Paul Kariya never did it. Neither did Jim Montgomery, Scott Pellerin, Jean-Yves Roy, or Cal Ingraham. In fact, no player in the storied history of Maine Black Bear hockey had ever scored seven points in a game until Friday night. <\/p>\n
Maine sophomore left wing Brian Flynn set the school’s single-game scoring record with five goals and two assists to lead Maine to an 8-4 trouncing of the Massachusetts-Lowell River Hawks in the first game of a weekend set at Alfond Arena. Flynn’s five goals in a game also tied a school record set by Jay Mazur in 1987.<\/p>\n
“I’m surprised someone else hasn’t gotten seven,” said Maine coach Tim Whitehead. “I’m happy for Brian. He’s worked extremely hard, and he really earned a lot of bounces tonight.”<\/p>\n
Flynn scored twice in the first and third periods and once in the second. The Black Bears rallied for four third-period goals to fend off the River Hawks, who made it a 5-4 game with 13:01 remaining. <\/p>\n
“I’m not sure the last time I saw that,” Whitehead said. “That’s remarkable against a really good defensive team.” <\/p>\n
Flynn’s previous career-high for points in a game came in November when he tallied five against St. Lawrence. <\/p>\n
“You have to congratulate a young man for having a remarkable evening,” Lowell coach Blaise MacDonald said. “He got some fortunate bounces, but most importantly he was able to capitalize on his bounces.” <\/p>\n
Maine rebounded from being swept last weekend by Boston University to improve to 15-11-3 and 12-8-2 in Hockey East. Lowell fell to 15-14-2 (9-11-2 Hockey East). <\/p>\n
Flynn notched his hat-trick goal just 3:35 into the second period, converting at the net-front, where all five goals would come from. All of Flynn’s goals were scored at even-strength. <\/p>\n
“It was kind of one of those days where everything was kind of going our way,” Flynn said. “My two linemates played great tonight.” <\/p>\n
Maine’s top line of Flynn, right wing Gustav Nyquist and center Tanner House combined for six goals and ten assists. Nyquist had a goal and four assists and leads Maine with 47 points on the season. House contributed four assists. The line looked for improvement after failing to connect for a goal the previous weekend. <\/p>\n
“We weren’t happy with how we played last weekend,” Flynn said. “It was good to pick it back up tonight.” <\/p>\n
“They got a little extra rest this week, and you could see the extra jump in their legs,” Whitehead said. “I was proud of how they competed.” <\/p>\n
Senior right wing David deKastrozza’s power-play goal 12:42 into the third period gave Maine some needed insurance after Lowell’s Paul Worthington answered Flynn’s fourth goal to make it a one-goal game. Tic-tac-toe passing between Flynn, left wing Spencer Abbott and deKastrozza led to a turn-around shot opportunity at the doorstep. <\/p>\n
“That was an impressive play,” Whitehead said. “That was the key goal in the game.” <\/p>\n
The Black Bears did not commit a penalty all night, and deKastrozza’s goal made them one-for-three on the power play. <\/p>\n
“We took too many penalties at B.U., and we were determined to keep our penalty minutes down tonight,” Whitehead said. “That’s great to see, because it was a pretty hard-hitting game.” <\/p>\n
Maine took a 3-1 lead into the first intermission, and opened up a three-goal advantage with Flynn’s hat-trick goal, but the River Hawks battled back with a pair of goals before the second-period horn. <\/p>\n
“We were up 4-1 and not very pleased being scored on twice,” Nyquist said. “I think we came out hard (in the third period).” <\/p>\n
Maine junior defenseman Jeff Dimmen scored his sixth goal in seven games to cap the Black Bears’ scoring 13:53 into the third period. <\/p>\n
Maine outshot their opponents 14-1 in the final period, and goaltender Scott Darling made just 13 saves in the win. He improved to 15-4-3. Carter Hutton took the loss for the River Hawks in relief of Nevin Hamilton, who was replaced after allowing three goals through 17:30 of the first period. <\/p>\n
“We were not very good at competing,” MacDonald said. “When you don’t compete, a lot of things go wrong. Maine, you have to give them credit. It seemed like most of the loose-puck battles and puck races were won by a Maine player.” <\/p>\n
Lowell has lost five of its last six games. The teams will play again Saturday at 7 p.m. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paul Kariya never did it. Neither did Jim Montgomery, Scott Pellerin, Jean-Yves Roy, or Cal Ingraham. In fact, no player in the storied history of Maine Black Bear hockey had ever scored seven points in a game until Friday night. Maine sophomore left wing Brian Flynn set the school’s single-game scoring record with five goals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10235"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=10235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}