MEN’S HOCKEY
Bentley’s power play ices Canisius
It’s the most definitive statistic for the Canisius hockey team this year.
If the Golden Griffins hold their opponents to three or fewer goals, they come out with a point, but are 0-6 when giving up four or more goals.
Friday night they gave up five power-play goals alone while suffering through an 8-3 loss to Bentley in front of 802 at the Amherst Pepsi Center.
It was an abnormally poor defensive performance for the Griffs (7-7-4, 5-5-2 Atlantic Hockey) who entered this weekend with the second-best goals against average in the league (2.53) and penalty kill (85.9 percent).
The Griffs went through three goaltenders Friday night and gave up the most goals in a game since allowing 11 last season to then top-ranked Miami (Ohio).
“I like our guys. I like our skill and I like our effort,” Canisius coach Dave Smith said. “If we have one night this year like tonight, we’ll look back and just say it wasn’t our night. We gave up five power-play goals, and that’s the story of the game, but we have guys who have a lot of pride in the penalty kill and they will be thinking about that all night.”
In a penalty-filled first period, the Falcons (7-10-1, 6-6-1) grabbed a 4-1 lead.
Canisius started with a bang when Dave Kostuch scored a power-play goal 1:08 into the game on assists by Jason Weeks and Wes Love.
But Bentley scored the next four goals, starting with a power-play tally when a shot by Dustin Cloutier made it past Andrew Loewen at 7:38.
The Falcons made it 2-1 on an Aaron Stonacek short-handed rush into the Canisius zone at 13:37.
About three minutes later, Marc Menzione made it 3-1 on another power play as Loewen was scrambling and out of position. Cloutier added another goal 1:40 later to give the Falcons a comfortable three-goal lead heading into the first intermission.
Loewen played just the first period, allowing four goals on 14 shots as Bentley went 3-for-4 on the power play.
In the second, backup goalie Dan Morrison gave up two goals in 9:29 as Cloutier completed his hat trick with another power-play goal and Justin Kemmerer scored at even strength. Taylor Anderson gave up a goal to Menzione at 10:26 of the second as Bentley took a 7-1 lead.
The Griffs started to play better toward the end of the second and into the third as Peter MacDougall scored his second goal of the year at 17:04. Kostuch tallied early in the third as Canisius started to improve its overall quality of play.
“We weren’t focused,” Kostuch said. “We got a lucky goal to start and we didn’t keep it going. We didn’t play with emotion and the penalties in the first killed us. We upped our play a bit after the first and had some better focus but we couldn’t make it up.”
Bentley finished the game 5 for 7 on the power play and held a 39-28 advantage in shots. Canisius went 2 for 9 on the power play.
The teams meet again tonight at 7:05 at the Pepsi Center.
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