NIAGARA UNIV., N.Y. After a weekend off the American International College men's ice hockey team looks to get back on the positive side with a pair of games against the Niagara University Purple Eagles.
AIC comes into the contest with a 1-10-0 record on the season and a 1-5-0 mark in Atlantic Hockey action while Niagara is still searching for their first victory of 2015-16 as they sit at 0-6-2 and 0-1-1 in the conference.
LAST TIME THEY MET: AIC swept Niagara in a pair of contests last season with 3-1 and 4-2 victories at Dwyer Arena. Murray made 40+ saves each night as part of the sweep with junior Austin Orszulak scoring a pair of goals and adding one assist while Alexander MacMillan '15 had three goals in the weekend set.
ALL-TIME SERIES: One of the youngest series for AIC, only dating back to 2010-11, the Jackets are 3-6 versus the Purple Eagles. Niagara joined Atlantic Hockey at the start of the 2010-11 season after leaving the CHA.
GOING STREAKING: Freshman center Shawn McBride is hitting his stride during his rookie campaign and is currently riding a seven game point streak dating back to the series finale against Penn State. McBride has earned an Atlantic Hockey Rookie of the Week distinction and scored four goals with four assists over this stretch. He currently leads the team with nine points which ranks him tied-second in the conference for freshman scoring.
ABOUT THE PURPLE EAGLES: Niagara is being outscored 35-14 so far this season as their leading goal-scorer has just two goals. Senior Dan Kolenda, sophomore Derian Plouffe and freshman Nick Farmer all share that distinction while junior Vinny Muto leads the team with five points all coming off assists. Kolenda, Farmer and freshman Ryan Kuhn follow with four points each. The Purple Eagles are young between the pipes featuring a pair of freshman who have split time with Guillaume Therien seeing the bulk of the work posting a 0-6-1 record with an .884 save percentage and a 4.76 goals against average. Niagara is last in the conference in power-play percentage scoring just twice in 24 chances (8.3%) while their PK is slightly better than AIC standing tenth in the league at 67.6%.
CRUICIAL STRETCH: As has long been the case in recent years the Atlantic Hockey Conference standings seem to bunch up around the middle through the end which means things could quickly change over the course of a weekend. AIC currently sits tied-ninth with two points, but with Holy Cross and RIT idle this weekend and Bentley playing non-conference games, the Jackets could jump to as high as fourth in the conference with a sweep of the Purple Eagles and a victory over Holy Cross on Tuesday. Army, Canisius and Air Force who are also above AIC in the standings will play weekend sets with the conference leaders of Mercyhurst, Bobby Mo and Sacred Heart and depending how the weekend points shake down the standings could look a lot different come next weekend.
AIC has a quick turn-around as they will travel to Holy Cross on Tuesday for a 7:05 p.m. affair before taking a break for Thanksgiving.
