In what could be a costly loss to the conference’s ninth-place team, the Canisius College hockey team fell to Army, 2-1, on Friday night at HARBORCENTER to drop to fourth in the Atlantic Hockey standings. The Griffs are now 12-10-7 on the season and 11-6-6 in Atlantic hockey play, while the Black Knights improve to 7-18-2 and 7-14-2 against league foes.
“Simply put, Army beat us tonight in our own building,” said Canisius head coach Dave Smith. “We didn’t do the extra things necessary to play the game we are capable of. We needed to push through in a number of areas to be our most successful and we didn’t do that tonight.”
Sophomore Shane Conacher (Burlington, Ontario) scored the lone goal for the Griffs in the losing effort, while senior Keegan Asmundson (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) recorded 24 saves to anchor the defense.
After a scoreless first period, it was the Griffs who struck first in the contest thanks to Conacher’s eighth goal of the season. The sophomore gathered a loose puck on the power play in the neutral zone, skated into the zone and then sent a wrist shot into the net from the right face-off circle, beating the Army netminder stick side. Seniors Cody Freeman (Toronto, Ontario) and Tyler Wiseman (Burlington, Ontario) registered the assist on the extra-man goal 3:38 into the period.
Army, however, wasted no time in pulling even. Just 10 seconds following the Griffs tally, The Black Knights won an offensive zone faceoff and Mike Preston fired the puck in from the blue line to square the contest at one.
Ultimately, it was a too many men on the ice penalty that did the Griffs in as Army scored a power-play goal with 12:26 remaining in the contest. C.J. Reuschlein won a battle in the corner, skated in front of the net and back-handed a shot that rang off the post and into the net for the game-winning tally.
Canisius was unable to find the equalizing tally in the final 12-plus minutes as Army earned its second win in three tries against the Griffs this season.
The Black Knights finished the game with a slight edge in shots, 26-25. Both teams converted once on the power play in three chances for Army and two for Canisius.
Buffalo native Parker Gehagen recorded 24 saves to earn the win between the pipes for the Black Knights.
The schools complete the season series tomorrow night with a 7:35 p.m. faceoff at HARBORCENTER.
Game Notes: The Griffs lost for the first time this season when tied or ahead at the second intermission … Canisius was one of three schools in the country to have not lost when at least even through 40 minutes and now falls to 11-1-2 on the season … The loss ended a six-game unbeaten streak at HARBORCENTER for the Griffs … After a seven-game unbeaten streak overall, Canisius is now winless in its last three contests … The all-time series between the two schools is now deadlocked at 22-22-4.
