For a league where sweeps have historically been hard to come by and splits are the norm, so far this season it’s been feast or famine in conference series in Atlantic Hockey.
There have been 15 conference series so far, with nine ending in sweeps. Another three series saw one team take five of six points. That means we’ve only had three series so far end in splits.
Canisius has seen those highs and lows so far in the early part of this season, illustrated over two recent series. The first weekend in November, the Golden Griffins, picked to finish third in the preseason coaches’ poll, came away with a single point in two games against Holy Cross, which was predicted to finish at the bottom of the AHA standings.
Last weekend, Trevor Large’s team faced off against the team picked to (again) win the regular-season title, American International. This time, Canisius came away with all six points and moved from ninth to sixth in the standings with 5-2 and 3-2 victories.
Large says that in that series, some elusive pieces fell into place for his team.
“We’ve been changing our lineup a fair amount, looking for some chemistry,” he said. “It’s like we’ve been missing a guy on each line. We’d have two guys clicking and one a little off, and we’d have one defenseman well involved in the play but his partner not as much.
“We realize that we need everybody on the team on the same page. It takes every single player to contribute. (Last week) we reset our details in terms of how we want to play. We were happy with the results last weekend.”
Canisius, with 11 seniors and five graduate students, is one of the oldest teams in college hockey. But 11 players, four freshmen and seven transfers, are playing their first season at Canisius.
“Despite (the older roster), there’s an influx of new,” said Large. “We don’t feel that old. We have a lot of players with experience but we’re still creating relationships. There’s a learning process. We can’t skip any bricks in what we’re building.”
Against AIC, Canisius got timely scoring from its experienced players. Seven of the Golden Griffins’ eight goals in the series were scored by seniors or graduate students. Canisius also got stellar goaltending from senior Jacob Barczweski, who made his 2,000th career save on Saturday.
Large has another senior goaltender, John Hawthorne, who transferred from Northern Michigan last year. He’s seen significant time this season, splitting several weekends with Barczewski.
“We have two capable senior goaltenders,” said Large. “John played in some critical games in the second half of last season. That was going to be the case again going into this season, especially in non-conference play. Also, sometimes there’s a quick turnaround from Friday night to a Saturday afternoon game and we’re looking to keep guys fresh.
“It’s about figuring out who gives us the best chance to win.”
The Golden Griffins have this weekend off before hosting Army West Point on Nov. 25 and 26.
Would Large like to play this weekend to gain some momentum from last week’s sweep?
“My thoughts go both ways on that,” he said. “In one way, it would be great to get right back after it. But the next moment of my day, I’m thinking that it’s probably a good thing to have guys get some rest.”
