Maine scored three power-play goals in the first period and never looked back, trouncing St. Lawrence 8-2 Saturday in the Black Bear Classic final.<\/p>\n
Maine improved to 1-1-1 with the win. St. Lawrence dropped to 1-2. <\/p>\n
Tournament MVP Tommy Reimann of Maine led the Black Bears with a pair of goals and Black Bear winger Mattias Trattnig added a goal and two assists in the victory. <\/p>\n
“I’m most happy about an 8-2 win over a team of that caliber,” said Reimann. “Getting the award is nice, but this win really helps us.”<\/p>\n
The sophomore forward got Maine the early lead with a power-play goal three minutes into the contest. <\/p>\n
Maine’s Martin Kariya collected a loose puck behind the Saints net and passed to Robert Liscak in the opposite corner. Liscak spotted Reimann alone at the top of the right circle and made a nifty cross-ice pass. <\/p>\n
“Robert’s pass was perfect,” said Reimann. “I just one-timed it and hit the right spot.”<\/p>\n
The Black Bears then killed off three consecutive penalties before converting on the power play again. <\/p>\n
Trattnig fought off two Saint defenders in the offensive zone and rifled a slap shot through traffic at the SLU net. The puck deflected off a group of players directly to Maine defenseman Michael Schutte who quickly popped the puck over St. Lawrence goalie Sean Coakleys glove for a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Less than two minutes later, Trattnig knocked home the rebound of a Doug Janik slap shot with Maine enjoying the man advantage. <\/p>\n
“I was just trying to screen the goalie,” said Trattnig. “The puck just dropped in front of me and I reacted.”<\/p>\n
Early in the second period, St. Lawrence appeared ready to make a game of it when forward Mike Gellard scored a power-play goal, cutting the lead to 3-1. But Maine answered less than a minute later with two goals in 30 seconds.<\/p>\n
The first Black Bear goal was provided by Kariya, who beat Coakley to the short side. Half a minute later, Doug Janiks slapper from the point deflected off a Saint player in front and behind the beleaguered Coakley, giving Maine a 5-1 lead. <\/p>\n
“We gave the puck away too much,” said SLU head coach Joe Marsh. “We were back on our heels all night and once they get rolling, they’re so tough to stop.”<\/p>\n
Metcalf and Reimann added second-period goals, and Kevin Veneruzzo scored for the Saints late in the period. At the second break, Maine had a commanding 7-2 lead. <\/p>\n
“After we answered their first goal with those two quick [goals],” said Trattnig, “you could see them let down a little. We kind of got hot, everything was going our way tonight.”<\/p>\n
Maine’s Lucas Lawson added a shorthanded goal in the final period to punctuate the Black Bears’ successful evening on special teams. <\/p>\n
“We’re starting to jell,” said Metcalf. “The special teams were the key tonight, but this team is really starting to come together.”<\/p>\n
Doug Janik emphasized the importance of the win by saying, “It’s our first championship of the year. It’s also our first win over a team that will boost our RPI ranking. This is just what we needed to get things going in the right direction.”<\/p>\n
Maine will stay home and face Ohio State<\/a> in a pair of games next weekend. St. Lawrence will take a week off before opening at home with Quinnipiac<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A pair of Frozen Four teams met, as Maine dominated throughout to defeat St. Lawrence. The Saints, have been unable to overcome off-season losses to underclassmen Brandon Dietrich and Derek Gustafson, while Maine is doing well despite the losses of two key players and, of course, coach Shawn Walsh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1074"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}