend a little bit,” Barr said.

Maine have been their own worst enemy, shooting themselves in the foot with mental mistakes or physical errors at inopportune moments. This weekend, with the Maine backend still missing Brandon Holt, one of their most assured puck-handling defenseman, to a lower-body injury, some of the Black Bears looked immature and overwrought.

“We’ve got to be able to get through games without really bad individual breakdowns. That’s a challenge. That’s not to rip on anybody or anything like that; it’s just the truth. If we want to be the team we want to be we can’t be falling down on our own, turning pucks over when no one is on us, panicking. Those types of things we have to fix, and we will. It’s not because the kids don’t care or anything like that, it’s part of growing as a team and as a culture,” Barr said.

While many of these breakdowns were self-inflicted wounds, Barr also acknowledges the role their opposition had in forcing them.

The Skyhawks did a phenomenal job balancing forechecking pressure with a tight defensive structure in the neutral zone. It was a variation of a 1-2-2 forecheck system that kept a wall of bodies above the puck, looking to pounce on mistakes in the middle of the ice.

“They put a lot of pressure on us, David [Berard’s] doing a phenomenal job. They are so structured, and they make you go through them, so on a breakout when you reverse a puck and have time, then you’ve got five guys you have to go back through,” Barr explained.

Soaring Skyhawks

Stonehill, in only their second-ever season competing at the Division-I level, has come leaps and bounds from their 2-34-0 record last year. Under first-year Head Coach David Berard, the Skyhawks are building an identity modeled much like Maine’s. 

“Those guys work so hard, they’re really well coached, very structured, they’re relentless as well. I think they’re going to have a great culture and program moving forward,” Thomas Freel said.

In their most difficult series against the highest-ranked opponent the program has ever faced, the Skyhawks delivered a soaring account of themselves in both games.

“To be associated with a top-five team in the country, even for just a weekend, is a huge benefit to our program. We’re trying to build credibility in college hockey, trying to gain respect and earn respect in college hockey. I think coming up here and challenging ourselves against a team like Maine is great for our guys, it’s great for our experience, it’s great for our program, but then to have a good effort and to play well and to give ourselves a chance to win a hockey game goes a long way to building that credibility that we want to have,” Berard said.

Berard observed that his team was intimidated by the opponent and the Alfond atmosphere in the first period on Saturday, playing within themselves for much of the game. But on Sunday, they played full of confidence and self-belief, proving to themselves and the country that they more than belong on the same ice as the big, bad Black Bears.

“I’m really happy with their effort tonight, we did some different things to try to take away what they were trying to do, maybe where they exposed us yesterday. I thought our guys adjusted really well. It was just a couple of mistakes that were the difference in the game,” Berard said.

It was a massive stepping-stone weekend for Stonehill as they showed the rest of college hockey that they can give one of the best teams in the nation all they could handle and should be respected and taken seriously.

“Hopefully, now the people at UMaine can say Stonehill is a pretty good team; they’re going to be okay,” Berard said. “If you can come up here and play like that for two nights against them, you can do that against anyone.”

Berard and the Skyhawks certainly earned well-deserved plaudits and respect from Black Bear Nation for their performance this weekend.

Fourth-line ferocity

Maine’s vastly improved strength in depth from their forwards was yet again a game-changer for the Black Bears. Fourth-line center Oskar Komarov was banged up after Saturday’s game and sat out on Sunday for maintenance. This gave another freshman, the versatile Thomas Pichette, the opportunity to start.

The Black Bears fourth-line has been a spark plug for the team for the past few weeks ever since their third period display at UNH helped drag Maine over the finish line to victory. Not only have they given Maine reliable defensive solidity, but for the second game in a row, they’ve been the Black Bears’ sharpest forward trio going on attack, playing the simplistic, bruising style of Black Bear hockey to a tee.

“I think our game plan was to keep it simple, get the puck deep, and get to work. I think we had success in the past with that, and we just wanted to get into the game, get the pucks deep, get them on net,” Thomas Pichette said.

In their last nine games, the fourth-liners have contributed to four goals. Massive goals as well. Komarov scored one at BC, Calafiore against BU, Nicholas Niemo Saturday afternoon, and then on Sunday, Pichette got in on the fun with his first goal as a Black Bear. This was a nifty redirected tip to open the game’s scoring just minutes into the contest.

“I was going to the net, and I saw our D-man Jack Dalton with the puck, and he saw a lane and just ripped it on net, and I just got a stick on it, and it went in. Not much about it, but it felt great,” Pichette, a freshman from Quebec, said.

Anthony Calafiore and David Breazeale celebrate with Thomas Pichette. (Photo courtesy of Patience Hanley — UMaine Athletics)

Maine’s ability to roll four lines that can all deliver the same brand of hockey without a drop in the standard of play has been critical to the Black Bears’ successes this season and the biggest team improvement from last year. By being able to stack shift after shift from one line after another, Maine can pen opponents back for minutes at a time, smothering them with a never-ending barrage and generating a wave of momentum that can suck the life and the will out of the opposition.

The line once again created “great juice,” Barr said.

Shooting sticks staying hot

Late in the first period, with the game tied at one, an extended shift in the offensive zone curated by the fourth line kept the Skyhawks on their heels deep in their own end, gassed and unable to get off for a line change.

The fourth line ground Stonehill down, allowing Maine’s line of Harrison Scott, Thomas Freel, and Ross Mitton to hop onto the ice to rip apart a group of vulnerable Skyhawks.

Mitton held up a long pass inside the Stonehill blueline, allowing Freel to hop into the play with speed. Freel scooped up the pass by Mitton, barreled past the flat-footed Stonehill defense, charged toward Connor Androlowicz’s net, and flipped a backhanded scoop into the goal.

“It was a great stretch pass up the ice there and then Ross did a great job of holding it up. I read that it was going to bounce out and was able to be the first one to it and kind of just put it on net hoping for the best, and fortunately, it went in,” Freel said.

The goal was Freel’s 8th of the season, matching his combined total from his first two years. The tally marked the junior’s first of the season at even strength as the previous seven all came on the power play.

“I’ve been really going for that one, it’s been a while. I think 5-on-5 play really dictates how well you’re playing and so to get that one tonight really took a monkey off my back,” Freel said

The next Black Bear goal, the eventual game-winner, came off the stick of a red-hot Josh Nadeau, a rocket of a one-timer in the high slot fed by an inch-perfect pass from Sully Scholle.

Nadeau had a slow start to his second season as a Black Bear, not scoring once in the team’s first six games. This was uncharacteristic for a player who scored with ease last season with a team-leading 18 goals tied with his brother Bradly’s total.

But since then, Nadeau has broken out of his sophomore slump, scoring five goals in eleven games, including three in the last three games, and putting up points in five straight.

Josh Nadeau acknowledges the great assist from Sully Scholle. (Photo courtesy of Anthony DelMonaco — UMaine Athletics)

“He puts points on the board. He’s had a rough start, but he’s started to get his feel back a little bit. Guys that get points help you,” Barr said.

For Maine to be successful this year, their best players need to be at top-peak, producing at their highest level. Nadeau, now on a line with Taylor Makar and Nolan Renwick, has certainly looked back to his best self.

Ironically, as the temperature has cooled down, Nadeau has become red-hot.

Another in-form Black Bear, Frank Djurasevic, who was named as the Hockey East defenseman of the Month for November, continued his scorching play, popping up in the slot to receive yet another perfectly placed pass from Scholle and scoring his 4th goal of the season.

Djurasevic had a rough couple of weeks in October but has now scored four times in the last seven games. In the absence of Holt, he’s been Maine’s most potent scorer among the blueliners.

Djurasevic’s goal, like Nadeau's, came from a perfectly threaded needle of a pass from Scholle, who had his best game of the season.

“[Scholle] was outstanding; in the third period, he was our best player,” Barr said.

With the victory and the weekend sweep, the Black Bears enter their holiday break on a five-game winning streak, seven games unbeaten, and a 12-2-2 record, all still without playing to their maximum ability for a full sixty minutes. While the record is excellent, individual errors show that Maine s continues to have a way to go before they are a team that can compete for championships come Springtime.

“Obviously, the record is fine; we’re not going in thinking we’ve made it because, obviously, we haven’t,” Barr said.

The results have been there, while the performances haven’t always been perfect.

Once they can put those two together consistently, the Maine machine is going to be a tricky one to stop.

In the meantime, the team will continue to practice together for the next couple of days before splitting up on Wednesday to spend some well-deserved time with family.

They will regroup on the 22nd and practice over Christmas to get themselves ready to face the gauntlet of the season’s second half.

Take a breath Black Bear Nation, you’ll need your lungs come the New Year. There will be championships to be won.