Bentley Back at Home This Weekend, Set to Play Mercyhurst
The Matchup: Bentley is back at the JAR this weekend for a two game series against Atlantic Hockey rival the Mercyhurst Lakers. Both games in Watertown get underway at 7:05 pm and can be seen live on AtlanticHockey.TV
The Falcons enter the weekend with a 1-3-2 Atlantic Hockey record after two ties on the road against AIC in a midweek series, which saw the games end in 2-2 and 1-1 ties. Bentley was last at home the weekend of Oct. 28 when they hosted RIT for a series. After this weekend's games, they will next be on the ice against Harvard on Nov. 26 at the Bright Hockey Center in Cambridge. That game will be televised on One World Sports TV.
Mercyhurst enters the weekend with a 3-3 Atlantic Hockey record. It will be a quick turnaround for them after they played at Niagara on Tuesday and suffered a 5-4 defeat. The Lakers were also in action last weekend, and split at home with Holy Cross.
Follow the Games: Both games can been seen on the new AtlanticHockey.TV. Click on the link to learn more about the various price options for this season. Live stats for Friday night and Saturday night will be available as well.
Last Time Out: Bentley and AIC battled to a pair of ties last week at the Mass Mutual Center in Springfield. In the first game on Nov. 8, Kyle Schmidt gave Bentley the lead just 3:45 into the 1st period. AIC took the lead with a power play goal late in the 1st period, and an even-strength goal 4:07 into the 3rd period gave them a 2-1 lead, but defenseman Tanner Jago leveled the score with a slap shot from the left face-off circle with 3:09 remaining in regulation, and the game ended 2-2.
The second game on Nov. 10 was a battle between goalies Jayson Argue and AIC's Zack Skog. Both of the goals came in the 2nd period; Schmidt for Bentley at 1:23 and a PP goal by AIC's Johno May. Bentley peppered the net in OT, but couldn't put one past Skog. Argue finished the night with a season-high 37 saves.
Over the two games, Argue stopped 66 of 69 shots faced for a .957 save percentage and 1.40 GAA.
French Moves Up: With two assists in the Nov. 8 game against AIC, captain Max French registered his 113th and 114th career points. That moved him past both Jeff Gumaer '09 and Anthony Canzoneri '09 and into sole possession of 5th place on Bentley's Division I career points list. He's now seven points away from moving into the top-10 all-time in the program's history for points. With 52 career goals, he is four away from moving into the top-10 all-time for goals.
Series Notes:
- Mercyhurst leads the all-time series 33-16-8, but since the 2008-09 season, it is nearly even at 12-11-4 in favor of the Lakers.
- In 11 career games against Mercyhurst, Max French has 5 goals and 9 assists for 14 points. Kyle Schmidt and junior Andrew McDonald also have good numbers. Both have played the Lakers 11 times, and Schmidt has a 5-4-9 scoring line and McDonald a 3-4-7 line.
- Mercyhurst won last year's season series 3-1, which included a sweep at the JAR on opening weekend. Bentley's win was 4-1 in the first game of the series in Erie on Feb. 5. Four different players scored, including French, Schmidt and Jake Ahlgren.
- The teams played seven times during the 2014-15 season. Bentley won the regular season series 3-0-1, which included a sweep in Erie. However when the teams met in the Atlantic Hockey quarterfinals, Mercyhurst won the series 2-1.
Up Next: Bentley will next be in action on Saturday, Nov. 26 at Harvard in what will be the 4th all-time meeting between the schools. The game, which begins at 7:30, can be seen on One World Sports TV. Click on the link to see if your provider carries the channel.