ORONO — Brendan Robbins and Rob McGovern made their final appearance on the Alfond Arena ice a memorable one.

Robbins scored a pair of goals and McGovern made 30 saves for only his second career shutout, as the seniors led the University of Maine to a 6-0 drubbing of Boston University in a Hockey East regular-season finale Saturday night.

“The win’s most important. It’s our last game here, the seven seniors, at the Alfond,” said Robbins, who – along with the rest of his teammates – will now be on the road for however long the rest of the season lasts. “The whole thing this week was to go out with a bang for all the seniors. It’s something we can look back on fondly for the rest of our lifetimes.”

The win was the most lopsided this season for the Black Bears, whose previous best was a 7-2 win over Boston College on Jan. 16. It also was a 180-degree turn from the team’s last outing, a 6-0 loss at league-leading UMass last weekend.

Maine (15-15-4 overall, 11-9-4 Hockey East) finished sixth in Hockey East and will travel to No. 3 Northeastern for a best-of-three quarterfinal series that starts Friday. Boston University will be seeded fifth and will play at UMass-Lowell.

Chase Pearson, Mitchell Fossier, Tim Doherty and Brady Keeper also scored for Maine. Fossier finished with three points, while Pearson and Keeper each had two.

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McGovern, making his first start in 14 months, posted his first shutout since Jan. 4, 2017, against UConn.

“It’s been a while,” said McGovern, who made 13 saves in the first 20 minutes. “My anxiety was through the roof when they first told me (I was starting). As the game went on, I wouldn’t say it got easier, but when you have a big lead like that, it definitely calms the nerves.”

“We played an exceptional game,” Maine Coach Red Gendron said. “It was great for all of our seniors, and it was great for Rob McGovern, whose been an exceptional player here at different times through some difficult times. … We’re especially happy for Rob.”

Maine’s second line of Robbins, Doherty and Jacob Schmidt-Svejstrup turned in one if its best efforts of the season, accounting for three goals and six points. That matched the trio’s output from the previous eight games combined.

“It’s good when everybody’s clicking and we’re not relying on just a handful of guys,” Gendron said. “We had a ton of players have big games. … A whole bunch of people, whether they scored or not.”

Maine got off to an impressive start, scoring twice inside the first 7:19. It was a somewhat surprising development, if only because the Black Bears were locked into their playoff position prior to puck drop. The Terriers, on the other hand, could have earned home ice against UMass-Lowell with a win.

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“It’s BU-Maine, there’s a history there,” BU Coach Albie O’Connell said. “They’re playing in their own building, the last game of the season, so they had something to play for, too. They played hard, really hard, and they wanted it.”

As significant as Maine’s good start was, the first 10 minutes of the middle period trumped that. Robbins, off a beautiful feed from Eduards Tralmaks, made it a 3-0 at 2:28 of the second.

“It was a horrible play (defensively),” O’Connell said. “A backbreaker.”

“It kind of set the tone for the rest of the night,” Pearson said. “We had to come out and let them know they weren’t going to have a sniff for the rest of the game, and I think that’s what we did.”

Schmidt-Svejstrup’s cross-ice feed through the neutral zone split a pair of defenders and sent Tim Doherty in alone for a goal at 8:38 that made it 4-0.

That marked the end of the outing for BU goalie Jake Oettinger, after having stopped only eight of 12 shots.

In all three zones, the Black Bears flexed their muscle and kept the Terriers from getting many clean chances on McGovern.

“We kept it simple,” Pearson said. “The offense opened up, but we came out ready to play right at the drop of the puck. We carried that right throughout the whole game.”

Keeper and Fossier scored in the third period.


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