ORONO — Things went from bad to worse in a hurry for the University of Maine hockey team Friday night.
Tenth-ranked Quinnipiac scored just 30 seconds after the opening draw and never trailed, skating to a 7-2 win over the Black Bears in a nonconference game at Alfond Arena.
Odeen Tufto was a buzzsaw from start to finish, completing a hat trick before the end of the second period in a five-point night.
“Confidence is big,” said Tufto, who notched his first career five-point game with a pair of first-period scores and a key late second-period goal. “When we’re playing the way we’ve been playing, you get a lot more of it up and down the lineup.”
Through two periods the Black Bears dominated nearly every statistical category, outshooting the Bobcats by 2-to-1 margin, winning nearly 70 percent of the faceoffs and watching Quinnipiac wear a path to the penalty box.
All of that was of little consequence to Quinnipiac (10-2). Andrew Shortridge made 33 saves, 16 in a first period that ended with the Bobcats holding a 2-0 lead.
“Strange game, good win. Interesting,” said Quinnipiac Coach Rand Pecknold.
“I thought Maine was really good in the first. … I thought Shortridge’s first period was the key to the game.”
Maine (4-6-1) whittled into an early three-goal deficit when Chase Pearson potted his team-leading eighth of the season with under seven minutes remaining in the second period, finishing off a two-on-one feed from Mitchell Fossier to make it 3-1.
The Black Bears were handed a power play in the final three minutes of the period and produced one of their most productive man advantages. But Maine couldn’t solve Shortridge, who finished with 10 short-handed saves among his 33 stops, all through the first two periods.
Shortridge’s wall set the stage for a back-breaking goal from Quinnipiac.
Defenseman Luke Shiplo took a home run pass as he stepped out of the penalty box and set up Alex Whelan for a one-timer from the left circle.
Shiplo was hauled down by Eduards Tralmaks of Maine on the play, and the Bobcats cashed in when Tufto had an easy tap-in to complete his hat trick for a 4-1 lead with only 6.8 seconds remaining in the second.
“That’s a huge goal. I feel like that’s a backbreaker,” Shortridge said.
“You could see the energy drain from the (Maine) bench.”
The Black Bears showed few signs of life in the third period. It took them 15 minutes to register two shots on goal, and the Bobcats added three goals in the final 10 minutes.
“We didn’t defend well early in the game,” Maine Coach Red Gendron said. “In many ways, for two periods we played pretty well, but we made very egregious mistakes defensively and that was that.”
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