The lights may have gone out Friday night on the University of Maine Black Bears' chances to gain home-ice advantage in the Hockey East quarterfinal round. In what Maine head coach Shawn Walsh had called a pivotal series for his team, the Northeastern Huskies scored three second period goalsen route to a 5-2 win. And with Maine's loss coming at Al- fond Arena, home-ice advantage in the playoffs may not be such a welcomed thought. The Black Bears are 4-6-2 at Alfond this season. Maine's special teams continued to falter, as it allowed North- eastern to convert on two of six power plays. Maine went 0-7 in power play situations. Both teams gave up short-handed goals in a wild second period. Northeastern scored first with three seconds remaining on its first power play. Frank Bouchard got the goal unassisted at the 17:58 markin the first period. Northeastern made it 2-0 1:25 into the second period. A little more than two minutes later Reg Cardinal fed Wayne Conlan to put Maine on the board. The goal, which was short-handed, fired the Maine players. That is, until J.F. Aube scored eight seconds later to make it 3-1 Northeastern.Walsh pulled starting goalie Blair Marsh and inserted Blair Allison. Less than a minute later Patrice Tardif took a Cardinal and Dave MacIsaac thread from Maine's blue line and skated straight for Northeastern goalie Todd Reynolds and cashed in for Maine's sec- ond goal of the night. Tardif's goal would turn out to be Maine's last for the night. Maine falls to 7-5-1 in Hockey East play and 12-10-1 overall. Northeastern improves to 6-6-3 and 14-6-3. SCORING SUMMARY Huskies 5, Black Bears 2 Northeastern 1 3 1 - 5 Maine 0 2 0 - 2 FIRST PERIOD - 1. NU, Bouchard, 17:58 SECOND PERIOD - 2. NU, No. 21? (Melong), 1:25; 3. Maine, Conlan (Cardinal), 3:17; 4. NU, Aube (McGillis, Shields), 3:29; 5. Maine, Tardif (Cardinal, MacIsaac), 4:45; 6. NU, Parlon (Taylor), 14:31 THIRD PERIOD - 6. NU, Lupo (O'Connor, MacNair), 9:52 Shots On Goal Northeastern 10 11 6 - 27 Maine 9 6 9 - 24 NOTES: * It is safe to say Maine's sell-out streak has ended. At game time 350 tickets were on sale. Icy road conditions kept many home. There were an estimated 3,500 at the game. * Tuell got the call tonight to referee the game, as travel conditions forced Hockey East to go to a two-linesmen, one-referee system. Tuell is normally a linesman. Ryan Robbins Stodder Hall University of Maine [log in to unmask]