UNH’s Marty Lavins, left, and Maine’s Frank Djurasevic collide along the boards in the second period of their game Friday night in Durham. Maine won, 3-1.
UNH's Nick Ring, left, gets a shot off during the Maine game last weekend. Ring scored one goal and added two assists in the Wildcats' 5-1 victory over RIT on Friday night.
UNH’s Marty Lavins, left, and Maine’s Frank Djurasevic collide along the boards in the second period of their game Friday night in Durham. Maine won, 3-1.
UNH's Nick Ring, left, gets a shot off during the Maine game last weekend. Ring scored one goal and added two assists in the Wildcats' 5-1 victory over RIT on Friday night.
DURHAM — The University of New Hampshire men’s hockey team didn’t get many second chances on Friday night.
Many of the Wildcats’ 25 shots on goal were one-and-done opportunities in their 3-1 Hockey East loss to rival No. 5 Maine in front of a sold-out crowd at the Whittemore Center.
UNH is 4-4-2 overall and 1-3-2 in Hockey East play. The Black Bears improved to 8-2-2 overall and 5-2-2 in the conference.
Wildcats coach Mike Souza said third-line forwards Robert Cronin, J.P. Turner and Marty Lavins held the puck below the goal line well and created second-chance tries but the team needed more of that overall.
“If you look at the analytics, they’re good at denying second opportunities,” Souza said of the Black Bears. “I haven’t watched the game yet on tape but watching it live, I don’t recall a lot of opportunities where there were three or four whacks at it in and around the net from enough of the lines.”
Senior first-line left wing Liam Devlin, who scored UNH’s lone goal, said the Wildcats at times did well getting in front of Maine goaltender Albin Boija (24 saves) but were not there enough to jump on rebound chances.
Devlin said the team has emphasized the need to control the puck down low, be hard to play against and wear defensemen down.
“I just think we’ve got to capitalize, bear down on those chances when we get those rebounds in front and try to create more, obviously,” Devlin said. “The more we create, the more goals we’re going to score.”
Devlin scored his second goal of the season on Friday during a Wildcats five-on-three advantage 7:17 into the second period. Devlin, of Needham, Mass., put home a backdoor goal off a cross-ice feed from Ryan Conmy. Brentwood’s Cy Leclerc was also credited with an assist.
Conmy, a sophomore first-line right wing, is on a four-game point streak.
Maine knotted the score on a Lynden Breen wrister from the left circle with 9:24 left in the period. Breen then assisted on Owen Fowler’s game-winning goal that came 3:20 later on a shot that bounced off UNH defenseman Luke Reid in front and by Wildcats netminder Jared Whale (31 saves).
Frank Djurasevic scored a shorthanded, empty-net goal for Maine with 5.9 seconds remaining to cap the game’s scoring.
Counting Devlin’s tally, UNH generated six shots on goal over its five power-play opportunities.
The Wildcats had a six-on-four advantage during their final power play, which came with 25.1 seconds left, after pulling Whale for the extra skater. Maine quickly cleared the puck out of its zone, though, and ended UNH’s late scoring chance.
The Wildcats are 3-for-22 on the power play over their six games this month.
“Overall, I think our power play has been another point of emphasis that hasn’t always been the strongest at times and our team relies on that,” Devlin said. “Another momentum thing — it changes the momentum of the game whether it’s a goal or a good power play. That’s something we keep working on in practice. ... We’re always working on the power play and obviously it can always be better.”
Despite the scoring trouble and result, Souza said he liked his players’ competitiveness against their rival.
“We play like that, we’re going to win a lot of games this year,” he said.
