ORONO — Sparked by a pair of early goals, the University of Maine men’s hockey team cruised to a 5-0 non-conference win over Lindenwood on Saturday night at Alfond Arena.

For the second straight game, Maine’s power play was strong, producing three goals in six opportunities with the man advantage. Maine coach Ben Barr said while he still saw some of the mistakes that have cost the Black Bears (10-7-1) this season, it was an overall cleaner performance.

“The first period was good. It got away from us a little bit (in the second), making some poor puck decisions again, take a penalty, and it changes momentum,” Barr said. “It was better than it was on Wednesday (a 5-4 overtime win over UMass Lowell in Portland) as far as us not shooting ourselves in the foot over and over again, but we still have some things we can clean up.”

The Black Bears dominated the first period, especially the opening 10 minutes, when they outshot the Lions 15-0. Charlie Russell gave Maine a 1-0 lead at 4:16 when his shot deflected off Lindenwood goalie Liam Beerman and slid into the net.

A few minutes later, Maine made it 2-0 with a power-play goal from Sully Scholle, who corralled a Justin Poirier rebound and flicked the puck into the top left corner of the net.

The Black Bears pushed their lead to 3-0 at 18:55 of the second when Poirier scored a power-play goal with a hard shot from the point, between the circles. A second Poirier power-play goal early in the third made it 4-0, and freshman Lukas Peterson scored his first goal 31 seconds later.

“I think why we’ve had a lot of success in the last … three games on the power play, we keep the game simple. Just bring everything to the net,” Poirier said.

Albin Boija made 28 saves for his third shutout of the season. Beerman stopped 46 shots for Lindenwood (8-7).

“I felt great. I was ready to get out there, and I was happy with how it went,” Boija said.