Back to your regularly scheduled Albin Boija superhuman heroics.

Where would the Maine Black Bears be this season without their brick wall in net?

Not ranked as the #4 team in the nation heading into the playoffs, nor finishing in second place in the Hockey East standings.

Without their steady Swedish rock in net, the Black Bears could very well be a bubble team this year, their place in the NCAA Tournament undetermined.

Maine finished the regular season with a 21-7-6 record, in which Boija started 33 of 34 games, 16 of which were decided by a margin of one goal or less. The Black Bears’ record in these 16 one-goal or even contests is 7-3-6. Of the six ties, Boija picked up the extra Hockey East point with shootout wins in five of the six, stopping 15 of 16 shootout attempts against him, with BU’s Ryan Greene the only shooter to be able to brag that he beat the mighty Maine wall this season.

Without Boija consistently bailing out the Black Bears and stealing Maine results too many times to count this season, Maine’s 7-3-6 record in one-goal games could very reasonably have slipped to, say, 4-6-6. This would have turned Maine’s overall record to 18-10-6, with a conservative estimate most likely placing them somewhere around #14 or worse in the Pairwise, teetering on the edge of the 16-team National Tournament after conference-champion automatic bids are determined.

So, while nobody can say exactly where Maine would match up nationally or in league play without Boija’s fourth-best goals-against-average in the country (1.77 GAA) and eight-highest save percentage (0.977 sv%), the resounding importance he represents for the Black Bears is sky-high. College Hockey News’ CHIP statistic (College Hockey Individual Point value), which demonstrates an individual player's overall value to their team (similar to WAR in baseball), rates Boija (61.1 CHIP) as not only adding the second-highest value for his team out of all goaltenders in the country (only behind BC’s Jacob Fowler – 74.1 CHIP) but rating him as being the 10th most valuable player in all of college hockey.

A world without Boija would look a lot darker for Black Bear Nation. Case in point, the holy goalie was the instrumental hero yet again in Maine’s 2-2 tie and shootout victory against the Massachusetts Minutemen in Amherst on Saturday, salvaging two points from the weekend in the regular season finale.

Albin Boija may have saved his best regular-season performance for last, stopping 40 of 42 UMass shots. (Photo UMaine Athletics)

Save of the season 2.0

It might take UMass’ Dans Locmelis a while to stop seeing Boija in his nightmares.

Just over a month ago, in a 3-2 Maine win at the Alfond, Boija robbed Locmelis in the dying seconds of the game with an otherworldly post-to-post glove save, with Minutemen Head Coach Greg Carvel deeming Boija’s high-way robbery “the best save I’ve ever seen in college hockey.”

The superhuman snag was a shoo-in to be considered the save of the season in all of college hockey and even featured on ESPN’s Sports Center Top 10 Plays.

But Boija may have one-upped himself on Saturday night with about three minutes left in the third period and the game tied at two.

Once again, a rebound kicked out directly onto the tape of Locmelis’ stick with a gaping net point-blank to shoot at, meaning everyone inside the rink was expecting the net to bulge and the goal horn to sound.

But the red lamp never lit as Boija went into superhero mode, diving to his right, arms fully extended in a Superman pose, to somehow, someway get his blocker on the puck and deny the Minutemen a go-ahead goal in the third period, leaving jaws littering the Mullins Center floor.

The rest of college hockey might want to test his DNA because he is otherworldly.

Just 24 hours after his shakiest game of the season, Boija bounced back big-time with arguably his best performance of the year, making save-after-save from the Minutemen’s constant netfront scoring chances. All evening long, the puck ping-ponged around Maine’s crease with the Black Bears once again having trouble clearing the netfront, forcing Boija to scrabble around his blue paint fighting fires, making the second, third, and even fourth-effort shots in-tight on his doorstep look routine. 

“The Maine goalie, he’s one of the top goalies in the league and he really showed it in this game tonight,” Carvel said.

Boija’s 40 saves on 42 shot attempts was his second-highest save total this season, just one save shy of his 41 saves on February 21st, a 3-2 overtime loss at UConn.

Just another day at the office for the Great Wall of Boija. 

Discipline issues

After Maine’s most lackluster performance of the season on Friday, the Black Bears started the first period delivering much better stretches of offensive zone time, creating their offense with a significantly increased physical presence by winning the puck back on the forecheck below the goalline for the first time all weekend. But Maine’s time in the offensive zone wasn’t sustained, as the Black Bears were usually one-and-done with their chances. For the first two periods, they were unable to keep sustained O-zone pressure on the Minutemen,  failing to turn the screw and ramp up their attack with any authority.

Routinely, Maine hindered their own momentum by taking undisciplined penalties every time they began to work up a head of attacking steam.

“We had good spurts in the first period, and then we just kept taking penalties. We’d get good stuff going, and then penalty, penalty, penalty. You kill three penalties in the first twenty minutes, and it’s hard to get anything going,” Head Coach Ben Barr said.

The Black Bears spent almost half of the first period on the penalty kill, wearing out a path of ice to their sin-bin. Nolan Renwick was called for boarding just 15 seconds into the contest and Harrison Scott was then called for a slash. Josh Nadeau spent four minutes in the box during the opening frame, first for a coincidental roughing call with UMass’ Cam O’Neil and then later for a cross-check. Both were called after the play was dead during skirmishes around the net.

“It’s hard to get anything going when you’re killing that many penalties,” Barr said.

Barr added that he was frustrated by some of the refereeing decisions, especially a non-call in overtime, which allowed UMass to gain entry on a rush, forcing Maine to take a last-ditch penalty.

“I know those were probably some penalties, but for whatever reason we seem to get the bad end of all the penalties right now, which is ridiculous. Even in overtime there, Holter gets tripped, and then we end up tripping a guy.”

But luckily for Barr and the Black Bears, Maine’s penalty kill was by far the best aspect of their game. It not only killed all eleven minutes or so worth of penalties on Saturday evening but significantly sparked the team offensively when on the kill, registering five shots on goal when short-handed with their aggressive front-footed style of play.

“We had the looks that we wanted yesterday, and they did a good job of minimizing them a little bit more today, but we’re shooting pucks, and we’re getting to the net, and it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t find one tonight,” UMass’ Lucas Mercuri said.

The turning point

Down by two goals late in the second frame, thanks to Locmelis opening the scoring in the first period by way of a gift-wrapped turnover from David Breazeale and an early second-period Larry Keenan snipe from the slot, the mountain Maine had to climb out of felt insurmountable.

So when former Minuteman Taylor Makar took a five-minute major penalty and game misconduct for a cross-check after the whistle, sending Lucas Mercuri face-planting into the post, things looked to be going from bad to worse for the Black Bears.

Makar’s first trip back to Amherst since transferring to Maine in the summer was not the return the senior would have wanted. After being named the Hockey East Player of the Month for February, Makar had a quiet weekend, only recording one shot on goal during the two games. While it wasn’t only Makar that the Minutemen completely shut down offensively, Massachusetts’ ability to keep Maine’s hottest player silent was a key factor for their success in keeping the Black Bears to three goals in over 120 minutes of play.

“I don’t think we were really too focused on T-Mack; we were kind of just focused on our gameplan, and obviously, he’s a good player, and he’s probably their best player, so it was good that we shut him down, but we were just focused on our game plan and playing our way,” Mercuri explained.

“It was kind of nice to get to play him on this night. Obviously, it’s special for us to be roommates for three years. So it was good to see him out there, and obviously, we wish we could be all together, but it’s nice to play him,” Ryan Lautenbach added about the significance of playing against Makar on Senior Night.

Having been unusually anonymous for the first five periods of the weekend, Makar’s cross-check into the back of his former teammate and friend of three years sent a dejected Makar out of the game to the taunting of the Mullins Maniacs and a dinged-up Mercuri down the UMass tunnel for some repairs.

“I just went headfirst into the post, one of my good buddies did it; he just texted me, so I know it wasn’t on purpose or anything. The puck was frozen, and I went headfirst, an unfortunate play, I know he didn’t mean to do it, so it’s all good,” Mercuri said.

Taylor Makar during warmups before Friday’s game with his brother’s Hobey Baker banner hanging overhead. (Photo: Simon French - UMaine Athletics)

During his three seasons at UMass, Makar’s biggest hindrance, according to local fans, was routinely taking boneheaded penalties, having led the Minutemen in terms of penalty minutes (54 PIMs) by some margin during his sophomore season, including two game misconducts. This has by far been Makar’s biggest and negative trait in his game this season as well, with Makar being by some margin Maine’s most penalized player (47 PIMs). This reputation notwithstanding, Black Bear Nation can look past this lack of discipline because of the incredible offensive production, by far the best of his collegiate career, that Makar has delivered this season, far above most fans’ expectations.

It seemed that with his return to the Mullins Center on what would have been his Senior Weekend, Makar also returned to his Massachusetts self, unable to inject himself into the game offensively before being ejected for a boneheaded play.

But in a roundabout way, it was Makar’s five-minute major that jolted the Black Bears into gear for the first time all weekend. Not only did they successfully kill the penalty to end the second period, but they came out in the third with their most energized and front-footed stretch of play all weekend.

As if they had to have their backs pinned against the wall before being able to muster the prowess to fight back, the Black Bears that returned to the ice for the start of the third were the best versions of themselves: aggressive, connected, snarling, and full of hunger.

“That was the first life we had after killing the five-minute major, really for a lot of the weekend,” Barr said. “I’m really proud of the way the guys fought back in the third.”

For the first half of the third period, Maine buzzed all over the Minutemen with a noticeable added jump in their step. Taking the bit between their teeth for the first time all weekend, the Black Bears opened up the game with tremendous speed and snapping physicality, putting the Minutemen under the most pressure they’d seen all weekend.

With the game stretched, the Black Bears finally got on the board with 14:38 remaining when Nadeau fed defenseman, Luke Antonacci, jumping up in the attack during a rush for one of the best Black Bear passes all season.  This sprung Antonacci, all alone in front of Michael Hrabel’s net, to slot his first goal in two seasons. Having recorded his first two points of the year last weekend, Antonacci has been not only playing his best hockey of the season but offensively producing at the greatest rate in his three seasons wearing the blue and white.

With Maine’s tails up and the Minutemen on the backfoot for the first time all weekend, Maine continued to ramp up their game, now playing in fifth gear.  The Massachusetts defense was being asked questions for the first time all series, and the pressure Maine at last put them under ended up with the puck in the back of the net again less than five minutes later. Just onto the ice after a line change, zone, Nicholas Niemo picked off a clumsy UMass backhanded stretch pass up ice, raced over the blue line, and used his speed to catch the scrambling Massachusetts defense flat-footed before popping Hrabel’s water bottle sitting on top of the net with a top-shelf d wrister to knot the game even and stun the home crowd.

“Unfortunate turnover there for their second goal, we’d like for them to have to earn their goal, we kind of gave that to them on a platter,” Carvel said. “We just threw it into the middle of the ice.”

Playing on the fourth line, Niemo’s tally was only his third of the season but his second in three games and the fourth line's fourth goal in the last three contests. While Maine’s top scorers have been uncharacteristically quiet in recent weeks, the tally from unlikely goalscorer Antonacci, alongside attacking upside from other more unexpected Black Bears, has been leading the way for Maine’s offensive production of late. Maine’s fourth line was really the only line to consistently keep the puck in the UMass zone for extended periods of time all weekend, showing a great account of their play on both sides of the puck.

“We’ve had some guys step up scoring, and it's gotten a little dry for some of the guys that we need to score. The good news is, we’re getting by with a lot of third and fourth-line production right now and defense production. Hopefully, we can find a little bit of juice from our top guys here down the stretch,” Barr said.

While the fourth-line and blueliner scoring is great news for the Black Bears, Maine cannot rely on them to continue to do all the heavy lifting in the playoffs and will desperately need the big guns to refind their form for the first time in weeks.

Two of Maine’s most reliable goal-scorers from the first half have been fighting it significantly in the second half of the season. Harrison Scott has only scored one goal in 13 games, Maine’s lone tally in a 1-1 tie with UNH. Meanwhile, his linemate Thomas Freel has also only scored once in 13 games, his goal being part of Maine’s third-period Saturday night blitz over UNH. In the 21 games before both Scott and Freel’s droughts began, Scott was leading the charge with a team-high 15 goals but has only registered one goal since scoring twice at Lowell on January 10th. For Maine to jolt themselves out of their months-long offensive rut, Maine will be relying heavily on Scott and Freel to refind their first-half form.

After Niemo’s goal tied the game with just over ten minutes still to play, it felt like the Black Bears were by far the more likely team to score the next goal. But that wasn’t the case, as the midway point of the third period signaled a complete change of momentum, with UMass piling on the pressure, forcing Boija to stand on his head for the remainder of the regulation as Maine held on for dear life, only recording four shots on goal during the final frame compared to UMass’ 16.

“After [Niemo’s goal], I don’t know if they had a scoring chance, really. We took the game over for the last ten minutes. They’re a good team. You hate to give up a lead in the third period, but [we] damned deserved to win that game, the way we played down the stretch,” Carvel said.

The Black Bears held on for dear life and, thanks to Boija’s ridiculously remarkable diving stop, were able to limp their way into the overtime period.

In the overtime set, as the Black Bears have always seemed to do this season, Maine was the better team during 3-on-3, having a couple of really good chances to clinch the game-winner, including a nifty Niemo move that was deflated over the net at the last moment by a backchecking Minuteman stick.

Neither team scored during the overtime, sealing the game as a tie in the record books. Having had to win and hoping that Providence lost in order for Massachusetts to clinch a first-round bye, the game-ending in a tie alongside a Friars’ win at Northeastern meant that the extra point for the shootout was quite literally just for fun, the result of which had zero impact on the standings.

Boija did what Boija does best, stopping two of two Minuteman chances, the first of which pinged off the post, while Maine went two of three on their attempts. Charlie Russell’s attempt was unsuccessful, but shootout extraordinaries Niemo and Sully Scholle slotted, giving the Black Bears the extra point and a big boost to the team’s morale.

The Black Bears celebrate with Albin Boija after Scholle’s shootout-winning strike (Photo: UMaine Athletics)

Maine’s fightback in the third was gallant, but plenty of issues remain for the Black Bears heading into the playoffs. While Barr mentioned that he is proud of the way his team fought, character and heart alone won’t be enough to lead Maine to the promise-land this Spring.

“We’ve got a lot of character in that room, and character has gotten us all the way to being #4 or whatever in the Pairwise. It’s not going to get you to playing good hockey at this time of the year,” Barr said. “We’re not playing the kind of hockey that’s going to last a while right now, and that’s what we’ve got to fix and we have a week of practice to try and fix it.”

Maine’s overall performance did feel better than their drubbing on Friday. Still, the Black Bears are heading into the most important time of the year not being able to consistently play to their identity, level, and brand of hockey, looking particularly confident in their play whatsoever, trending in the wrong direction.

Skidding into the playoffs, whoever Maine faces from here on out will feel that there is indeed a Black Bears' underbelly that can be exposed and exploited. The opposite can be said for UMass, who, after an up-and-down first half, will soar into their First Round game on Wednesday against Vermont full of confidence and self-belief.

We’re a pretty confident group right now, the morale is high, we’re feeling good, and we’re excited to get into playoffs and make some noise here,” UMass’ Lunden Alger said.

“We’re a good team; you don’t want to play us,” Carvel added.

Meanwhile, with the team’s performance not being where it needs to be since mid-January, Barr and his staff will desperately hope that a week's worth of practice can flip Maine’s play on its head.

“We’ve got to play better. I’m proud of the way the guys fought back; it’s a credit to their character and how much they care, but we have to play a better brand of hockey than we’re playing,” Barr said.

However, the playoffs are almost a completely different beast where anything can happen, and if the Black Bears can string together a couple of wins, the turnaround will only add to the story.

Maine will await Wednesday's results to see who will have the pleasure of coming up to the Alfond for a Quarterfinal fight with a trip to the Garden on the line.

After all, if anything can spark Maine’s U-turn and light the Black Bears on fire, it’s a playoff game in the red-hot Alfond cauldron.

There’s a mountain of heart in these Black Bears, but will it be enough

Onto the second season, the post-season, where form goes out the window.