Finding perfection in hockey is difficult, but American International may have done it this weekend.
The Yellow Jackets swept defending Atlantic Hockey champion Air Force out of MassMutual Center in resounding fashion, earning 5-0 and 4-0 wins for their first back-to-back shutouts since February of 2013. AIC, which has already won consecutive games twice this season, enters Thanksgiving with wins in three of their last five games and a 5-4-1 league record.
Junior Zackarias Skog was winless in four decisions this season and had just one career shutout entering the weekend, but the native of Sweden made 20 saves in each game to lift AIC to its first season series win over the Falcons in five years. He was the only Division 1 goaltender to post multiple shutouts over the last week of play.
While the goaltender steals most of the headlines headlines in a two-game shutout, the Yellow Jackets also enjoyed a balanced weekend on the front end as six players scored and 14 recorded points in the series.
Sophomore Tobias Fladeby scored two of his three goals in less than 12 minutes to begin Friday’s rout before freshman Luka Maver added two of AIC’s final three goals. Fladeby now leads the Yellow Jackets with six goals in 13 games. Junior defenseman Patrik Demel had two assists in the series opener and scored the game-winner on Saturday.
The most unique aspect of third-year head coach Eric Lang’s roster is how truly international it is. All four of the aforementioned players hail from different countries: Sweden, Norway, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic, respectively. The roster also includes players from four other foreign nations and nine U.S. states.
Still streaking
The Thanksgiving table in Amherst, Mass., will sure be a happy place later this week as UMass is riding the longest active winning streak in Division 1 hockey at seven games.
UMass is 10-1 overall and 6-0 in league games for their best-ever start as a program. Since an Oct. 20 loss at then-No. 1 Ohio State, the Minutemen opened their league slate with six straight wins and earned a 3-1 win at Holy Cross in Friday night non-conference action.
On an individual note, sophomore Matt Murray became the first goaltender in the school’s Division 1 history to start a season with six consecutive wins on Nov. 10 and then extended that record with his 18-save performance against New Hampshire. John Leonard (Amherst, Mass.) had a goal and two assists on Sunday for his fifth multi-point effort in six Hockey East games.
Fourteen for the Friars
Providence earned 7-2 and 7-5 wins against Merrimack in its final Hockey East games before Thanksgiving. Prior to this past weekend, the Friars had not scored at least seven goals in consecutive games under eighth-year head coach Nate Leaman.
The Friars scored 14 goals in the weekend series, but that was also the number of different players that recorded points over the two games. Nine different PC players scored in the series, including juniors Kasper Bjorkqvist and Brandon Duhaime and freshmen Jack Dugan and Tyce Thompson (Milford, Conn.) who all found the back of the net in both games.
Dugan leads all NCAA rookies with 14 points after his two-goal, three-assist weekend. Three of the Rochester, N.Y., native’s five goals this season have been game-winners. He enters this weekend’s non-conference series at Denver with points in four straight games.
Rookie review
Dugan became the leading rookie scorer in college hockey this weekend, passing Denver’s Emilio Pettersen and St. Cloud State’s Nolan Walker after a five-point weekend. No rookie in the nation has a better faceoff percentage than Dugan (.675), while he and Air Force’s Kieran Durgan are the only players in the nation with three game-winning goals.
UConn’s Jachym Kondelik is the only freshman in the country with double-digit assists this season. He and Leonard are tied for the Hockey East lead among all players with 11 apiece.
Dugan is the third-leading rookie nationally in terms of points per game. Harvard’s Casey Dornbach has nine points through his first seven collegiate games to rank second to Pettersen in that category, while Jack Drury has eight. Dartmouth’s Drew O’Connor and a third member of the Crimson and West Roxbury, Mass., native Jack Rathbone each have a point per game.
Based on those numbers, it’s no surprise that no New England team relies more on freshman scoring than Harvard. The Crimson have received 3.86 points per game from first-year players, which ranks second to Denver’s 4.10 nationally.
Nothing!
UMass Lowell junior Tyler Wall had quite a weekend against Hockey East foe Connecticut, stopping 66 of 68 shots over the home-and-home sweep and his first back-to-back starts since he tended goal in three straight games from Oct. 19-26. The Hockey East Player of the Week completed the weekend series with 28 saves for his fifth shutout in 49 collegiate games and improved his save percentage (.938) to No. 9 nationally this season.
Northeastern’s Cayden Primeau has pitched one more shutout than Wall in only 45 career outings, already ranking fourth in school history. The New Jersey native sophomore pitched his second clean sheet of the season with 26 stops in Friday’s 1-0 win at Vermont.
Second-year Maine goaltender Jeremy Swayman stopped 79 shots over the weekend, but that effort was only enough for a split with Boston University. The Bruins prospect now has three 40-save games this season after making exactly 40 in the Saturday victory in that series.
Loose pucks
― Last week, the Atlantic Hockey Executive Committee announced the extension of Commissioner Bob DeGregorio’s contract for two more years. The only commissioner in league history now sees his position run through at least the 2020-21 season.
― Sacred Heart junior Vito Bavaro scored his first two goals of the season on Friday night. The Pioneers ultimately took a 4-3 loss to Mercyhurst, but not before the former Brooks School standout tied the score with one minute remaining in regulation to send the game to overtime. Bavaro now leads SHU with 25 career goals.
― Not only does Chase Priskie lead Quinnipiac with 14 points after a two-assist game on Saturday, but the senior defenseman also established a new career-high with five blocked shots against Colgate. The captain from Pembroke Pines, Fla., has scored a goal in eight of the Bobcats’ 11 games this season.
― A pair of Massachusetts natives have been strong for New Hampshire lately, although the Wildcats are 0-3-2 in their last five games. Boxford’s Ara Nazarian is on a five-game point streak, while Longmeadow’s Charlie Kelleher has five points in the last three contests.
― UNH defenseman Max Gildon will not play Friday against Miami after receiving a one-game suspension from Hockey East. The sophomore received a major cross-checking penalty and a game misconduct 12:24 into the third period of Sunday’s game at UMass.
