The beat went on for Niagara on Friday night as the visiting Purple Eagles rolled their Atlantic Hockey archrival Canisius 2-1 in front of a raucous crowd of 1,572 at the Buffalo State Ice Arena.<\/p>\n
Niagara (7-2-3, 6-0-0) is undefeated in its last eight contests (6-0-2) — the second-longest streak in the country behind Boston College’s current nine-game roll. The Purple Eagles have a two-point lead in Atlantic Hockey on second-place Holy Cross.<\/p>\n
The Crusaders open a two-game home stand with the struggling Rochester Institute of Technology on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Scorching-hot junior goaltender Carson Chubak recorded 31 saves in the win, his seventh of the season. Chubak leads the nation with a goals against average of 1.08 and a save percentage of .966. He is tied for first in shutouts with four and came within a second-period tip by Golden Griffins (2-6-3, 1-2-1) winger Doug Beck from recording his fifth.<\/p>\n
“He’s our hardest-working kid Monday through Thursday, so you get what you deserve,” Niagara coach Dave Burkholder said. “I think his confidence — confidence is everything with goaltending. From the first day of training camp, he’s been our best goalie, and he’s just taken it from there.”<\/p>\n
The Purple Eagles jumped to an early lead at 5:09 of the first period when junior forward Ryan Murphy roofed a shot from the right circle over Canisius netminder Tony Capobianco.<\/p>\n
Niagara then took a 2-0 advantage in the second period after Capobianco juggled a soft wrister from the point by Eagles defenseman Dan Weiss, allowing sophomore winger Michael Benedict to stuff the puck inside the right post at the 13:01 mark.<\/p>\n
Capobianco, ranked among the country’s top 25 goalies in goals against average (2.30) and save percentage (.925), finished with 21 saves. He stopped a penalty shot by Benedict with 4:42 left in the contest and made a number of difficult saves to keep the contest close.<\/p>\n
“I thought he played well,” Canisius coach Dave Smith said. “Obviously, that’s a huge save on the penalty shot. I thought he played well.”<\/p>\n
Chubak and the Niagara special-teamers turned Benedict’s goal into the winner, killing three penalties over a 17:56 stretch from the late second period into the third. The Griffs — an offensively challenged bunch that has connected on just three of 36 power-play opportunities this season, sixth-worst in the nation — moved the puck well but were stymied by a defensive corps led by the omnipresent Weiss, a senior blueliner who finished the game with three blocked shots.<\/p>\n
“I thought [Weiss] was a man in the third period,” Burkholder said. “We called our guys out in the third and said, ‘whatever it takes.’ That’s our motto, and as a senior captain, I thought he worked really hard.”<\/p>\n
“Our penalty kill has been great all year,” Weiss said. “Unfortunately, we’ve been taking a lot of penalties, and we’ve been trying to work on that. We work on [penalty killing] really hard in practice, and I think it all comes down to everybody bearing down, getting pucks out and selling out whenever they have to.”<\/p>\n
There is no love lost between these two schools. The Western New York neighbors annually square off for bragging rights in the Battle of the Bridge — the winner is based on whose various teams rack up the most head-to-head victories throughout the year.<\/p>\n
The Griffs and Eagles have faced each other on the ice four times a season since 2010-11, when Niagara and Robert Morris joined Atlantic Hockey after the CHA dissolved.<\/p>\n
The Purple Eagles — whose vocal contingent of fans dominated the noise in the arena at times on Friday — are 5-2-1 against the Griffs since joining Atlantic Hockey.<\/p>\n
“That was probably the most intense game we played all year,” Chubak said. “Crazy stuff happens when we play them. They’ve gotten us a couple times, but we were glad to get them tonight.”<\/p>\n
“It’s that cliche, the crosstown rivals, but we definitely practice a little bit harder and try to stay a little more focused in those weeks when we’re playing Canisius,” Weiss added. “[The rivalry] is definitely there. It’s a battle that we’ve fought before, and I’m glad that tonight we got the win.”<\/p>\n
Chubak — who had a 300:19 shutout streak dating to Oct. 20 snapped last week in Niagara’s 4-1 win over Army — and the Purple Eagles begin a four-game home stand on Saturday at Dwyer Ice Arena in Lewiston, N.Y. with an Atlantic Hockey matchup with Robert Morris. The Colonials are 3-2 in conference play and have been resting since beating Canisius in Buffalo last Friday.<\/p>\n
“I saw them play against RIT on television, they had a good game, won 6-4 or something,” Chubak said. “We know they’re going to bring their game. They’re from the old CHA, so it’s really a rivalry game again. I’m sure the fans will be looking forward to that, and I know we will be, too.”<\/p>\n
The Griffs take a weeklong break before hosting American International for a two-game series beginning Nov. 24.<\/p>\n
Does Smith — whose goal-hungry team has come tantalizingly close to wins over powerful Western Michigan, Minnesota and Niagara — spend any time thinking about how Canisius’ season could have been heading into the Thanksgiving holiday?<\/p>\n
In a word: no.<\/p>\n
“I like that we’ve established some chemistry,” Smith said. “I like that we’ve established a vision. Now, it’s just repeating that over and over and over. I think that we have 22 league games left. We just have to keep improving.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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