Falcons Look to Earn Bye, Slow Down Holy Cross as Regular Season Comes to Close
WALTHAM, Mass. – Bentley will have its sights set on securing a first round bye in the Atlantic Hockey playoffs this weekend when they take on Holy Cross in a home-and-home series to close out the regular season.
The series begins Friday night at the Hart Center in Worcester, while Saturday's game at Ryan Skating Arena in Watertown will be Senior Night. The 2011 class, Joe Calvi (New Lenox, Ill./New England Jr. Huskies), Dustin Cloutier (Berkley, Mich./Mahoning Valley Phantoms), Brandon Graffunder (Brooklyn Park, Minn./Alaska Avalanche), Erik Peterson (Shorewood, Minn./Sioux Falls Stampede) and Jeremy Robert (Maplewood, Minn./Bismarck Bobcats) will be honored prior to the game.
The scenario for Bentley to finish second in Atlantic Hockey's Eastern pod, and earn a first round bye in the playoffs, is simple. UConn (24 points) leads Bentley and Army (22 points) by two points. The Falcons need to make up just two points on the Huskies since they would earn the bye on the first tiebreaker, points in head-to-head games (Bentley took four out of six points from UConn this year).
They'll need to finish ahead of Army though, since the Black Knights would get the bye on the second tiebreaker, goal differential in head-to-head games. Both teams took three points from the season-series, but Army had a +1 goal differential from those games, outscoring Bentley 5-4.
UConn has a home-and-home with AIC this weekend and Army has a home-and-home with Sacred Heart.
Bentley certainly has the toughest task this weekend in Holy Cross, who is tied for third overall in the league with 30 points and is on a nine-game unbeaten streak (7-0-2). They tied Sacred Heart 3-3 last Sunday to break a seven-game winning streak. The Crusaders have been particularly tough at home in the league with an 8-4-1 mark.
One of those home losses though came at the hands of Bentley more than three months ago on Nov. 20 in the only other meeting of the season. The Falcons took a 3-0 lead in the first period, let Holy Cross get to within 3-2 in the second period, but finished strong with third period goals from Aaron Stonacek (Basehor, Kan./Fairbanks Ice Dogs) and Joe Campanelli (Pierrefonds, Quebec/Westminster Prep) for a 5-2 victory.
A matchup to watch for is Holy Cross' power play against Bentley's penalty kill. The Crusaders have been deadly on the power play this season, converting 24.6 percent of their chances, second in the league and fourth in Division I. The Falcons' penalty kill meanwhile is at 83.9 percent, good for third in the league and 18th nationally.
On the flip side, Bentley will look to take advantage of Holy Cross' spotty penalty kill (78.4 percent), which is just ninth in Atlantic Hockey. The Falcons have struggled on the power play most of the season, but went 2-6 last Friday against UConn and have scored five power play goals in the last six games.
Junior goalie Kyle Rank (Islip, N.Y./Markham Waxers) has been good in his career against the Crusaders. In five starts he's 2-2-1 with a 1.98 goals against average and a .934 save percentage. He started and won the Nov. 20 game, making 30 saves. He's won two out of his last three starts overall and has had two other solid relief appearances in recent weeks.
If Bentley does not secure a bye, they have at least locked up a home game for the first round, which would be a single elimination game March 5 against either Sacred Heart or AIC. The quarterfinals begin March 11 and are a best two-out-of-three series.