BOSTON – The University of Maine Black Bears have come to anticipate playing in one-goal games with great goaltending, superior penalty killing and opportunistic offense.

Old habits are hard to break, and now, they can look forward to their fifth national championship game.

Sophomore goaltender Jimmy Howard posted 40 saves and Dustin Penner scored the game-winner early in the third period as No. 1 Maine knocked off its Hockey East rival, No. 2 Boston College, for the second time in Frozen Four history with a 2-1 win before a sold-out crowd of 18,138 at the FleetCenter Thursday night.

“Thank God for the Zamboni coming out after the second period,” said Maine coach Tim Whitehead, “or we would not be here.”

Maine (33-7-3), which beat BC in the national semifinal before winning its second national championship in 1999, faces Denver on Saturday night to try for its third title.

Howard, the nation’s leader in goals against and saves percentage, kept the Black Bears in the game through a sloppy second period with the aid of a penalty-killing unit that stymied BC (29-9-4) on all seven power plays for the game, including a crucial 5-on-3 in the second.

“Tonight wasn’t as difficult as 41 shots (on goal) may seem,” Howard said. “We did an excellent job of keeping them to the perimeter, keeping them along the boards and they were just taking shots from outside. They didn’t get too many shots from in close.”

Howard and company allowed Penner to put Maine up for good 1:05 into the third by collecting his own rebound, then beating BC goalie Matti Kaltiainen top shelf.

“(Jeff) Mushaluk took a shot from the point that got blocked,” Penner said, “but it went to Jankus in the corner and he one-touched it back to me. I took the first shot and it hit (Kultiainen) in the leg and he went down and I was fortunate enough to get it back. I just put all of my strength behind it and it went in the net.”

“That was a key turning point in the game, a blocked shot and still they get an opportunity to score a goal,” said BC coach Jerry York.

The Black Bears have now won 10 straight games. The last eight of those have been decided by one goal, games in which Maine is now 15-4 on the season.

“Having Jimmy Howard in the net helps a lot,” said Jon Jankus, who scored Maine’s other goal. “We just know we’ve got to play good defense in front of him. He usually makes that first save and we’ve just got to clear it out.”

“They’re a very difficult team to play against,” said York. “Their penalty killing was exceptional. In these type of games, we feel that you have to score some power-play goals and we could not do that.”

The first period belonged to Howard, who thwarted a couple of BC rushes about midway through the period on his way to 17 saves in the stanza. The sophomore gloved a Dave Spina wrister on a breakaway, then turned aside a Ben Eaves shot on BC’s first power play before denying a Stephen Gionta slapper and Ryan Murphy’s follow-up.

Kaltiainen (16 saves) enjoyed a quiet first period until Penner delivered a scare off the right post on a Maine power play with less than seven minutes left. The BC goalie’s glove betrayed him later, however, on Jankus’ wrist shot from the top of the left faceoff circle that trickled through with 31 seconds left in the period to give the Black Bears a 1-0 lead.

Maine made things harder on Howard and the defense in the second period by getting itself sent to the box five times, but the Eagles finally solved Howard before the rash of penalties began. Ryan Shannon collected the rebound on Spina’s shot in front of Howard and backhanded it to the goalie’s right at 2:35 to make it 1-1.

BC outshot Maine 16-5 for the period, due in large part to the Black Bears drawing 10 minutes in penalties. Prestin Ryan’s high sticking penalty with Troy Barnes already in the box gave the Eagles the two-man advantage for 1:25 midway through the period, but they only managed one quality chance, a Patrick Eaves shot from the left circle that Howard snared.

“Maine did a good job of limiting our second chances, but we still had some pretty good cracks at it,” said BC senior forward Ben Eaves.

The Maine goalie went on to turn aside two more chances on BC’s final power play of the stanza.

“In the first period, I thought we were pretty disciplined. In the second period, it flipped around completely,” Whitehead said. “We took undisciplined penalties and they were outworking us and they got tons of chances. Jimmy kept us in the game.”