Bentley Closes Out Regular Season vs. AIC with Home-Ice on the Line
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The Matchup: Home-ice advantage in the first round of the Atlantic Hockey playoffs is at stake for Bentley University when they close out the regular season this weekend against American International in a home-and-home series. Friday's game takes place at the Olympia Ice Center in Springfield, while Saturday's game is back at Ryan Arena in Watertown for Senior Night. Both games begin at 7:05 pm.
Bentley (12-16-3, 10-12-3 AHA) enters the weekend in 8th place with 23 points, one point ahead of Canisius (22 points) in 9th and three back of RIT and Mercyhurst (26 points each), who are tied for 6th. They control their own destiny to earn home-ice for the first round, but will be looking get back on track (1-5-2 record since Jan. 26) against AIC and head into the playoffs with some momentum. The Falcons tied Sacred Heart 6-6 and lost 3-1 on the road to the Pioneers last weekend.
AIC (10-15-6, 7-12-6 AHA) is currently in 10th place with 20 points, and is the hottest team in the league over the last month. They are 5-3-1 over the last nine games, and are coming off a 4-1 home win over Army on Tuesday and a tie and loss against Holy Cross over the weekend.
Playoff Scenarios: Bentley can finish anywhere from 6-11th place, but controls its own destiny for the last home-ice spot in the first round with a one point lead over 9th place Canisius. They hold the tiebreaker over Canisius, who play RIT this weekend, thanks to a sweep of the Griffs on the weekend of Jan. 18
Bentley will clinch home-ice with:
1) Three points
2) A win (or two ties) and one Canisius loss or tie
3) A tie and a Canisius loss
The Falcons can also pass RIT or Mercyhurst with a sweep of AIC only, and RIT and Mercyhurst (playing Robert Morris) either getting swept or only getting one point from their respective series. Bentley would win tiebreakers over both the Tigers and Lakers in the above scenario.
The only thing for certain is that Bentley will be playing in a first round, best-of-three series, which will begin next Friday, March 8.
One for the Ages: Bentley staged a memorable comeback against Sacred Heart last Friday at home. Trailing 5-1 after a Pioneer goal 2:26 into the third period, the Falcons scored five times in less than 10 minutes to take a 6-5 lead with under seven minutes remaining in the game. Junior Justin Breton scored the tying goal shorthanded on a breakaway, and classmate Brett Gensler scored the go-ahead goal at 13:16. However, Sacred Heart tied it at six on a goal by Jared Eng with 2:58 left in regulation, and neither team scored the rest of the way.
Earlier this Season: Bentley beat up on AIC in the first meeting of the season, 7-3 on Nov. 16 in Springfield. Seven different players scored, and the line of Alex Grieve, Gensler and Breton each had one goal and two assists.
Series History: Bentley leads the all-time series 24-18-4, and has won four straight and five of the last six meetings. They are unbeaten in the last four games (3-0-1) at Olympia Ice Center, and have won the last two at the JAR.
News & Notes: Gensler, with a scoring line of 16-22-38, holds a four point lead over Mercyhurst's Matthew Zay (12-22-34) in the race for the Atlantic Hockey regular season scoring title. Gensler won it last year with an 18-23-41 line … with two more points, Gensler will become only the second player in school history to have 40 points in consecutive seasons, and the first since head coach Ryan Soderquist did it in the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons … freshman Andrew Gladiuk (12-16-28) is in position to finish the regular season leading all Atlantic Hockey rookies in scoring. He would be the second straight Falcon rookie to accomplish that after Grieve did it last season … six players for Bentley have exceeded 20 points this season; Gensler (38), Grieve (30), Gladiuk (28), defenseman Steve Weinstein (25), Breton (21) and Brett Switzer (20) … 18 of the team's 21 skaters have scored a goal this year … Bentley is just 3-40 (7.5%) on the power play in the last 10 games. At one point they led the nation in power play percentage, but have dropped to 27th.