By Brittany Burke
Back-to-back game days saw the CCSU club hockey team splitting their weekend matchups, losing at home before turning around the next night to win on the road.
Saturday night’s 7-3 win at New York University (9-2-0-0) was a redemption game for the Blue Devils (4-4-2-1) who lost at home to the Bobcats on Oct. 15. The initial matchup loss was a close game, which ended in overtime. But as CCSU took the ice at Sky Rink in New York things seemed to be different.
Even with 74 penalty minutes, the Blue Devils quickly got the early lead, burying the Bobcats 4-0 five minutes into the second period. Eight different players had a hand in the NYU defeat, and getting multiple lines rolling and productive is something that the CCSU team has been trying to do since last season.
Jon Knobloch and Ryan Stanley both had four points in the game, two goals and two assists, while Adam Mazurkiewicz, Nick Centore and Matt Siracusa all had a goal each.
Aside from the five goal scorers, three others, Conor Stanley, Adam Goldstein and Sean Stoneman each had at least one assist.
After being rested from the night before, starting goalie Greg Coco took his spot between the pipes and had 37 saves on 40 shots on goal.
The win followed a late night game at the Newington Arena, in which the Blue Devils lost to longtime Super East rivals, the Siena Saints. With John Palmieri starting in net, the Saints outshot the Blue Devils 30 to 23, with Siena (9-1-2-0) notching 2 goals against CCSU’s 1.
“[Palmieri’s] been working real hard in practice, he’s been looking real good in practice and with the history of Siena I figured it’d be good to throw a little curveball in and start somebody who has no idea what Siena’s about and maybe psychologically doesn’t buy into everything that’s been said,” Head Coach Ben Adams said.
It was CCSU who struck first, with a goal coming from C. Stanley. The Blue Devil rookie has 14 points in 11 games, and was fed the puck from older brother, Ryan, and Knobloch. With R. Stanley bringing the puck up the left side, he sent it sailing to his brother who managed to ding it in off the goal post.
“I knew [Siena was] a good team and they were going to have four lines that could play and they had quality defensemen and good goalies, and I knew it was going to be a battle and I knew we could play with them, so it was great to come out like that,” said C. Stanley.
CCSU dominated the first period of play, keeping the puck in their own attacking zone, but Siena came back out to the ice after first intermission with an additional fire that they were lacking in the opening minutes.
“They’re a team that was expected to beat us, coming into the second it was 1-0 and we were winning, so I think the coach had a few choice words in the locker room and they came out hard and you got to give them credit, but we should’ve matched their intensity and that’s on us I guess,” said R. Stanley.
A stick-side corner goal tied the game in the early minutes of the second period, but the Saints wouldn’t secure the win until the third.
After the initial Siena goal the game went back and forth, with CCSU having trouble clearing its own zone. The Blue Devils had the chance to take the lead when Siena’s Casey Hladik was sent to the box for five minutes off a hit made to R. Stanley in the CCSU attack zone.
“I think if you don’t score on a five minute, it kind of gives the team momentum that killed off the penalty because it’s huge, especially with five minutes on the powerplay, I think that could have been a turning point [for us],” said R. Stanley.
CCSU began to fight back, but couldn’t capitalize against the Siena penalty killers, and eventually ran out of time for the come-from-behind win.
The Blue Devils will remain at home for the next two weeks beginning with the Nov. 12 game against Northeastern at 10 p.m. in Newington.
