The weekend was a tale of two teams, both of which took the form of the Pioneer hockey squad.
One team beat Niagara 5-1 on Friday. They also didn’t allow a goal on seven penalty killing opportunities, went three-for-six on the power play and scored five goals through two periods. They came up with plays when they needed to, like the diving clear by freshman Matt Marcinew during a Niagara two-man advantage.
The Pios jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the first period, with the scoring effort led by senior defenseman David Makowski, who tallied a pair of goals. Strong defense, sound goaltending from Sam Brittain and a strong forecheck limited quality scoring chances for Niagara.
“I loved our first period, because we really pushed the pace, and we made great decisions,” Head Coach Jim Montgomery said following Friday’s win. “And we were getting a lot of five-on-five chances. It’s taxing on a team when you spend the whole time in your own end. And our power play was obviously special. And after power plays were over, our five-on-five play took over again.”
Meanwhile, the latter team fell to Canisius by a score of 4-1 the next day, out-shooting the then-winless Golden Griffins 37 to 21. The Pioneers would have been shut out if not for junior forward Quentin Shore’s power play goal with 8:43 left in the third period. Sam Brittain posted 17 saves and three goals against, and the team was down three goals entering the third period. Canisius was the opportunist, capitalizing on a Pioneer turnover with a short-handed goal in the second period.
“I really liked our effort as a team, but our execution of our details on special teams and then also making puck decisions on the offensive blue line weren’t great,” Montgomery said.
One of the differences between the two games came in form of underclassmen contributions. During Friday’s game against Niagara, freshmen Will Butcher, Matt Marcinew and Trevor Moore combined for five assists, while none of the freshman tallied points in the loss against Canisius.
“[The freshmen] are being used on the power play, and getting opportunities to score,” Montgomery said. “They’re three really offensive players (Marcinew, Butcher, Moore) that we’re expecting to add to our offense, and that’s what they’re doing. All three of them are good hockey players, and the thing I like was how hard they competed five-on-five.”
Earlier in the year, this same Pioneer team swept the Merrimack Warriors, led by strong defensive play in consecutive shutouts, 1-0 and 4-0. The following weekend yielded back-to-back overtime losses, both by scores of 3-2, to Alaska and Alaska Anchorage.
The Pioneers will begin conference play in the inaugural season of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) this Friday and Saturday at Magness Arena against a 2-4 Nebraska-Omaha team that has lost three games in a row heading into the contest.
