Erie, Pa.—The Mercyhurst Men's hockey team plays their third Atlantic Hockey series of the year as they host the Sacred Heart Pioneers.
The Matchup
Sacred Heart and Mercyhurst have played 58 times since 1999, the Lakers have a record of 27-26-5. Mercyhurst and the Pioneers last played on Jan. 11, 2020 with Sacred Heart winning 9-3, the night prior the Lakers fell 3-1. Before 2020, the Lakers had beaten the Pioneers four straight times.
So Far This Season
The Lakers opened their season on the road facing No. 4 Minnesota, Mercyhurst scored seven goals as they fell in both games to the Golden Gophers.
Mercyhurst then came home for their first home series, they welcomed Holy Cross for an Atlantic Hockey series. In the first game, Carson Briere scored four goals while the two teams tied. The Lakers went on to take the extra point in the shootout win.
The next day the Lakers had five different goal scorers as Mercyhurst downed the Crusaders by a score of 5-2.
In their first Atlantic Hockey road series against RIT the Lakers earned one point in a shootout loss on Friday night. Josh McDougall, Paul Maust, and Austin Heidemann scored for the Lakers while five other Lakers recorded points.
On Saturday, Dante Sheriff scored the lone goal for the Lakers as they fell 3-1 to the Tigers. Kyle McClellan made a season high 33 saves in the losing effort.
Don't Be Sad It Ended, Be Happy It Happened
Briere started the season on a five-game point streak, on Saturday it ended. In the first five games of the season Briere has scored seven goals while also adding two assists. The reigning Atlantic Hockey Player of the Week is fourth in the NCAA in goals per game while being tied for third in goals.
He also leads the AHA in points and goals and is tied for the lead in power-play goals and points per game.
Battle on Special Teams
The Lakers have the 13th best power-play in the nation and have scored six times on the man-advantage. Sacred Heart is 48th in the country as they have scored just twice on 24 attempts.
Mercyhurst is has killed off 12-21 power plays this season while Sacred Heart's penalty kill has successfully killed off 73.9% of penalties.
Scouting Sacred Heart
The Pioneers have started their season 3-4-1 and 1-1-0 in conference play. Sacred Heart started their season with back-to-back losses to Connecticut and Merrimack before defeating Boston University on Oct. 15. In their first AHA weekend last Friday and Saturday the Pioneers split the two game series with Niagara. The Purple Eagles took game one 4-1, Sacred Heart bounced back in game two winning by a score of 3-1. Austin Magera leads the Pioneers with eight points while Braeden Tuck has the most goals (4) for Sacred Heart. Both Josh Benson and Justin Robbins have seen time in the net with Robbins playing majority of the minutes. Robbins has a 2.26 goals against average and a .922 save percentage in eight games played.
Up Next
The Lakers close out their season series with Holy Cross as they head to Worcester for a two game series with the Crusaders.
