Erie, Pa.—The Mercyhurst Men's Hockey team starts the Atlantic Hockey Quarterfinals on Friday as they travel to Buffalo to take on the Canisius Golden Griffins in a best of three series.
Let's Recap
On Friday, the Lakers won in overtime, Holy Cross had the 1-0 lead until Carson Briere scored the first Mercyhurst goal at the 3:45 mark of the third period. At the 3:57 mark of overtime Paul Maust tipped in a Garrett Dahm shot from the point. Geoff Kitt picked up an assist on Dahm's first collegiate point.
In the second game of the series, Briere opened the scoring as Austin Heidemann forced a turnover and the puck found Briere and he dangled the defender and goalie to open put the Lakers on the board. Maust scored at the 2:38 mark of the third frame after Kitt blocked a shot and got it to Maust from the break-a-way. McClellan was beaten for just the second time in the weekend to make it a 2-1 game. McClellan made 42 saves in the series clincher while the Laker defense blocked an AHA season high 34 shots.
The Matchup
The Lakers and Crusaders have played 81 times to this point including four times this season. This season the Lakers are 3-1-0 against Canisius and 38-32-11 all-time against the Griffs.
Ten Lakers scored against Canisius in the regular season including Rylee St. Onge and Geoff Kitt who both scored twice. Jonathan Bendorf, St. Onge, and Kyle Head have the three game winning goals for Mercyhurst.
11 players have multiple points for Mercyhurst vs Canisius while 19 players have tallied points this season.
Hank Johnson played the first game of the season against Canisius and made 32 saves while McClellan has played the other three games and has made 93 saves and has a .969 save percentage.
Battle of Special Teams
The Lakers have the 16th best power-play in the nation and have scored 28 times on power play
Gueorgui Feduolov, Cade Townend, and Carson Briere lead the team in power-play goals(4) while Dante Sheriff and Mickey Burns each have scored three times on the man advantage. Sheriff and Briere are tied for the most power play points (11), Sheriff also has the most power play shots this season (27).
The Canisius power play is 34th in the country and has scored 25 times on the man advantage. Their penalty kill is 44th in the nation as they have given up 32 goals on the kill this season.
Where They Rank
As a team the Lakers have scored 105 goals which is second in the conference, just five behind AIC for the AHA lead and eight more than Canisius. The Laker shooting percentage is third in the conference as they are scoring on 10.3 percent of their shots.
The Lakers are led by Carson Briere, Austin Heidemann, and Dante Sheriff who have 27, 26, and 24 points respectively. Briere has 13 goals which leads the team and is second in Atlantic Hockey.
McClellan is eighth in the nation in save percentage and 10th in total saves. He is first in saves per game, second in goals against average and tops in the conference in saves percentage.
Scouting Canisius
The Golden Griffins earned a first round bye after finishing second in the Atlantic Hockey standings despite being swept by the Lakers the final weekend of the regular season.
Keaton Mastrodonato leads the Griffs in points as he has 26 points which includes three game winning goals. Max Kouznetsov is the team leader in goals as he has scored 12 goals, five of them on the power play and two that were game winning goals.
In net, Jacob Barczewski has been the workhorse for Canisius and has played 27 games. He has a .922 save percentage and a 2.48 goals against average which is fourth in the conference.
Trevor Large is in his fourth season with the Griffs and is 6-7 in the playoffs.
Up until the last two weeks Canisius was receiving votes in the DCU/USCHO.com national poll every week since the start of the season.
Up Next
Should the Lakers defeat Canisius, Mercyhurst moves on to the AHA semifinals in Utica, N.Y.
