MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Robert Morris was a complete opportunist in the Colonials’ 6-0 victory over visiting Canisius Saturday night, denting the twine on four of six chances with the man-advantage.
At the other end of the rink, goaltender Terry Shafer extended his shutout streak to 120 minutes en route to his school-record sixth shutout with some help from his teammates.
“It’s a great accomplishment,” Shafer said. “It’s a testament to the teams that have played in front of me all these years. The team is just playing great in front of me, they’re blocking shots, they’re getting pucks deep and making my job easier.”
“I thought [Shafer] was solid, especially in that first period when we had to kill all those penalties and he made a huge save in the second,” said RMU coach Derek Schooley. “We were pretty good, we didn’t allow much and kept pucks to the outside. I thought we managed the puck fairly well and I thought it was a really good win. We’re doing a really good job of taking what they’re giving us. They take something away from us and we find another option. It’s going to be harder on the road since they have the last change, so we’ve got to be smart and we have to continue to manage the puck well.”
Despite the one-sided score, the action early on gave every indication that fans were in store for a classic, tightly-contested conference battle as the Griffins went to work from the drop of the puck, amassing a 6-1 shot advantage in the first five minutes of the opening frame.
The early momentum was arrested when Matt Cope redirected a Tyson Wilson shot at 8:11 to open the scoring on the first power play of the evening. Canisius then found itself with great opportunities to equalize in the closing moments of the period with two five-on-three advantages which Schafer and the penalty kill managed to thwart.
After a fairly even opening period, RMU went to work on dictating the pace, drawing several penalties in the early action.
The Robert Morris power play, clicking at a 36 percent rate, then went to work as two familiar goal-scorers added to their season totals.
Greg Gibson doubled the Robert Morris lead at 4:47 with a highlight-reel goal, splitting the defense through the middle of the ice while unleashing a wrist shot that whistled past Griffins netminder Reilly Turner.
Less than three minutes later, Zac Lynch finished a brilliant pass from Gibson with a tap-in goal at the right side of the net to give Robert Morris a three-goal lead.
Following a Canisius timeout, Shafer went to work making several great saves to keep the Griffins off the score sheet, shutting down an attempt at a comeback in the second half of the second period, while the Robert Morris defense worked efficiently to keep the action out of the prime scoring areas.
Over the final 20 minutes, the Colonials had an answer for every Canisius attempt to seize any kind of momentum and they did it with goals from David Friedman, Daniel Leavens and freshman Alex Dagnal, who each tallied in the first 10 minutes of the third period to put the game out of reach while Shafer preserved his sixth career shutout.
The win saw the Colonials keep pace with Holy Cross atop the Atlantic Hockey standings.
“We had the first early chances on the power play tonight and couldn’t capitalize,” Canisius coach Dave Smith said. “And from that point on, I thought we’d done enough things to hang around and potentially get one, but we didn’t, and it slipped away. They’re an older, more experienced team and they pulled away. We just weren’t able to close it off. We hurt ourselves with penalties and dumb play, but they pushed the pace and we just didn’t react well to it. We’re experiencing a lot of pain based on inexperience right now, 20 of our 25 guys are freshmen or sophomores, but overall, I like our attitude and effort and we have to build off of those things.”
The two teams complete their home-and home-series Sunday night at Canisius.