Bentley coach Ryan Soderquist knew that his young team would need some time to gel.
With nine freshmen in the lineup, he expected growing pains, and the Falcons’ record though the first half of the season reflected that.
At Christmas, Bentley was 5-13-0 and had taken points in two of five conference series. But since then, Soderquist’s team is a respectable 3-4-1, including a non-conference win over Northeastern, and gained points in all three league series in January. Last weekend, the Falcons split with Mercyhurst, losing 4-3 on Friday before taking Saturday’s contest 5-3.
That made the long bus ride from Erie, Pa. to Waltham, Mass., a little more tolerable.
“It’s always better to end the weekend with a win,” said Soderquist, in his 21st season at Bentley. “Lose on Saturday and the whole week stinks.”
Things have been brighter in general thanks to an improved record over the past three weeks. A contributing factor has been the line of freshmen Nicholas Niemo, Stephen Castagna, and Arlo Merrit.
“We put them together after Christmas,” said Soderquist. “They’ve found some good chemistry with each other.”
The line has scored 10 goals since. Niemo leads the team in scoring (six goals and 12 assists) and has recorded a point in seven straight games, 13 in all over that span.
Soderquist also decided to platoon goalies Nicholas Grabko and Connor Hasley. Grabko, a junior, has posted wins over Northeastern, Niagara and Mercyhurst, while Hasley, a freshman, has a win over Niagara and a shootout victory over Canisius.
This may be a temporary solution for Soderquist, who says he hopes someone wins the job down the stretch.
“I think our guys are confident in both goaltenders,” he said. “To be honest I’d prefer it if we had one guy. Both are improving – their second half has been much stronger than their first half. There could be a situation where we continue to play both, especially if both are playing well.”
Next up for the Falcons is a home series with Holy Cross, which has also seen success recently. The Crusaders, who feature former Bentley goalie Jason Grande, are 3-2-2 in the new year and coming off a split with first-place Rochester Institute of Technology.
“They’re a natural rival with our campus’ fairly close,” said Soderquist. “And they’re playing really well, fast and physical. I expect two good college hockey games.”
Under the new playoff format, the two teams at the bottom of the Atlantic Hockey standings won’t make the conference tournament. Bentley currently sits in one of those spots. The Falcons are in ninth place, trailing eighth-place Canisius by three points with eight games to go.
It’s been tough for teams to move up recently as splits have become the norm in conference play. Last weekend, Rochester Institute of Technology took four points at Holy Cross and was able to gain a point on the rest of the league because the other three conference series all ended in splits.
Soderquist says his team is focused on what it can control.
“It’s been hard to gain traction due to all the splits,” he said. “We’re focused on ourselves. We’re not looking at the standings, just trying to win each series. We’ve broken the second half into individual series and what we can do to be successful.”
PairWise watch
After Atlantic Hockey went 2-13-4 in non-conference play the first two weeks of the season, some pundits, including me, speculated that the league’s chances of getting an at-large team in the NCAA tournament were already gone.
The assumption has been that the league needs a winning percentage of at least .400 in order to bolster the PairWise Ranking of one or more of its teams to 16th or higher.
While the conference is only .363 in non-league play, RIT (18-7-1) is currently sitting at 15th in the PairWise, moving up from 18th last week due to a win and overtime loss at Holy Cross. The current RPI/PWR formula gives teams 1/3 of a win for an overtime loss, with a factor of 1.2 for a road game, so the loss wasn’t as damaging as it might seem. RIT got almost 40% of a win…from a loss.
The Tigers will need a lot of things to break their way to stay in contention, but stranger things have happened.
