Bentley Hosts Split Weekend vs. Army West Point and St. Lawrence
Setting the Stage: Coming off a 3-2 overtime win over UNH in Friday's home opener, the Bentley hockey team is back at the Arena this weekend for a split weekend. They host Army West Point on Friday night for the first Atlantic Hockey home game of the season. On Saturday night St. Lawrence from the ECAC comes to town. Both games begin at 7:05 pm.
Friday's game will be the first of four meetings this season between the Falcons and Black Knights. They next meet in West Point for a series on the weekend of Dec. 6-7, then play again in Waltham towards the end of the season on Feb. 7.
Saturday's game will be the first ever meeting between Bentley and St. Lawrence. The Saints play at Holy Cross on Friday night.
Watch the Games: If you can't make it to the Arena, watch the games on FloHockey.TV, the new streaming partner of Atlantic Hockey.
Subscriptions start at $12.50/month and games can be watched live or on demand. Games can be watched on your desktop, or on the FloHockey app on your device of choice.
Saturday Senior Night: Saturday will be Senior Night for the Bentley hockey team. Prior to the game the team's Senior Class of 2020 will be honored; Connor Brassard, Jonathan Desbiens, Ryner Gorowsky, Jake and Sam Kauppila, Brett Orr, Aidan Pelino and Matt Riggleman.
The Matchups: Bentley will be looking to get on the board in Atlantic Hockey after they dropped two games at Robert Morris on opening weekend. They'll be looking to carry the momentum over from Friday's big win over UNH.
Army has gotten off to a 3-1 start. They are 1-1 in the AHA after a home split with Robert Morris last weekend, and they began the season with non-conference wins over Union and UConn.
The Saints dropped a pair of games to Hockey East opponents last weekend, as they fell to Providence and Vermont. They played at Mercyhurst on opening weekend and came away with a split.
Last Time Out: Bentley scored a dramatic overtime win over UNH last Friday. Sophomore Jakov Novak scored the winner, on the power play, 1:22 into overtime to give Bentley the win. They trailed 2-1 in the 3rd period, but tied it up on the first career goal by freshman Matt Gosiewski at 8:46. Sophomore defenseman Ethan Roswell scored the game's first goal at 12:05 of the 2nd period, which was his first career goal.
Brassard Named AHA Defenseman of the Week: Senior defenseman Connor Brassard was named the AHA Defenseman of the Week on Tuesday. The Fitchburg, Mass., native had two assists in the win over UNH. He assisted on Novak's OT goal, and also assisted on Gosiewski's tying goal in the 3rd period.
The next game Brassard plays will be the 100th of his career.
Success vs. Hockey East Continues: Bentley has now beaten a Hockey East team in 10 of the last 12 seasons, going back to 2008-09. There have been 11 wins in that span against seven different teams; Northeastern (4), UNH (2), BC, UMass-Lowell, BU, UMass and Maine.
Series History with Army: Friday's game will mark the 70th all-time meeting between Bentley and Army. The series began all the way back in 1981-82. The teams have met on a number of big occasions in recent seasons. They played in the first ever games at Bentley Arena in February of 2018. They also played at Fenway Park during the 2016-17 season, and at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in the 2015-16 season, both Bentley wins.
The series has been pretty even in recent years as well. Over the last 10 games Bentley has a 4-3-3 edge and over the last 20 games it is 8-5-7 in Bentley's favor.
Up Next: Bentley is at home for two games again next weekend. They host the Mercyhurst Lakers for an Atlantic Hockey series on Nov. 1 and 2.