ORONO, Maine - The University of Maine men's ice hockey team will return to action this weekend, traveling to Troy, N.Y. to face the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers on Friday, Dec. 29 and Saturday, Dec. 30. The Black Bears and Engineers battled earlier this year at the Friendship Four Tournament in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The two non-conference games are both set for 4 p.m. puck drops and can be heard online or on 103.9 WVOM-FM.
 

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GAME INFORMATION
Game #17: Maine Black Bears at RPI Engineers
DATE: Friday, Dec. 29, 2017
TIME: 4:00 p.m.
SITE: Houston Field House - Troy, N.Y.
2017-18 RECORDS: Maine 8-7-1 (4-4-1 HEA), RPI 3-11-3 (2-5-1 ECAC Hockey)

Game #18: Maine Black Bears at RPI Engineers
DATE: Saturday, Dec. 30, 2017
TIME: 4:00 p.m.
SITE: Houston Field House - Troy, N.Y.

Maine game notes

About the Black Bears    
• Maine enters the second half of play with an overall record of 8-7-1 and a 4-4-1 mark in Hockey East play.
• The Black Bears last played Dec. 8-9 with two road games at Quinnipiac, earning 7-4 and 5-3 wins against the Bobcats.
• On Dec. 8, the Bobcats jumped out to a 3-0 lead before Maine mounted a furious comeback and used four unanswered goals and a 50-save performance from Jeremy Swayman.
• The next night, Maine got a 45-save performance from Swayman while Patrick Shea scored with 24.4 seconds left in the third period to push its unbeaten streak to five games.
• Maine represented Hockey East at the Friendship Four tournament in Belfast, Northern Ireland on Nov. 24 and 25, battling Providence and this weekend's opponent, RPI.
• Mitchell Fossier leads the Black Bears in points with 13 on six goals and seven assists, with a team-high six of those points coming on the power-play.
• Patrick Holway, Eduards Tralmaks and Tim Doherty each have 12 points, with Tralmaks potting a team-high seven goals, while Chase Pearson has 11 points on a team-leading 11 assists.

About the Engineers
• RPI has been idle since falling to No. 16 New Hampshire, 6-3, in a home tilt on Dec. 6, and enters the weekend with an overall mark of 3-11-3.
• The Engineers opened the scoring 2:26 into the game but the Wildcats notched three power-play goals in the comeback win.
• The last two-game weekend for RPI was Dec. 1-2 when the Engineers topped Yale, 2-1, on Dec. 1 and then got edged in overtime by Brown the next night, 5-4.
• Of RPI's 17 games played, eight of them have been decided by one goal or less and five of them have gone to overtime.
• Jacob Hayhurst leads RPI in points with 13 on seven goals and six assists while Evan Tironese has five goals and five assists for 10 points and three players have nine points each.
• Linden Marshall has gone 2-6-1 in goal for RPI, posting a 3.13 goals against average and a .905 save percentage while Chase Perry is 1-5-2 with a 3.40 goals against average and a .903 save percentage.  

The Series with the Engineers
• Maine enters Friday's contest – the 13th meeting between the Black Bears and Engineers and second this season – with an edge of 7-5-0 in the all-time series.
• Maine topped RPI in the Friendship Four Tournament on Nov. 25, 4-2, to earn third place in the tournament behind goals from Brendan Robbins, Nolan Vesey, Mitchell Fossier and Tim Doherty.
• The squads first battled on Feb. 3, 1979 at Alfond Arena, with the Black Bears winning, 5-4.
• The teams met twice last season with Maine taking the season opener, 5-1, on a Mitchell Fossier hat-trick as well as goals from Patrick Shea and Chase Pearson and three assists from Nolan Vesey.
• Maine took the second contest, 4-2, with Fossier and Pearson both adding another goal along with Daniel Perez and Blaine Byron.

About Head Coach Red Gendron
• Red Gendron, who enters his fifth year behind the bench of the Black Bears, has won two NCAA Hockey National Championships and a NHL Stanley Cup as an assistant coach.
• He assisted head coach Shawn Walsh with the UMaine 1993 NCAA Division I National Championship team.
• Before being named the head coach of the Black Bears, Gendron was associate head coach at Yale University; the Bulldogs earned the 2013 NCAA Division I National Championship.
• Prior to Gendron's two seasons at Yale, from 2005-11, he was an assistant coach at the University of Massachusetts.
• Gendron spent 11 seasons in professional hockey with the New Jersey Devils organization.

Five-or-More
• In seven games this season, the Black Bears have scored at least five goals, the most of any Hockey East school.
• Entering Friday, Maine has scored five-or-more goals in three-straight games for the first time since a three-game stretch during the 2006-07 season against Bemidji State (7-1, 6-3) and North Dakota (6-2).
• Providence and Northeastern have done it five times each while UConn, Boston University, New Hampshire and Merrimack have scored five-or-more goals four times this year.
• Three times this season, Maine has responded to a loss on Friday night by scoring six goals the next night to win, doing so against Miami (6-3) on Oct. 21, UMass Lowell (6-2) on Nov. 4 and Vermont (6-2) on Dec. 2.
• The team scored five-or-more goals on six occasions during the 2016-17 season.

The Puck Stops Here
• In Maine's two-game set at Quinnipiac on Dec. 8 and 9, Jeremy Swayman registered 50 saves in a 7-4 win on Friday and another 45 saves in a 5-3 win on Saturday for a weekend total of 95.
• It marked the first time since at least the 1985-86 season that a Black Bear goaltender registered 95 saves on the weekend, as Al Loring did it with 60-save and 35-save performances at North Dakota (game-by-game statistics not available prior to the 1981-82 season).
• It was the highest single-weekend save total since current assistant coach Alfie Michaud made 93 saves (51, 42) in January 1998.
• The last Maine goaltender to make 50 saves in a game was Matt Morris during a game against Providence on Feb. 5, 2016.

Swayman Named to World Junior Roster
• Jeremy Swayman was named to the U.S. National Junior Team roster for the 2018 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Junior Championship.
• Swayman is one of three goaltenders on the final 23-player roster, joining Boston University's Jake Oettinger and Boston College's Joseph Woll along with seven defensemen and 13 forwards.
• The last Maine player to skate for the U.S. at the IIHF World Junior Championships was Greg Moore in 2004 while goaltender Jimmy Howard was on the roster in 2003, along with Moore.
• Joining Swayman at the WJC will be Jacob Schmidt-Svejstrup of Denmark, who has signed a National Letter of Intent to join the Black Bears in the fall.

League Awards
• Freshman Jeremy Swayman earned Pro Ambitions Rookie of the Week on on Dec. 11 - after he backstopped the Black Bears to a weekend road sweep of ECAC Hockey foe Quinnipiac with a 95-save weekend - and on Nov. 20 after his 40-save performance in a 5-2 win over then No.18 BU on Nov. 17.
• He was also tabbed as the Rookie of the Month Runner-Up for the month of November.
• Eduards Tralmaks was tabbed as the Pro Ambitions Rookie of the Week on Nov. 6, as announced by the Hockey East Association.
• The freshman earned the honor after notching two goals and one assist in Maine's 6-2 win at UMass Lowell on Nov 4.

Blocked Out
• Maine's team average of 15.31 blocks per game is fifth overall in the country and first overall in the league.
• The Black Bears have blocked at least 12 shots in all 16 games they have played, with a season-high 24 coming in a 7-4 win at Quinnipiac on Dec. 8.
• Defenseman Mark Hamilton is third in the country with an average of 2.67 blocks per game – a number that leads the league.
• Forward Cedric Lacroix is tops among Hockey East forwards and seventh in the nation with 1.27 blocks per game.

Feeling the Draft?
• The 2017-18 UMaine roster includes five NHL draft picks, including three in 2015.
• Nolan Vesey went to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2014.
• In 2015, Patrick Shea was selected by the Florida Panthers while Patrick Holway and Chase Pearson both went to the Detroit Red Wings.
• This year, Jeremy Swayman went to the Boston Bruins in the fourth round.

-UMaine-