In the 2013-14 season, Red Gendron’s first as head coach of the University of Maine hockey team, the Black Bears won 16 games.

Then 14 the next year.

And only eight last winter.

Yet Gendron senses improvement in the Black Bears, who take the Alfond Arena ice at 7 p.m. Friday night for their season opener against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

“Oh, I see the program going like this,” Gendron said, his hand making an upward motion, “and for a number of reasons.

“No. 1 is the depth in the program and the type of player we’ve been recruiting over the last three years.”

But can returning players from an 8-24-6 team be counted on?

“A lot of guys last year had off years for them,” Gendron said. “Guys like Brownie (Cam Brown) and Blaine Byron and Nolan Vesey didn’t score the way anyone would think they would score. That was a big issue for us.”

Brown, the senior captain, concurs.

“Guys want to have better years, for sure,” he said. “If we can do that, we can be a tough team to play against.”

Byron, a senior, and Brown are the only two of the team’s top six scorers returning from last season. Byron led Maine with 24 points (eight goals, 16 assists). Brown had eight goals and 12 assists.

In a 6-5 exhibition loss to St. Francis Xavier of Nova Scotia on Sunday, Byron centered a line with Brown and freshman Jake Pappalardo.

Pappalardo is one of 10 freshmen who give Gendron hope.

“We think they’ll have a significant impact on our results right away,” Gendron said.

Among those freshmen are three NHL draft picks from last year – defenseman Patrick Holway (Red Wings, 94th overall), forward Chase Pearson (Red Wings, 140th) and forward Patrick Shea (Panthers, 192nd).

Pappalardo, the New England prep school points leader last year for Proctor Academy in Andover, New Hampshire, scored in the exhibition. The Black Bears led 3-0 before giving up three power-play goals. They allowed another goal one second after a power play had ended.

“We played really well 15 to 17 minutes of the first period,” Brown said, “and the second period, we were in the box almost the whole period.”

Maine cannot afford such lapses. These Black Bears must out-work teams – at least that’s the character Gendron’s looking for.

“Now we have three recruiting classes in, of the kids we want, the type of players that we want,” Gendron said. “So we can play the type of game that we want to play.

“We want 200-foot players, who will play the game with an equal amount of passion offensively and defensively, and an equal amount of skill offensively and defensively.

“We want players who compete, who will just contest every inch of ice, contest every puck, and win those battles. Last year, at the end of the day, we weren’t very talented, relative to a lot of teams in college hockey, but we still competed real hard.”

The Black Bears are young, with four seniors (Brown, Byron, defenseman Eric Schurhamer and goalie Matt Morris), five juniors, eight sophomores and those 10 freshmen.

Morris is expected to share time with Rob McGovern in net, with freshman Stephen Mundinger competing for time.

The Black Bears host RPI again at 7 p.m. Saturday.