Well, this weekend could've gone better, and it also could've gone worse. We played fantastic on Friday night, from top to bottom. Pelino picked up his second career shutout and is really establishing himself as one of the better goaltenders in Atlantic Hockey. His current Sv. % is .935, which I believe is almost exactly the same as Argue had his freshman year. Speaking of Argue, he hasn't even dressed the last 4 games, which leads me to believe he's either hurt or has some sort of academic suspension. Anyways, what I've seen from Pelino is that he's more than deserving of the starting job regardless of Argue's status. Back to Friday's game... we played a full 60 minutes and never stopped playing hard. There were some times where it got pretty chippy, but we remained the bigger team that night.
Saturday night was a different story. There just seemed to be a lack of effort at some points, but credit to SHU as they played as the better team for the majority of the night. If it weren't for a very lucky short-handed empty netter by Sacred Heart (SHU defenseman threw it off the boards from behind his own net) that game would've gone to OT, and with the momentum we had at the end of that game, I think we would've won. Long story short, our defense needed to be better on both sides of the puck and some of our forwards need to put in a better effort on the back check.
Regardless, we only came away with 2 points this weekend, where 3 or 4 points would've put us in a much more favorable position heading into the final weekend. In order to get a first round bye, we need 3 points from Holy Cross, and one Mercyhurst loss to either Canisius (riding a 14 game unbeaten streak) or RIT. We could also get home ice and a first round bye if RMU manages to get swept by Niagara, but... anything can happen in Atlantic Hockey right? Looking forward to watching my final regular season series as a Bentley student at the JAR this weekend, expect a big showing from the Top Shelf and maybe even a few surprises
