Know Your Enemy: The "Beat the Bears" Edition

#12 Maine Visits Agganis For Two Game Set

The Maine Black Bears started the 2009-2010 season dreadfully.

They opened up the season with back to back losses to Union, followed by another loss to Michigan State.  After getting one back from the Spartans, they slipped back into their ugly ways, dropping two conference games to Amherst and UNH.

At 1-5, it didn't look too good for last year's 8th seed in Hockey East.

But since that atrocious beginning to the year, Maine has been among the best in the conference at a clip of 13-4-3, propelling them all the way to a tie for second place in Hockey East. 

And now it is probably the worst possible time to face the team from the Pine Tree State, as the Black Bears are coming off of a two game sweep over the top team in the conference, UNH.

But no matter how hot they are right now, their mascot is legitimately named "Bananas The Bear", which really means they can and should be beat at any time.

Before we get into why Maine is good, let's quickly look back at just how good they have been as of late.

The Black Bears are currently riding a six game unbeaten streak, and the last time they lost, on back to back nights to BC and Providence, their starting goalie was out of the lineup with an injury.  Before those two losses, Maine rattled off nine in a row without a loss.  Take out the games that Scott Darling missed, and that's 15 games without a loss.  Scary stuff.

The first thing that jumps out at you when you look at U Maine is the monster Gustav Nyquist.  Whenever I think of Nyquist, I have a vision of him being a hulking, mammoth of a forward, but in reality his frame is fairly un-imposing.  The Detroit draft pick is listed at 5'11" and 170, and his game is not based in physicality at all.

As a Red Wings scout said, "His best assets are either his smartness and his work ethic. They really go together. He's not physical but he's very intense. When he loses the puck, he chases like crazy to get it back, and when he has the puck, his feet are always moving."

The Maine Campus

The Swede's intensity has paid off in his sophomore season with the Black Bears.  His 40 points are good enough for 4th in the nation, (James Marcou of UMass has 41) but it shouldn't come as much of a surprise.  Nyquist made the Hockey East all-rookie team last year with a solid 32 point freshman year.

He was an integral part of Maine's vault from #16 to #12, assisting on four goals over the course of the weekend sweep over the Wildcats. 

When Maine defeated BU 3-2 back in November, Nyquist scored the Black Bears' second goal and assisted on the team's game winner over the Terriers. 

I would tell you where Nyquist stands in the Hobey Baker voting, but even after casting a make-up vote for Jacques Lamoureux, I could not view the results.  Better luck on fixing that website next year, Hobey.

I digress.  BU needs to sort out whatever mental cramps it had on Monday night and focus its defensive efforts on stopping Mr Nyquil and his band of bears.

The biggest roadblock for the Terriers as a team will be Maine's special teams.  The Black Bears are the best team in the conference by far on the power play, converting on an otherworldly 30.2% of their man-up opportunities.  That's an incredible 45 goals in 149 chances.  They went 1 for 6 against BU back in November.

So who is scoring all of these power play goals?  Simply put, everybody.

Junior Forward Tanner House and Freshman Forward Adam Shemansky share the team lead with 7 apiece, but Brian Flynn has 6 of his own, Nyquist has 5, and three other players have 4 power play tallies each.

Captain Tanner House is a Power Play Machine

Their power play is just a microcosm of their offense in general.  The Black Bears score.  A lot.

Maine averages 3.73 goals per game, second in Hockey East only to BC.  20 different Black Bears have at least one goal this season.

The goaltender for the Black Bears will most likely be sophomore Scott Darling, who has put together a nifty little season, with a 14-3-3 record so far, thanks to a 2.68 GAA and a .909 save percentage.  About the only time he has been ineffective recently was when he was sidelined for four games with an injury. 

By the way, two of the four games he has missed just happen to be the only two games Maine has lost since November 20th.  What does this tell you? Darling is the straw stirring the drink.  He is consistent and he is solid in net. 

One somewhat deceiving sidenote is that Maine is just 3-7-1 in road games.  They haven't lost a road game started by Darling since November 14th, so take that stat to mean what you will.