For the past several weeks, it’s been a “next man up” mentality for American International, which has seen a crippling rash of injuries over the final month of the regular season.
Key players including Alfred Lindberg (22 points), Brian Kramer (20 points), Alexander Malinowski (20 points), and John Lundy (19 points) all suffered what are likely to be season-ending injuries in a two-week span in late January and early February. That’s four of the Yellow Jackets’ top seven scorers. Other players are out indefinitely, and more are working through injuries.
“It’s been a challenge, losing so many players”, said AIC coach Eric Lang. “We carry a large roster, and if we didn’t, there were a couple of games that I’m not sure we would have been able to put a team on the ice. If we had 27 or 28 guys (on the roster), that would have been challenging.”
The Yellow Jackets went through a 1-5 stretch after the rash of injuries, but have righted the ship in recent weeks, ending the regular season on a 2-0-3 run, good enough for fifth place and a first-round playoff bye.
“At one point, we were going with 10 or 11 players who had zero points,” said Lang. “Against Army, I think that they had over 100 (combined) points more than our team did, so we had to accelerate our development.”
AIC has used 34 players in the lineup to date, but one constant has been freshman netminder Nils Wallstrom (2.42 GAA, .912 save percentage) supplemented by senior Alexandros Aslanidis (3.77 GAA, .868 save percentage).
Losing so much skill and experience has changed Lang’s approach.
“We’ve had to reinvent ourselves, defending and on our forecheck,” he said. “In the past, we felt like we could beat you 5-4. But that’s changed due to the amount of scoring we’re missing.”
But it’s been paying off over the final weekends of the season and heading into a showdown with Air Force.
“I’ve consistently told our guys how proud I am of our resiliency,” said Lang. “It’s been next man up, go for 45 seconds, and then the next guy in. There’s been a learning curve, but we’ve started to believe that we can take care of the puck, limit odd-man rushes, and be physical to hang around and pull out a good result.”
“We’re ready to take this reinvented version of AIC hockey into the playoffs.”
Looking ahead to the quarterfinals
This weekend will see the playoff field winnowed down to four as the three survivors from the first round join the top five seeds, which had byes last weekend.
These are best of three series.
No. 11 Robert Morris at No. 1 Rochester Institute of Technology
The Colonials pulled off the only upset of the first round with a 4-3 overtime win at Bentley. The Falcons erased a 3-1 RMU lead with a pair of third-period goals, but Cameron Garvey converted a Bentley turnover with 10 seconds left in overtime. Three of Garvey’s 11 goals have come against Bentley.
HOCKEY!!!!! #NCAAHockey x 🎥 ESPN+ / @RMUMHockey
pic.twitter.com/4jWjDtrKV6— NCAA Ice Hockey (@NCAAIceHockey) March 3, 2024
RIT captured its sixth AHA regular season crown this year and is seeking its fourth postseason title, the last coming in 2016. That was also the last time the schools met in the postseason, in the 2016 championship game won by the Tigers, 7-4.
RIT swept all four meetings between the schools this season.
No. 8 Canisius at No. 2 Holy Cross
Canisius advanced with a 5-2 win over Mercyhurst in the first round, while Holy Cross enjoyed a bye.
This series will be a rematch of last season’s Atlantic Hockey championship game when Canisius prevailed on home ice, 3-0.
This time, Holy Cross looks to have the advantage as the series’ No. 2 overall seed and host.
However, Canisius was the better team in head-to-head play this season, taking four of six points from the Crusaders.
No. 7 Niagara at No. 3 Sacred Heart
Niagara defeated Army West Point, 4-1 to advance in the first round.
Sacred Heart, which earned a first-round bye, comes into the series on a
0-3-1 skid, while Niagara is 3-1 in its last four games.
This is a rematch of a quarterfinal series from last season when Niagara pulled off a 2-1 upset series win. That was the first-ever postseason meeting between the schools.
The teams split their only meetings in the regular season back in October.
No. 5 American International at No. 4 Air Force
Both teams had a first-round bye and had an extra week to prepare for this series, which features two of the winningest programs in conference history. They’ve combined to win 10 playoff titles, including five of the last six.
They last met in the postseason in 2022 in the Atlantic Hockey championship game in Utica, NY. AIC prevailed in that one, 7-0.
The teams split their lone conference series this season.
Awards season
It’s almost that time of the year when the league hands out awards and announces its all-league and all-rookie teams. We’ll be handing out our kudos as well over our final three columns of the season.
Let’s start with the rookies. Here are our picks:
F: Matteo Giampa, Canisius
F: Tanner Klimpke, Robert Morris
F: Matthew Wilde, RIT
D: Mac Gadowsky, Army West Point
D: Trent Sambrook, Mercyhurst
G: Nils Wallstrom, AIC
Check back next time for our picks for all-conference teams.
