This Week
The No. 17/15 Omaha hockey team continues its 10-game season-opening homestand by welcoming the Maine Black Bears to Baxter Arena for the first time. The teams meet both Friday and Saturday at 7:07 p.m.
The Teams
Omaha opened its 25th season of Division I hockey last weekend by hosting fellow 2021 NCAA tournament qualifier Lake Superior State at Baxter Arena. The two teams split the series. The Lakers rallied late to top the Mavericks in overtime 4-3 in the first game on Saturday. The Mavericks blanked LSSU 3-0 in Sunday's finale.
Maine hasn't played a regular-season game yet, but it faced No. 9 Quinnipiac in an exhibition game on Saturday. Things didn't go well for the Black Bears in the contest at they were shut out 7-0 in Exeter, N.H.
The Coaches
Mike Gabinet is in his fifth season as head coach of the Maverick and has posted a 55-70-11 record at his alma mater. The 2004 graduate of Omaha served as an associate head coach during the 2016-17 season before being elevated to the head coach position in 2017-18.
Gabinet returned to Omaha after four seasons at the North Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in Edmonton, Alberta, the last as its head coach. That season, he led the Ooks to a 36-0-0 record and the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference Championship. He was named the conference Coach of the Year and became the first rookie head coach in Canadian college hockey to guide his team to an undefeated record.
Gabinet, a standout defenseman for the Mavericks from 2000-04, is assisted by
Dave Noel-Bernier (Omaha, 2001) and
Paul Jerrard (Lake Superior State, 1987).
Ben Barr is in his first season as Maine's head coach, the fifth in the history of the program. The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute product was the associate head coach at Massachusetts for five years prior, winning a national title with the Minutemen this past season.
Media
Both games can be heard live on 1180 The Zone. Casey Roehl will have the play-by-play while Terry Leahy provides analysis. Coverage begins with the FNBO Pre-Game Show.
Live video is available on NCHC.tv while audio and stat links are available at OMavs.com.
Briefly
• Sophomore forward
Matt Miller scored the opening goal in both games for Omaha last weekend.
•
Brannon McManus, a graduate transfer from Minnesota, recorded a goal in his Maverick debut Saturday.
• The Mavericks had five different players score goals and six different players tally assists last week.
• Lake Superior State's 4-3 overtime win in Saturday's opener snapped Omaha's 11-game unbeaten streak in overtime games, which date back to a 2-1 NCHC playoff loss to Minnesota Duluth on March 15, 2019. The Mavericks were 4-0-1 in overtime games last season and had gone 5-0-6 in their last 11 before last week.
• Omaha lost its season opener in overtime even though it scored first last Saturday. The Mavericks were 11-1 last season in games in which they scored the first goal.
• Omaha led Saturday's season opener 3-2 in the final minutes before surrendering the tying goal with 64 seconds remaining while Lake Superior State had an extra attacker on the ice.
• The Mavericks are now 2-2-1 in season-opening games under fifth-year coach
Mike Gabinet.
• Omaha was awarded a penalty shot in both games vs. Lake Superior State last weekend.
• The Maverick penalty-kill unit blanked the Lakers on nine power-play opportunities last weekend.
• Graduate defenseman
Nate Knoepke played in his 100th career NCAA game on Sunday.
• Junior goaltender
Isaiah Saville recorded his third career shutout in Sunday's series finale.
• Freshmen
Cameron Berg,
Victor Mancini and
Davis Pennington played their first college games last week.
Series History: Omaha vs. Maine
After playing a pair of series in the calendar year of 1998, the Mavericks and Black Bears went more than 20 years without meeting on the ice. Maine won three of the four early contests with UNO then went 1-0-1 at home against the Mavericks in January of 2019 when the teams finally squared off again.
The Black Bears rallied to tie Omaha 3-3 in the series opener on Jan. 3, 2019, in Orono, Maine, then beat the Mavericks 3-2 on a late goal the following night in Portland, Maine.
Maine is 4-1-1 all-time against Omaha. The lone UNO victory in the series came on Feb. 28, 1998, in Orono. The Mavericks have never beaten the Black Bears in Omaha, losing 7-2 and 3-0 at the Civic Auditorium in October of 1998.
