Bentley Travels to Army West Point to Close Out Regular Season
Setting the Stage: The regular season comes to an end this weekend, and the Bentley University hockey team will close it out with a series on the road against Army West Point on Friday and Saturday nights. Both games begin at 7:05 pm.
The Falcons come into the weekend with a 14-9-3 AHA record for 31 points, which has them in 2nd place. AIC leads the way with 35 points, while Air Force and RIT are T-3rd with 30 points and Sacred Heart is in 5th with 29. The Black Knights are 8-12-6 AHA for 22 points, which has them in a tie for 8th.
Playoff Scenarios: The Falcons have assured themselves of at least a first round bye in the Atlantic Hockey playoffs. The simplest scenario, among many, to clinch a top four spot and home-ice advantage in the quarterfinals is with one win or tie over Army. The quarterfinals will be March 15-17 with a best of three series.
Bentley can still finish as co-regular season champions with AIC with a sweep of Army, and AIC getting swept by Sacred Heart. However, AIC is assured of being the No. 1 seed thanks to the head-to-head tiebreakers over Bentley.
Atlantic Hockey has laid out the various scenarios here: http://bentleyfalcons.com/sports/mice/AHA.pdf
The Matchup: This will be the second series of the season between the Falcons and Black Knights. They met at Bentley Arena back on Nov. 16-17 which was a split. Army won the first game 3-2, as they rallied from 2-1 down in the 3rd period. Michael Zuffante and Drew Callin had the Bentley goals. Bentley then responded with a 4-2 win the next night. The game was tied 1-1 going into the 3rd period, but two straight goals by Jonathan Desbiens and Alexey Solovyev pushed Bentley in front. Bentley limited Army to just 17 shots on the night.
The last time Bentley visited Army's Tate Rink was in January of the 2017-18 season, which saw the first game of the series tied 3-3 and Army win the second game 4-0.
Last Time Out: Bentley battled to a tie and a defeat against Holy Cross last weekend. The Crusaders took the first game of the series 5-3. The game was tied 2-2 after two periods, but Holy Cross scored two straight in the 3rd frame to pull ahead. The Bentley goals came from Luke Santerno, who had two, and Jake Kauppila.
The second game ended in a 1-1 tie. Holy Cross scored in the first period, but Michael Zuffante tied it in the 2nd period.
Bentley Notables: Bentley received votes in the USCHO Poll for the 4th straight week.
Senior captain Tanner Jago is 5th in points among defensemen in the AHA with 26. Jago has 84 career points, and last weekend he passed Matt Blomquist '16 for 3rd for most career points among Bentley defensemen. Steve Tobio '02 has 87 career points in 2nd place. Steve Weinstein '15 is first with 104 points.
Goaltender Aidan Pelino has the 4th best goals against average in Atlantic Hockey at 2.63, and has played the most minutes at 1891.
The team has two players in the top 10 of the AHA in scoring in Luke Santerno (33 points, T-6th) and Drew Callin (30 points, 9th). Jonathan Desbiens is T-6th in goals with 14. Both Santerno and Callin are in the top-10 in assists, with Santerno T-5th with 22 and Callin T-8th with 20.