Army West Point Athletics
Army West Point
4-10-2, 4-8-2
Bentley
6-8-1, 4-4-1
Hockey Holds Off Bentley, 2-1
November 29, 2014 | Hockey
WATERTOWN, Mass. – Junior Luke Jenkins scored his first of the season and sophomore Parker Gahagen turned aside 15 Bentley shots in the third period as the Army hockey team halted a four-game skid with a 2-1 win over the Falcons on Saturday.
Army (4-10-2, 4-8-2 AHA) saw Jenkins and Tyler Pham each tally goals, while senior Zak Zaremba posted a multi-point game with a pair of assists. Gahagen stopped 34 shots from Bentley to earn his fourth win of the season.
“Jenkins came in for Ryan Nick, who was out with an illness, and he had a great weekend for us,” said head coach Brian Riley. “I have felt all along that our team has depth and obviously he was a difference maker tonight.”
Bentley (6-8-1, 4-41 AHA) got its lone goal from Alex Kubiak with assists to Billy Eiserman and Brett Switzer. Jayson Argue earned the start in net for the second-straight night and saved 27-of-29 shots in the loss.
Pham gave the Black Knights the first lead of the game with 11:05 left in the first period. Army disrupted a neutral zone break out from the Falcons and Josh Richards was able to get the puck to Zak Zaremba. The senior broke into the zone and dropped a pass back to Pham and he let a laser loose. The shot went to the short side on Argue for the 1-0 advantage. It was Pham’s team-leading sixth goal of the season.
Bentley evened the score with Kubiak jamming home a loose puck. A shot from Eiserman that looked to have hit Gahagen, but the netminder couldn’t locate the puck. It happened to be to his right and Kubiak was there for the rebound to tie the game at 1-1 with 5:47 left in the first frame.
The Black Knights regained the lead with Jenkins scoring his first of the year with a blast from the outside. He was setup by Zaremba and let one rip from the left point. Conor Andrle was providing a screen in front of Argue and the netminder couldn’t see the shot as the puck ended up in the back of the net for a 2-1 lead going into the third period. Both Zaremba and Andrle were given assists on the play.
Army had seven minutes of power play time following the Jenkins goal, but couldn’t solve Argue as the Black Knights got three shots on the netminder with the man advantage. They dominated the second period on the shot chart with a 15-8 advantage.
The third period was all about playing smart hockey for Army. The team played smart for 18 minutes of the third until the Black Knights took a penalty with less than two minutes left. Led by Gahagen, the Army penalty kill was able to deny the nation’s best power play and the Black Knights left town with the 2-1 win. Gahagen made three amazing stops during the Falcon’s man advantage to preserve the win.
“Your best penalty killer has to be the goaltender,” Riley stated. “He was that for us tonight and we had talked about playing for each other recently and you can really see that and when you have to go out and kill penalties and our guys came up huge tonight.”
Army is now 3-1 when leading after two periods this season and Riley attributes that to playing smart hockey.
“We talked about getting pucks deep when we had the chance,” Riley said. “We need to make smart changes and do all the little things.”
Army returns to Tate Rink to host Mercyhurst for two next weekend. Tickets are still available.
Ice Shavings: This was the 53rd meeting between the two teams … Army leads the series at 23-21-8 … Eight skaters are native New Englanders and many of their families were at the rink … Pham is tops on the team in goals, assists and points … Army scored first in two of the five games on the road so far this season … Jenkins became the 15th skater for the Black Knights to score a goal this season … Zaremba tied a career-high with two assists as he did it last as a rookie against RIT in 2011 ... it was his sixth multi-point game of his career as well.
