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Written by: Robbie LaBrie
The hockey season has officially begun at Bentley, and the Falcons kicked it off with possibly the toughest two game stretch they’ll face all year.
The Falcons opened up the season with two games on the road against two nationally ranked opponents; not exactly the easiest of tasks. Northeastern, ranked #20, was the first test for Bentley, followed by Quinnipiac, ranked #18.
It can’t come as too big a surprise that Bentley came out of these two matchups with a 0-2 record, but the way they played in the two contests is more than encouraging for head coach Ryan Soderquist and his Falcon squad.
Last Friday, the Falcons traveled to Boston to take on Northeastern. The Falcons played pretty well, but they were playing most of the game shorthanded, committing 10 penalties over the course of the game.
Northeastern took advantage, going 3 for 9 on the power play to notch their only three goals of the game.
The Falcons could’ve gotten off to a quick 2-0 lead in the game, if an early goal by Bentley sophomore Aaron Stonzcek hadn’t been disallowed because he had his foot in the crease.
That would’ve made it an early 1-0 game, but instead the score was still 0-0 a few minutes later when senior Marc Menzione tipped home a slap shot from senior Bobby Preece to record Bentley’s first goal of the season and get the Falcons a one goal lead.
Unfortunately, the Northeastern Huskies responded later in the first period with a power play goal from freshman Justin Daniels to knot the score at 1-1.
In the second period, it seemed as though Bentley had grabbed the lead again, when sophomore Jamie Nudy scored on a short-handed odd man rush, but after an official’s review the goal was disallowed.
This time, however, Northeastern capitalized on Bentley’s misfortune and put away another power play goal on the same Bentley penalty. Then, later in the period, the Huskies put away another power play goal off a rebound given up by Bentley goalie Joe Calvi, who had a good day overall, equaling Northeastern goalie, Chris Rawlings, with 27 saves.
The Falcons trailed 3-1 through the rest of the second period and most of the third period. With 16 second left, Bentley scored a goal after pulling its goalie to get the game within one. Erik Peterson put this one away for the Falcons to get the score to 3-2.
The Falcons then were awarded a faceoff in their own zone in the waning seconds of the game after a Northeastern violation, but the Falcons were unable to capitalize and fell to 0-1 to start the season.
Bentley then traveled down to Hamden, Connecticut the next day to take on Quinnipiac. If the Falcons were feeling any fatigue from taking on a second ranked opponent on the road in as many days, they certainly didn’t show it.
Sophomore Kyle Rank minded the net in this one and he put up a great performance, allowing two goals in regulation and one in overtime, but recording 26 saves, one more than the Quinnipiac goalie.
The Quinnipiac Bobcats got off to a quick start, taking a 1-0 lead only three minutes into the game when Quinnipiac freshman Reese Rolheiser slipped a shot past Rank.
The Falcons answered quickly however, when Nudy scored just a minute and a half later. Menzione and junior Dustin Cloutier were given the assists on the game-tying goal.
But with just a couple minutes left in the first period, Quinnipiac scored another goal to grab a 2-1 lead heading into the first intermission. But it wouldn’t take long for Bentley to respond in the second period.
Freshman Dan Koudys and sophomore Mike Switzer recorded assists on a Kane Osmars goal that tied the game up at 2-2, just five minutes into the second period.
But that would prove to be the end of the scoring for quite a while. There would be no more goals scored for the rest of regulation, and the teams entered overtime with the score still all tied at 2 apiece.
Unfortunately, the Bobcats made their move early and finished the Falcons only 29 seconds into overtime, as sophomore Scott Zurevinski put away the game winning goal to knock the Falcons record down to 0-2, although there is clearly much more to the story of Bentley’s first two games than just a 0-2 record.
Bentley fought valiantly through its first two games and it seems as though this will be a team that will not roll over to anybody; a quality they will need to compete in the tough Division I Atlantic Hockey conference.
Last season, Bentley had one of their best finishes since entering Division I, coming in fourth in Atlantic Hockey, finishing only behind Air Force, RIT and Mercyhurst. They had a conference record of 15-11-2, which was 10 wins better than in the 2007-08 season, when they finished eighth in Atlantic Hockey.
This season, the Falcons came in ranked seventh in the AHA preseason poll, but overcoming tough odds and beating good teams will not be something new to Bentley, who set program records last season for most wins as a Division I team (they were 19-17-2 overall), most wins in AHA play and they beat a Hockey East team for the first time, when they took down Maine.
Air Force and Mercyhurst grabbed the top two spots in the rankings and were the only ones to receive first place votes. The rest of the conference rankings went RIT, Holy Cross, Canisius, Army, Bentley, Sacred Heart, Connecticut, and American International.
Bentley will be returning 20 players from last year’s squad, so there should be plenty of experience coming back to coach Soderquist’s squad this season.
The Falcons will, however, have to deal with the losses of their top three goal scorers, Dain Prewitt, Jeff Gumaer, and Anthony Canzoneri. Prewitt, who was the fourth all-time leading scorer in Falcons history, signed with the East Coast Hockey League’s South Carolina Stingrays to play professionally this year.
But the main issue for the Falcons is whether or not Menzione, Peterson, Cloutier and crew will manage to pick up enough of the scoring for the Falcons to support goalies Kyle Rank and Joe Calvi, one of Atlantic Hockey’s top goaltending tandems.
Without a doubt the Falcons will face a tough test this season, but they will certainly be shooting for even more school records in wins and possibly even a run in the Atlantic Hockey tournament come March.
It will be a matter of playing enough defense to help out the talented goalies and scoring enough to put their opponents away. Sounds simple, but it won’t be an easy task.
The talent is there and captains Marc Menzione and Bobby Preece have the leadership skills to keep it together, it’s just a matter of whether they can grind out big wins against the tough opponents they’ll be facing all year long.
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