DURHAM – The University of New Hampshire men’s hockey team got a long and stormy holiday weekend off to an impressive start, riding goalie Mike Robinson’s 25 saves and a balanced attack to a 5-0 win over Merrimack College on Friday night in tight and tough-to-play-in Lawler Rink in North Andover, Mass.
Now the Wildcats head north, looking for a couple more Hockey East points in another less-than-friendly environment. They play bitter border rival Maine in Alfond Arena in Orono, Maine, in a Martin Luther King Day Monday matinee at 2 p.m.
This should be entertaining: Mike Souza’s team is on a roll in the stretch run of the season and plays Maine in three of its next five games.
“UNH-Maine, it’s one of the best rivalries in college sports, especially in college hockey circles,” Souza said. “It’s fun when we go there. It’s fun when they come here. It’s what college hockey is all about. Three with them in five. It’s going to be good.”
The Wildcats play a home-and-home series with UConn next weekend. The teams play Friday night at UConn and then meet at the Whittemore Center for Family Hockey Day on Saturday, Jan. 26.
The following weekend, Feb. 1-2, Maine comes to town for a pair of “Whiteout the Whitt” games.
“It’s always great hockey when UNH and Maine get together,” Souza said. “They’re playing well. I think they’ve got some talented players in all areas.”
He cited junior forward Chase Pearson, sophomore goalie Jeremy Swayman, sophomore defenseman Brady Keeper and others.
UNH and Maine are neck-and-neck in the Hockey East standings.
The Wildcats bounced ahead of Maine into seventh place with their 6-4 win over Boston College on Saturday night. Maine grabbed the seventh spot back with a 7-2 win at Boston College on Wednesday night.
“That’s scary stuff,” Souza said of Maine’s decisive victory.
UNH leapfrogged Maine again with Friday night’s triumph win and holds down seventh place – by just a point – over the Black Bears going into Monday’s game.
In a major change this year, only the top eight teams in the Hockey East standings at the end of the regular season will make the playoffs. Three teams will be left out.
The Wildcats used the same formula for success Friday night that has led them to a 6-1-1 record in their eight games since early December: balanced scoring that’s led to a punched-up offense, strong special teams, good goaltending and Liam Blackburn.
“We’re just keeping it simple,” sophomore Patrick Grasso said after the win over BC. “We’ve had scoring up and down our lineup in the last few weeks. That’s huge any time you can get scoring from your primary scoring and secondary scoring and the D-men are jumping in there, too. It’s great.”
Grasso had a pair of goals against BC and a goal and an assist against Merrimack Friday, marking the first time this season he’s had goals in back-to-back games.
On Friday, UNH had at least one goal from three different lines for the second straight game and fifth time in the last eight games.
As for overall scoring, the Wildcats averaged just over two goals a game through their first 14 games with 29 tallies.
In the last eight, they’re averaging fewer than four goals a game with 31.
Special teams play has been improving steadily. In its last eight games UNH has allowed only three power-play goals on 35 chances by opponents and at the same time has scored three short-handed goals. The Wildcats have scored seven power-play goals on 29 opportunities over those games.
Souza commended the work assistant coaches Glenn Stewart and Jeff Giuliano have done with the shorthand in particular.
“Like a lot of programs, we put a huge emphasis on special teams play,” Souza said. “They can really, really give you an advantage in a game. I think Jeff and Glenn have done an outstanding job with the penalty kill. The power play is constantly a work in progress, but I’ve been pleased to date where we are. But there’s always room to grow and get better. It’s a function-not-fashion mentality with us on or our power play, but we’ve had guys step into different roles and they’ve done a nice job.”
The Wildcats are ranked third in both power play (16-for-73 for 21.9 percent) and penalty kill (81-for-95 for 85.3 percent) in Hockey East.
Nationally, they are 11th in power play and 12th in penalty kill and second in combined special teams to Massachusetts.
Robinson, a sophomore from Bedford, collected the second shutout of his career and this eight-game stretch on Friday night.
He’s fourth in Hockey East in goals-against average at 2.26 goals per game and fifth in save percentage at .920.
Then there’s Blackburn.
His second-period goal Friday night extended his streak to 12 games with at least one point, matching the best run for a Wildcat in two years, since defenseman Matias Cleland went the same stretch, ending on Dec. 3, 2016.
Blackburn has at least one goal in each of the last three games and has seven goals and nine assists for 16 points in the 12 games.
For a little historical perspective: Jamie Hislop holds the record for the longest point streak in program history. He had at least a point in 31 straight games spanning two seasons from Feb. 15, 1974 to Feb. 18, 1975.