By Peter Neville, Assistant Sports Editor.
Canisius hockey concluded its winless road trip with losses of 2–1 to Clarkson and 5–2 to St. Lawrence. The Griffs will begin a seven-game homestand this weekend against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Despite the tough start to the season, Canisius head coach Trevor Large doesn’t want to adopt the mindset of chasing wins. “You know, we’re playing every game to win; we’re not looking for moral victories or gaining experience, but at the same time, we can't be so focused on a result that we’re just elated when we win and crushed when we lose.”
The story of the weekend for the Griffs was the power play. Over the two games, Canisius went zero for eight with the man advantage and averaged less than two shots per power play. Coach Large believes that this boils down to getting back to the basics on the man advantage. “We need reps on the power play, and we need to find some chemistry, so to speak. We got outworked by both Clarkson and St. Lawrence on the penalty kill, and that's not a good recipe; we need to remedy that.”
On the topic of chemistry, the Griffs are still looking for it on their top line after last weekend's games. In the first game against Clarkson, Canisius lined up with Kash Rasmussen alongside Trey Funk and Matteo Giampa. However, against St. Lawrence, Mikey Colella slotted in for Rasmussen. According to Coach Large, this was just early-season tinkering as opposed to a tactical change: “There were multiple changes in the lineup, and that's going to happen again, because we feel like there's a recipe that we just haven't figured out yet.”
Looking ahead to this weekend, Canisius finds itself playing a familiar foe as former Canisius hockey head coach and current RPI head coach Dave Smith returns to the Harbor Center for the second year in a row. Smith, who was the Canisius head coach from 2005 until 2017, is well known to Trevor Large, who was hired by Smith as an assistant in 2014. Despite generally avoiding focusing on past matchups due to the significant roster changes in college sports each year, Coach Large knows his team needs to be at its best against RPI.
“Dave Smith is an unbelievable coach,” said Large. “He understands culture, his teams play hard and their system will be very good. What I think will happen from past experiences is we’re going to need to be at a high level to compete to play against a Dave Smith team.”
The puck drops on Canisius’ homestand this Friday at 7 p.m. at the LECOM Harborcenter as the Griffs take on RPI and former head coach Dave Smith in a two-game non-conference series. RPI is 0–0–0 on the season, having not yet started its regular season schedule. In preseason play, RPI defeated nationally ranked UMass 2–1 in overtime.
Photo courtesy of C.A Hill
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