Despite outshooting Bentley 51-11 and getting two third period goals, it was not enough, as the Falcons received a hat-trick from Andrew Gladiuk en route to a 3-2 win over Northeastern Friday night at Matthews Arena.
Bentley (1-2) goalie Jayson Argue made 49 saves on the night, while Huskies (1-1) netminder Derick Roy saved just 8 shots in the contest.
“Obviously goaltending and special teams wins games, and I thought we did a good job in both of those departments,” said Bentley coach Ryan Soderquist. “That was a special effort by Jayson Argue tonight, you’ve got to give him credit, that was a special effort.
“Northeastern, it wasn’t the fact that they weren’t putting the puck in areas to score, he (Argue) just made some phenomenal saves. That will definitely go down in history as one of the best goaltending performances we’ve seen here at this program.”
Despite Northeastern holding a 20-1 edge in the shot department, it was the second of Bentley’s shots, with just five seconds left in the first period, which produced the first score of the game.
On a face-off win in their own offensive zone, Kyle Schmidt put a shot on net that was blocked down in front, but unfortunately for the Huskies, floated right to the trailing stick of Gladiuk, who was able to easily soar the rebound over Roy’s left shoulder for the early lead.
The second period was more of the same, with the Huskies spending a majority of the period in their own offensive zone peppering Argue with shots, but yet again the only goal of the period came via Gladiuk, this time on a power play.
Passing across the blue line, Matt Blomquist found Tanner Jago, who skated toward the slot before rifling a cross-ice pass to a wide-open Gladiuk, who beat Roy glove side for his second of the night.
Already down 2-0 at that point, Nolan Stevens, showing some frustration at the Huskies’ lack of scoring despite dominating the tempo of the game, took a slashing call with just six seconds remaining in the period, a penalty that came back to bite the Huskies.
“As far as our play was concerned, this is a 60-minute game, and we’ve talked about that all year long,” said Huskies coach Jim Madigan. “From last year and carrying over into this year, we’ve talked about discipline and you can’t give a team, when you have them on the ropes, opportunities, and that’s what we did.”
Carrying the man-advantage over into the third period, Gladiuk got the Falcons rolling right where they left off, completing the hat trick just 49 seconds into the frame.
Blomquist, skating along the right side of the ice, caught Roy struggling to track the puck and hit Gladiuk with a pass at the left faceoff dot with a wide-open net to shoot at.
Still firing shots at Argue from all directions, it finally paid off for Northeastern when the Huskies netted their first of the night on a power play 4:39 into the third.
Sitting on the goal line, Zach Aston-Reese received a pass from Kevin Roy and proceeded to backhand it to defenseman Colton Saucerman, who was all alone on the weak side to tap it in and cut the deficit to two.
Despite numerous odd-man rushes to the net, and an overwhelming majority of the time spent in the offensive zone, it took Northeastern over 11 minutes to get it within one.
A heads-up play by Aston-Reese found John Stevens all alone in the high slot, who then fired a rocket on net that sent the “Dog House” into a frenzy, but proved to be too little, too late.
A furious rally, most notably a Garret Cockerill one-timer that rang off the post, served as several breathtaking moments for Huskies fans, but Argue stood strong, preserving the win.
“We can look at the shots and feel good about the fact that we outshot them 51-11,” said Madigan. “But this game isn’t measured by shots, it’s measured by who has the most goals at the end of the game. I thought our kids were ready to start and play the game, and we had a game plan going in, we executed some of it and we couldn’t finish at the net. At the end of the day, they finished at the net and we didn’t.”
