BOSTON — Maine Coach Red Gendron didn’t mince words when analyzing No. 3 Boston University’s 4-1 victory over the Black Bears on Friday night in a Hockey East game at Agganis Arena.

“Our game plan is to follow our own and play our game,” Gendron said with an edge in his voice.

“Our job is not to take penalties and we gave them seven power plays. That’s a big reason why we didn’t succeed.

“It’s not just the two (power-play) goals they scored but it’s how you cook players on your team, especially your ‘D.’ We used a lot of different forwards killing penalties but even they get cooked.”

Gendron also was not happy that BU outshot Maine 41-14.

“We’re going to have to shoot the puck,” Gendron said in reference to one area in which Maine will have to improve when it hosts BU on Saturday night. “You can’t pass up opportunities to shoot the puck and we did that tonight. We had three 2-on-1s and a breakaway. You might want to score on some of those.

“It’s between the ears. The game’s the same. You play it on ice no matter where. You have fans. We have fans. Go play. It’s hockey.”

The Black Bears (8-12-3, 2-8-1), who have struggled all season on the power play (they had converted only 16.5 percent of their opportunities entering the game) carried a 1-0 lead into the first intermission thanks to a well-executed, power-play goal off the stick of Blaine Byron.

Byron unloaded a slap shot that beat a screened Jake Oettinger (13 saves) at 18:49.

The Black Bears almost skated into the second intermission with that 1-0 lead, but the Terriers’ Clayton Keller tied it with 1:32 left in the second period.

Brandon Hickey’s shot from the left circle hit a Maine defenseman and before Maine goalie Rob McGovern (37 saves) could react, Keller batted the puck into the net.

“It seemed like they took the wind out of our sails a little bit there,” Maine defenseman Rob Michel said. “One thing we really have to work on is responding after giving up a goal.

“We really need to push back and find a way to score a goal.”

The Terriers (15-5-2, 8-2-2) were on a power play early in the third when the Black Bears’ Brendan Robbins scooped up a loose puck and skated in alone on a clean breakaway. But his short-handed bid sailed wide of the net.

Bobo Carpenter broke the tie with a power-play goal at 12:10 of the third.

Dante Fabbro scaled a cross-ice pass to Carpenter in the left circle and the BU winger unloaded a slap.

Nolan Vesey was serving a double minor when Jordan Greenway notched a power-play goal at 14:00. Greenway’s wrist shot beat McGovern to the upper-left corner.

Nikolas Olsson extended the lead at 15:08, scoring on a back-hander from in front of the crease.

The Black Bears fell to 0-8-3 on the road.

“I think it’s just trying to find energy when we don’t have fans behind us,” Michel said. “One of our problems is (not) coming out strong. I think tonight we did a little better in the first and the second. But we didn’t play a full 60 minutes and they capitalized in the last 10 minutes.”