Falcons Host Harvard at Bentley Arena on Tuesday Night
The Matchup: The Bentley University hockey team hosts Harvard on Tuesday night for the first time ever. The puck drops at 7:05 at Bentley Arena and can be seen on AtlanticHockey.TV. A limited number of tickets are still available at the following link: https://www.etix.com/ticket/c/439A01068F37F366A42E0D165D5DCB29/faculty-staff-appreciation-days
Tuesday's game will be Bentley's final of the first half of the season before a more than three week break in between games. The Falcons saw their three game winning streak snapped over the weekend by Mercyhurst in a pair of close games.
Harvard, which competes in the ECAC, will come into the game off a split of two conference home games over the weekend. They defeated Colgate 6-1 on Friday night, and lost to Cornell 2-1 on Saturday.
Last Time Out: On Saturday night, Bentley overcame an early 2-0 deficit with power play goals from senior Tanner Jago and sophomore Michael Zuffante. Jago's goal was the 70th point of his career. He's now Bentley's 4th leading scorer among defenseman in career points. Zuffante notched a goal for the 4th time in six games. Junior Jonathan Desbiens' assist on Jago's 2nd period goal was his 50th career point.
On Friday, senior Drew Callin notched his team leading 6th goal of the season. Sophomore Brendan Hamblet and defenseman Matt Lombardozzi also found the net in Friday's game.
Checking the Stats: Callin leads the team with six goals, and Zuffante is right behind him with five tallies on the season. Sophomore center Luke Santerno leads the team in both assists (12) and points (15). In Atlantic Hockey, that puts him T-3rd in assists and T-7th in points.
Jago is 6th in the conference in both power play points (8) and points among defensemen (12). Both he and Alexey Solovyev are 2nd in goals among defensemen with four.
As a team, Bentley has the 4th ranked offense in Atlantic Hockey with 2.93 goals per game. The power play ranks 3rd at 20.3 percent on the season, which is also in the top-20 nationally.
Looking at Harvard: The Crimson will come into Tuesday's game with a 4-4-2 overall record and a 2-3-2 mark in the ECAC. Just prior to their split over the weekend, they notched a 4-1 win over Cornell at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 24. They have also notched wins over Brown and Arizona State this season.
The team's leading scorer is junior defenseman Adam Fox, who has 20 points on 5 goals and 15 assists. He leads the nation in both points per game (2.00) and assists per game (1.50). The leading goal scorer is senior Lewis Zerter-Gossage with 8. In goal, junior Michael Lackey has started 9 of 10 games and sports a 2.62 goals against average.
Harvard's power play percentage of 38.6 is tops in the nation.
Series Notes: Tuesday's game will be the 5th all-time meeting between these two programs, and the first hosted by Bentley. They first met in the 2012-13 season, and also played in 13-14, 14-15 and 16-17.
Bentley defeated two ECAC teams on the road last season in Brown (3-1) and Dartmouth (5-1). Goaltender Aidan Pelino starred in those games, as he stopped a combined 61 of 63 shots faced in the two games. Bentley will host the Big Green on Saturday Jan. 5 in the second game back from the semester break.
Up Next: Bentley will be off until Sunday, Dec. 30 when they travel to UNH in a game that can be seen on NESN. The next home game is Saturday, Jan. 5 against Dartmouth.