WEST POINT, N.Y. – The Niagara men’s hockey team swept the Army Black Knights on Saturday evening as the Purple Eagles remain undefeated in conference play and extend its unbeaten streak to seven games.
The unbeaten streak is currently tied for the longest in the nation, as Boston College and Union have also each gone seven games without a loss.
The Purple Eagles (6-2-3; 5-0-0) had several players earn multiple-point nights with Mike Benedict leading the way with two scores, while Kevin Ryan and Hugo Turcotte each had a two-point night with a pair of helpers each.
Goaltender Carsen Chubak wrapped up the night with 30 saves and found himself in the Niagara history books, as the junior keeper now holds the record for most consecutive shutout minutes with 258.32. Chubak took the top spot from Greg Gardner (’00) who held the record with 232.38 minutes. Chubak is also now tied for third in the NCAA history with three consecutive shutouts, in the company of goalies such as Jimmy Howard and Ryan Miller.
It was a very good effort from our guys from start to finish,” head coach David Burkholder said. “Once again we got some timely goals to give us a little breathing room and we had another solid game from our defense. I thought we got stronger as the game wore on especially in the second period when we controlled play and capitalizing on our chances.”
The Purple Eagles took advantage of a powerplay opportunity after Jon Bobb was called for cross-checking a little over five minutes played in the game. Ryan took a low slapshot from the top of the slot into traffic, and had it tipped in by Ryan Murphy to the bottom left corner of Army (2-5-1; 2-2-1 AHA) goaltender Rob Tadazak to grab the 1-0 lead off a powerplay marker with 12:51 on the clock.
With less than seven minutes remaining in the opening period, Benedict supplied the second NU goal for his career-high third tally of the season. Ryan Rashid took a high-rising shot from the right circle that was blocked by an Army defenseman. The rebound dropped in front of Benedict who swatted it home for the two-goal cushion headed into intermission.
Despite being down by two, Army outshot Niagara by a 14-11 margin.
The Purple Eagle offense continued its dominance in the second period, outshooting the Black Knights 11-6. Benedict and Turcotte paired up for NU’s third goal of the game less than three minutes played. The play started with Ryan as the defender cleared the puck along the left boards that was picked up by Turcotte. The freshman lofted the puck on Tadazak who could not handle the rebound, and Benedict up the loose puck and took a wrap-around shot that sneaked in stick-side of Tadazak. The helper from was Turcotte was his first career-point as a Purple Eagle.
The final period saw Jeff Hannan tally his third goal of the season to extend his point-streak to three games (1-4-5) at the 6:20 mark off assists from Turcotte and Isaac Kohls.
A little more than a minute later the Purple Eagles saw their shutout streak come to an end as Thane Heller lifted a backhander over the outstretched Chubak to make it a 4-1 game.
The game finished with Army outshooting Niagara by a slim 31-29 margin.
Niagara wraps up its three-game road trip with a battle against cross-town rival the Canisius Golden Griffins on Friday, Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. The Purple Eagles are then back on Monteagle Ridge for four out of the next five contests to conclude the 2012 portion of the schedule starting with Robert Morris on Saturday, Nov. 17.
