The Black Bears line up before the start of the game. (Photo: Dale Jellison)

Never count these Black Bears out.

They just seem to find a way.

With chins as unbreaking as their state’s granite coast, the #5 Maine Black Bears scratched and clawed their way to a remarkable 3-3 tie with the #7 Providence Friars on Friday night, winning the shootout to escape Schneider Arena with two conference points.

It wasn’t the result that felt miraculous; it was the fact that the Black Bears somehow managed to get something from a game where they were very much second-best in just about every facet.

Right from the opening puck drop, Maine looked to be in deep trouble.

The Friars were ferocious, swarming the Black Bears right out of the gate, beating Maine to every loose puck, outskating, outhitting, and wholly outplaying the Black Bears in every area of the ice.

Meanwhile, Maine looked lethargic and sluggish, unable to spark themselves into gear as the game spun around them, circling out of control.

Before Maine could even process what had hit them, Providence pounced on the Black Bears’ slow start, scoring just 2:33 into the contest when big defenseman Guillaume Richard drove along the goal line, backhanding a tight-angle shot over Albin Boija’s shoulder and into the corner of the net.

Adding insult to injury, Richard previously was committed to go to Maine but decommitted and chose to play for Nate Leaman’s Friars instead. Since then, Richard has been a Black Bear killer and was the overtime scorer last season in Providence’s win over Maine at the Alfond.

The rest of the first period continued on the same note, with the Friars getting the lion’s share of scoring chances, constantly swarming in the offensive zone, and keeping the Black Bears fighting fires and defending for their lives.

“They had us on our heels for the majority of the first two periods,” Head Coach Ben Barr said after the game. “I thought it was a real struggle for two periods.”

Maine slowly began to find their feet in the game as the first period rolled along, in many thanks to Black Bear forward Charlie Russell, who was able to return to the ice on Friday after missing the last three games with an upper-body injury. Russell played on a fourth line that was rotated between himself, Nicholas Niemo, Thomas Pichette, and Liam Lesakowski.

Russell didn’t miss a beat in his return to action, showing no signs of rust whatsoever.  He was Maine’s most lively player in the first period, playing with speed and confidence on the puck, moguling through defensemen to drive directly to the net and single-handedly make something happen. It was during one of these silky-stick plays late in the first period that earned the Black Bears a power play from a slashing call on Russell and slowly began to turn the tide in Maine’s favor, albeit briefly.

Although Maine’s power play was held scoreless, it did halt the Friar’s momentum and allowed the Black Bears some respite. The Black Bears were then able to capitalize with a goal in the final minute of the period when Josh Nadeau spun around a rolling puck up top for which Friar netminder Phillip Svedebäck couldn’t control the rebound. Harrison Scott, on the doorstep, banged away and couldn’t put the puck home on a couple of attempts, but Frank Djurasevic could and did, coming down from the point to jump on the loose puck, tapping it into the yawning cage after Scott’s chances put Svedebäck down and out.

Against a team as defensively detailed and physically punishing as Providence, any Maine offense would depend on putting in the hard yards; winning battles, getting pucks to the net, and capitalizing at the netfront. There would be no room for a highlight reel goal in open ice, and aside from Djurasevic’s goal, the Black Bears were not willing enough to get down to nuts and bolts hockey in the first two periods to create much offense whatsoever. Against a team like the Friars, taking hits to make plays, fighting tooth and nail during one-on-one battles, and being willing to go to the dirty areas of the ice where the opponent will hack and whack at you to no end is the only way to create offense. For the first two periods, the Black Bears weren’t willing to do all the little ugly things needed to create scoring chances of real substance.

“They’re a really good defensive team, first and foremost, and we weren’t willing to pay the price. When you play a team like that, you have to win a battle, win another battle, get a puck to the net; there’s nothing pretty that it’s going to come from,” Barr explained. “We didn’t win enough battles in the first two periods to really be in the game.”

If Maine’s first period wasn’t a great showing, their second period was terrible.

“That second period was maybe our worst period of the year. That’s credit to Providence; they’re really good, and they outworked us,” Barr said.

t The Black Bears pride themselves on their work rate and outworking the opposition just about every single night. When they are getting out hustled, out-battled, and out-fought, as they were Friday night, their chances to win any hockey game become pretty bleak, especially against a team as good as the Friars.

Providence wholeheartedly punished the Black Bears in the second frame. Their frantic forecheck hounded Maine, who were getting hit and checked all the way back to the stone age as Providence’s relentlessly physical game turned it up a notch, their crosshairs aimed at any blue jersey that moved.

Eventually, the Providence siege was too much for the Maine line to hold as the Friars’ relentless heavy-hitting pressure kept a group of Black Bears penned into their own end, out of gas, and unable to get off the ice for a line change. This allowed the Friars to get the puck out from the corner and onto the net in a flash, where no Black Bear was covering. Providence’s Graham Gamache, with all the time in the world and all alone in front of Boija’s crease, couldn’t put the first shot home. But with no Black Bears in the vicinity to clear the rebound or tie up his stick, Gamache could stick the second opportunity home past Boija, who was completely left out to dry by his gassed teammates.

“We were in our zone for a long time, it was a netfront second chance, but it was a result of us just not being able to get a line change and being in our zone for a long time,” Barr said.

After the goal, Boija screamed at his teammates in frustration while Barr on the bench did the same, calling a timeout to try and desperately get the team’s ranks in order.

Somehow, some way, Maine was able to retreat to the dressing room for the second intermission, only down a goal. The Black Bears hung in there, bloodied, black and blue, but refusing to be knocked out by the relentless Friars.

At this point in the game, the Black Bears, who lead the nation in average shots on goal and haven’t been outshot in a single game all season, were down 21-11 in terms of shots on goal, only managing four shots during the second period, their lowest total in a frame this season.

Meanwhile, Maine’s power play wasn’t helping the Black Bears’ offensive struggles, going 0/3 on the evening and continuing a dismal 2/26 run since the New Year that hasn’t seen the power play succeed since a Nolan Renwick tally during the first period at Lowell on January 11th. It wasn’t like during the first few weeks of the season, where Maine’s PP struggled to score but still created plenty of chances. Now, the Black Bears’ man advantage can’t even seem to set up in the offensive zone, struggling to enter the O-zone cleanly at all.

But in the third period, it was Maine’s penalty kill that was called into action time and again. Midway through the frame, the Black Bears killed off a Russell hitting-from-behind penalty, only for Thomas Freel to be called for a slash seven seconds later. At that point in the game, with Maine chasing and still struggling to create much sustained offensive zone time, the penalty felt like a dagger in the Black Bears’ hopes.

Maine would need a hero.

They got just that in Taylor Makar.

On the ensuing faceoff after the penalty was called, defenseman Bodie Nobes poked the puck off a Friar stick and backhanded a pass into center ice where Taylor Makar, like he’d been shot out of a rocket, beat his man to the loose puck. Skating like the wind, Makar bore down on Svedebäck’s net all alone on the short-handed breakaway, rifling a quick shot below Svedebäck’s glove and above his pad to stun the Friartown faithful.

Against all odds, this game was tied.

But then it wasn’t. A shorthanded goal, especially late in a game during a contest in which one team is playing head and shoulders better, can be the ultimate soul destroyer for the team who allows it. That was not the case Friday evening as the Friars, on the same power play during which they gave up their goal, stormed right back down the ice and re-took the lead by a filthy snipe slung off the stick of Hudson Malinoski with 12:30 left on the clock.

The rollercoaster of emotions in a matter of minutes could have been enough for Maine to feel it was time to pack it in and say, oh well, not our night, let’s try again tomorrow.

But these Black Bears wouldn’t know the definition of quit if a dictionary hit them in the face.

With 2:31 seconds left in the game, the Black Bears had a rare flurry of sustained time in the Providence end. This was enough for Barr to make the aggressive call to pull Boija from the net for the extra attacker with lots of time still left on the clock.

“We didn’t have a lot of sustained o-zone pressure in the whole game; we didn’t have a time-out because I used it earlier. I felt like any time under three minutes that we had a chance to get him out made sense,” Barr said, explaining his reasoning for pulling Boija so early.

Barr’s gutsy decision turned out to be a strike of genius.

Thirty seconds later, it was the main man again, Mr. Makar, grabbing a rebound and howling a pile-driver of a slap shot past Svedebäck to the slamming of frustrated Friar sticks on the bench.

They just won’t roll over and go away.

Taylor Makar celebrates his second goal of the night with Brandon Chabrier. (Photo: UMaine Athletics)

Makar has been a monster for Maine of late, his scorching hot play leading the Black Bears’s charge in recent weeks. Oozing with confidence, everything Makar touches of late seems to turn to gold. Case in point, his Friday evening heroics continue a red-hot streak where he has scored six goals in Maine’s last four games. Now, with 22 points on his lone season at Maine, that points total ties his cumulative total from his three seasons at Maine.

“He’s just a confident player right now. It seems like he’s doing it every night right now. His skating is phenomenal; when he uses his speed to skate wide, nobody can really skate with him. He’s simplified his game to the point where now he’s more confident to make plays with the puck because he knows he can just skate by guys,” Bar said.

Maine surged for the winning goal during the final minutes of regulation. The game remained tied and went to sudden death 3-on-3 overtime, which the Black Bears dominated, outshooting the Friars 7-1 during the five-minute extra frame.

But the Black Bears couldn’t solve Svedebäck one more time, and the overtime ended scoreless, sealing the game as a tie with a shootout to determine who would get the extra Hockey East point.

Neither Niemo, Russell, nor Scott were able to score for the Black Bears. But Sully Scholle, on Maine’s fourth attempt, was able to get Svedebäck to bite first with a nifty forehand-to-backhand move, lofting the puck into the back of the net.

Meanwhile, Boija stonewalled all four Friar shots, earning the Black Bears the extra point on the standing board.

In a game in which Maine was outplayed more than they have been all season, the fact that they were able to hang in there, not allow the Friars to run away with the game,  then scratch and claw their way back not once but twice in the third period is a testament to the Black Bears’ enormous heart. 

“We found a way. I’m proud of how the guys found a way to get something out of that game,” Barr said. “Hopefully, it’s a good sign that we could get something out of a game where we were really bad for long periods of time.”

Barr credits the leaders in his dressing room for Maine’s monster mentality and courageous character.

“I think it says a lot about Breazeale and Harrison Scott, Freeler, and Holter; Nolan Renwick has been phenomenal, he’s doing everything well for us right now, and then you can add Taylor to that, and there’s other guys that have stepped up,” Barr said.

Maine refused to go quietly into the night and, through sheer will and guts and some more Makar magic, dragged themselves back from the dead for a tie that very much felt like a win.

Bad teams find a way to lose, good teams find a way to win, and championship-caliber teams find a way to pull whatever you call that we saw Friday night out of their bag of tricks.

As ugly as they come, that is what it is going to take to win championships.