Men's hockey: Maine humbles Sioux

ORONO, Maine -- The No. 2 ranking will be gone come Monday afternoon and all of the preseason polls will be a distant memory.

Even with an abundance of talent and experience, the UND men's hockey team knows there is plenty of work to be done this season. The University of Maine reminded the Sioux of that this weekend, sweeping a two-game series in Alfond Arena.

The 4-2 Maine victory in front of 5,361 in the series finale had one big similarity to the 7-3 win in the opener: Maine was on the power play often and the Black Bears made the Sioux pay.

In all, the Black Bears had 19 power plays on the weekend and turned those chances into five goals, while the Sioux had just one power-play goal.

"We pride ourselves on running four lines," UND junior forward Jason Gregoire said. "You can't do that when you're killing (penalties) all night. Nineteen power plays? You do the math -- that's way too many minutes killing penalties. We had a lot of five-on-threes against, too. That's unacceptable. You can't win games if you take that many penalties.

"Maybe it was a good time of the season to have this. Maybe we were getting a little too high on ourselves and this will bring us back to earth, which will be good because we certainly need to get back to our Fighting Sioux style, which is hard, gritty hockey."

Maine improved to 3-1-2 and became the first nonconference foe to sweep UND since 2006, when the Black Bears did it in Ralph Engelstad Arena. UND dropped to 3-2-1 overall.

The Sioux started sophomore Aaron Dell (31 saves) in net and he was strong throughout. UND gave him a lead at 13 minutes, 25 seconds of the second period when Ben Blood flipped a rebound of a Matt Frattin shot high into the net.

But the Black Bears capitalized on a hooking call on Brad Malone -- one that infuriated the Sioux bench. Last year's Hobey Baker finalist, Gustav Nyquist, pounced on a rebound at 16:04 and Joey Diamond punched one in from the side of the crease at 18:17 to make it 2-1.

The Black Bears added a couple of goals early in the third.

"Quite honestly, we have to look at ourselves," UND coach Dave Hakstol said. "We had an opportunity to go out in the third period, down by one, and try to win a hockey game. I thought we took ourselves out of that.

"We have to have a realization of that. Playing against good teams, you can't have one, two, three mentally weak plays, whether they lead to goals against or power plays against. That has to be cleaned up on our hockey team."

The highlight of the weekend for UND was senior Matt Frattin, who continued his torrid pace. He scored a shorthanded goal on a fantastic individual effort in the third period, giving him 17 goals in the last 19 games and seven goals in six games this season.

Still, that didn't make him feel better about the loss.

"Dell played amazing today," Frattin said. "It's too bad we couldn't get a couple more for him."

UND made several lineup changes after Friday night's loss. The most notable was Dillon Simpson going in for Derrick LaPoint, who missed a game for the first time since breaking his leg two seasons ago.

Joe Gleason also played forward for the first time in his career in place of Mike Cichy and Brent Davidson went in for Carter Rowney.

"Obviously, they were more hungry out there today," Nyquist said of the Sioux. "They weren't pleased with their result (Friday). But I'm just so proud of our team today. I think everyone worked hard and it was a great weekend for us."

UND boarded a charter flight bound for Grand Forks late Saturday night in Bangor, ending the program's longest road trip ever to start a season (six games). The Sioux host the University of Denver next weekend.

"We're all looking forward to that," Gregoire said. "We've got a lot to work on this week. It's going to be a tough week. But we're looking forward to next weekend."

Notes: Evan Trupp assisted on both goals . . Frattin leads the WCHA in goals. . . Brad Malone was 15-3 on faceoffs. . . UND blocked 10 shots in the first period. . . Maine has won four straight against UND, marking the first time either team has won four straight in the all-time series. . . Maine will come to Grand Forks next season for a two-game series.

MAINE 4,

UND 2

First period -- No scoring. Penalties -- Klas Leidermark, M, obstruction interference, 2:11; Brock Nelson, UND, embellishment, 2:11; Kyle Beattie, M, boarding, 7:10; Brad Malone, UND, hitting from behind, 15:30; Will O'Neill, M, elbowing, 19:00; Matt Frattin, UND, holding, 19:48

Second period -- 1. UND, Ben Blood 1 (Matt Frattin 2, Evan Trupp 4) 13:25; 2. M, Gustav Nyquist 2 (Robby Dee 4, Spencer Abbott 6) 16:04 (pp); 3. M, Joey Diamond 4 (Dee 5, Josh Van Dyk 5) 18:17. Penalties -- Bench minor, UND, too many on ice, 3:56; Dillon Simpson, UND, interference, 8:00; Brad Malone, UND, hooking, 15:58; Diamond, M, hitting after whistle, 18:17; Mark Nemec, M, hitting after whistle, 18:17; Andrew MacWilliam, UND, hitting after whistle, 18:17; Chay Genoway, UND, hitting after whistle, 18:17

Third period -- 4. M, Brian Flynn 4 (Jeff Dimmen 2) :54; 5. M, Abbott 5 (O'Neill 4, Nyquist 7) 6:39 (pp); 6. UND, Frattin 7 (Trupp 5) 8:11 (sh). Penalties -- Abbott, M, hooking, 3:21; Jason Gregoire, UND, hooking, 4:14; Blood, UND, slashing, 4:51; Malone, UND, tripping, 6:20; Blood, UND, obstruction interference, 11:23; Dimmen, M, obstruction interference, 13:15

Goalie saves -- UND: Aaron Dell 6-17-8 -- 31; M: Dan Sullivan 10-8-5 -- 23

Penalties-minutes -- UND 12-24, M 7-14

Power plays -- UND 0-4, M 2-9

Attendance -- 5,361

Referees -- Kevin Shea and Tim Benedetto