HARTFORD, Conn. — It was better than Friday.

That was the consensus from the Maine hockey team Sunday, the only good thing that could be said about a tie game the Black Bears seemed to have won.

But that 2-2 deadlock against Connecticut before an announced crowd of 5,211 at the XL Center wasn’t as devastating as Friday’s 2-1 loss to the Huskies with 20.3 seconds left in overtime.

Maine (10-16-2, 5-8-1 Hockey East) at least salvaged a point from its wearying weekend, dropping to 10th place in the league standings while UConn kept a grip on eighth.

The Black Bears lost a two-goal lead Sunday and had an apparent winner waved off with 21 seconds left.

“It seemed kind of vague,” defenseman Jake Rutt said of the explanation given for overturning Devin Shore’s would-be goal. The ruling was that Nolan Vesey had interfered with Huskies goaltender Rob Nichols just before Shore buried a puck that trickled out to him on the right side of the crease.

“The frustrating part of that is they had a goal that was pretty similar to that and they reviewed it and called it a good goal, and ours was not. Frustrating, but that’s the way the game goes,” Rutt said.

Cam Brown scored in the final minute of the first period to put the Black Bears ahead, swatting in the rebound of a Conor Riley shot.

Rutt gave Maine a 2-0 lead at 8:21 of the second period after Blaine Byron broke in alone on Nichols but was foiled by a pad save to the left of the net. As the crowd roared, Byron calmly gathered the puck and sent it to Rutt out front. The goal came just as Maine’s Steven Swavely exited the penalty box.

“He saw me. I yelled for it and I just hammered it home,” Rutt said of his third goal of the season. “There were a couple of guys out front and I was under a lot of pressure, so I just shot it about ankle high as hard as I could.”

Maine never led Friday. Sunday’s advantage didn’t last long.

Connecticut (8-12-6, 5-6-3) got a goal from Ryan Tyson at 12:16 of the second period, and 34 seconds later Trevor Gerling swept in a long rebound after Shawn Pauly’s close-range shot was blocked by goaltender Sean Romeo. Pauly then appeared to slide into Romeo, but officials let the goal stand after a review.

“I don’t have the benefit of the overhead (camera), so I don’t have a comment about it. I have to trust that the official is going to make the right call,” Maine Coach Red Gendron said of Shore’s disallowed goal.

“This game was not about the officials. … You can’t allow your team to give the momentum away or allow the other team to seize it and hold it for extended periods of time. We did that on a couple of occasions today.”

Shore said his non-goal happened so fast that he didn’t remember the exact sequence of events. He was ready to move on to next weekend’s series against Notre Dame at Alfond Arena.

“There were other points of the game where we could have put the game away. We’re not going to sweat that exact play too, too much,” he said. “It was better than Friday night for sure. We’re going to take that point and get out of here, but it’s definitely bitter that we couldn’t get the win.”

Copy the Story Link