ORONO — Take a breath, Black Bear fans. Your team is fine. It’s not perfect, but it’s fine.

The University of Maine men’s hockey team took a 2-1 win over Denver on Saturday night, snapping a two-game losing streak and easing a lot of worried minds among the state’s hockey fans.

If the effort wasn’t there, it would at least be something to point at and say, “See? That’s why. That’s why they’re losing games.”

But the effort by the Black Bears men’s ice hockey team has been strong these last few games, in a 4-2 loss to Bentley on Dec. 29 at Portland’s Cross Insurance Arena, outshooting the Falcons 45-19 but made costly mistakes, and in Friday’s 2-1 loss to Denver, in which the Pioneers scored the game-winning goal off a deflection with 20 seconds left. Saturday night, the effort was there again, and it was rewarded.

“That was one of those games, after (Friday) night, it could’ve gone one way or the other. And it went the right way as far as the reaction and response to it,” Maine coach Ben Barr said. “Every player, I thought, you could put him on the ice and you were fine with it. That’s what we have to be. And now we have to build on it.”

The first period was a showcase of everything the Black Bears do well, and those annoying little things they do to make things harder on themselves.

Maine (13-4-2)  outshot the Pioneers (15-5) 22-5 in the first. Although the Black Bears went 0 for 3 on the power play in the period, they buzzed around Denver goalie Matt Davis, generating chances. The goal Maine scored with two seconds left in the period to tie the game at 1-1 was the result of that exact effort. Harrison Scott poked a loose puck in from a scrum of players crowding the crease like they were climbing into a clown car.

In a game Maine outshot Denver, 46-21, Barr described the goal as one the Black Bears had to get in with a crowbar.

“Right there, that’s whatever it takes. Those pucks, you’ve got to put it in like your life’s on the line,” Scott said. “We were all hacking and whacking. Whatever it took to put it in the net. We had all the guys in there grinding it out.”

Maine’s second goal was more of the same, get to the net and make something happen. Captain David Breazeale jumped on a rebound (one he thinks may have gone off him and not Davis) and scored the game-winner at 4:51 of the third period.

“It was a good response after (Friday) night. Each guy was going. Each guy we could put out there and trust to make a heady, hard play, and that’s what you need to have a championship team,” he said.

That hustle and grit is good. At the same time, a Sully Scholle tripping penalty at 14:14 of the first period set up Denver with a power play, and unlike the Black Bears, the Pioneers capitalized. Sam Harris parked himself at the right post, and jammed home a cross-ice pass from Jack Devlin. Maine had kept the Pioneers in their own zone for so long, and had nothing to show for it but a one-goal deficit.

That power-play goal was really the only blemish on what was likely Maine’s best overall team effort of the season thus far. No player exemplified that as much as defensemen Brandon Chabrier, who outskated Denver’s Harris to the puck late in the second period to prevent a breakaway opportunity, and blocked a James Reeder shot a minute and a half into the third, while also picking up an assist on Maine’s first goal.

“He’s flying off over the ice. He’s best when he’s using his feet and his physical. He did a great job tonight,” Breazeale said of Chabrier.

Even with the Black Bears controlling play throughout the game, it felt as if the effort wouldn’t be rewarded. At 11:25 of the second, Bode Nobes rang the post with a shot. A few minutes later, Jack Dalton did the same. If felt like victory might remain inches away, and the echoes of those shots off the post would ring until the NCAA tournament selection show.

Instead, the Black Bears earned what will certainly be a key win in the PairWise rankings, the system the NCAA uses to determine the NCAA tournament field. After Saturday’s win, Maine was ranked No. 6 in the PairWise, just behind the Pioneers.

The schedule doesn’t get easier for Maine. The Black Bears have nothing but Hockey East competition the rest of the regular season, beginning with two games next weekend at No. 10 UMass Lowell.

How they won Saturday’s game against a strong Denver team is how the Black Bears have to play the rest of the season. They know that.

“That would’ve been an easy game to feel sorry for yourselves. There’s a lot of character in that room. A ton of character in that room,” Barr said. “Is the character enough to get us where we want to go? That’s the million dollar question… We still have to keep pushing.”