Salem State is sitting in first place in the MASCAC standings and a reason for that is that the Vikings take care of business at home at the Richard H. Rockett Arena.
In their first 10 home games of the season, the Vikings have recorded points in nine of those games with an 8-1-1 record. They have scored 34 of their 69 goals on home ice.
Things are looking bright for the Vikings with their four remaining games, with three of them being played at the Richard H. Rockett Arena – against Massachusetts-Dartmouth on Saturday, Fitchburg State on Feb. 22 and Worcester State on Feb. 25.
With MASCAC teams playing each other three times in the regular season, teams will have have two homes games against some conference opponents. Salem State played both UMass-Dartmouth and Worcester State twice at home this season.
The lone away game against Framingham State, which was scheduled for Thursday night, was postponed due to the snow storm that hammered the East Coast. No makeup date has been announced yet.
In the first meeting against the Corsairs, Salem State won in overtime 4-3 on Nov. 21. The first contest against the Lancers, they rolled to a 6-1 victory.
The leading scorers on the team have done their damage home also. Senior forward Eric Defelice has five goals and eight assists at the Rockett and overall, he leads the team with 21 points, including 10 goals.
Freshman Alex Minter has 60 percent of his goals at home. On the season, he has 10 goals and nine assists in 20 contests. Minter did get off a blistering pace to his rookie campaign with his first five markers coming in the first half of the season. He opened the first four games in the second half before finding the twine last Saturday against Westfield State.
McGilvrey leading Plymouth State’s second-half charge
Plymouth State has been MASCAC’s most consistent team in the second half the year after the Panthers found their goaltender in Gordon Ceasar who transferred from Utica.
And while he has been stopping the pucks for the Panthers, who has been putting them in the net?
It has been freshman Ian McGilvrey, who has three goals and seven assists of his 24 points in 2014.
February has been particularly good to McGilvrey, who had three-point games on Feb. 1 and Feb. 6. He has been peaking at the right time if Plymouth State wants to catch Salem State for the regular-season title.
Salem State has a 8-4-2 record in conference (18 points) and Plymouth State is 7-5-2 (16 points) inside the MASCAC.
Goal-scoring is nothing new for McGilvrey, who had a prolific junior career in the North American Hockey League and the Eastern Junior Hockey League.
In the NAHL, he had 13 goals and 17 assists in 70 games with the New Mexico Mustangs, Janesville Jets and the Corpus Christi IceRays.
In the EJHL, he lit the lamp 38 times and dished out 33 assists in two stints with the Middlesex Islanders organization (his first stint, they were known as the New England Huskies).
