Statistics
Photos

BIDDEFORD, Maine -- The No.7 University of New England men's ice hockey team upped its winning streak to a season-best seven games by thumping Roger Williams University, 7-1, in Conference of New England (CNE) action Saturday afternoon (Feb. 7) at the Harold Alfond Forum.

In three matches against the first-year varsity squad, the Nor'easters (17-5-0, 14-3-0 CNE) have out-scored the Hawks (6-14-1, 4-11-1) by a 21-2 margin, netting seven each time out. With the recent results around the league, UNE is now five points in front of both Endicott College and Suffolk University, and six ahead of Curry College, entering the home stretch of the regular season.

Drew Olivieri and Jayden Price each potted two goals to lead the way for the hosts. For Price, the weekend included his first four scores since November, and six total points.

Senior defenseman Jacob Pellerin registered the most assists in a game in six years, factoring in four scores to match the program record that had been achieved nine previous times. Rookie forward Fernand-Olivier Perron contributed three assists, after dishing out a couple on Friday.

It didn't take long for the Nor'easters to seize control, as Olivieri won the opening faceoff backwards and Chip Hamlett soon returned it back to Olivieri sprinting up the middle. Olivieri beat almost everyone into the zone and snapped one into the top-right corner with a mere 11 seconds elapsed [Watch]. UNE actually holds a piece of the NCAA Division III record for fastest goal at the start of a game, as Brady Fleurent did it in just 0:05 back in 2018; through the end of the 2024-25 season, nine all-time goals had been scored in 10 seconds or less.

Price, Ryan Hadland, and Juraj Elias added to the lead before the initial 20 minutes were up [Watch Price / Hadland / Elias], and then Price and Olivieri pushed the cushion to 6-0 less than six minutes into the 2nd period [Watch Price / Olivieri]. Olivieri now leads the team with 12 goals, while Elias tallied his ninth, Hadland his seventh, and Price jumped up to seven, as well. Olivieri's second included the eighth assist in five games for Dominic Murphy, who tops the group with 23, and came into the weekend with the fourth-best per-game average in the country of 1.05 assists (now 1.10). Nathan Chickering delivered the primary helper on the same play, which was almost a mirror image of Perron's pass to Price on the previous 2-on-1 transition tally.

Roger Williams broke up the shutout just past the midway mark of the contest on a score by JJ Agler, assisted by Gabe Reis.

Aidan Curran capped the Nor'easter output in the 3rd with his second goal of the campaign (and in the last nine days). [Watch]

Hand-in-hand with the usually potent offense for UNE has been a predominantly stingy defense (1.91), which allowed two or less goals for the 15th time in 22 outings. Part of that effort continues to be the penalty kill unit, which wiped away two more opponent power play chances to improve to 78-for-79 on the year -- a nation-leading 98.7 percent efficiency. Harrison Chesney logged nine saves during 40 minutes of work between the pipes -- including a slick kick of the left leg to deny one RWU attempt [Watch] -- and Stefan Carney made six more stops the rest of the way.

Niko Charles totaled 42 saves for the visitors.

The Nor'easters will stay at the Forum to open a home-and-home series with Wentworth Institute of Technology on Friday (7 p.m.).