By: Jon Skuza
Canisius men’s hockey opened the season with a 4-1 road win against the Penn State Nittany Lions (2-1) on Friday.
"I felt coming into the weekend that we could really skate and that our work ethic was at a high level,” head coach Trevor Large told gogriffs.com after the win. “I was very pleased to see that those things were true against a quality opponent.”
After a scoreless first period, Canisius (1-0) opened up the scoring 2:50 into the second period with a goal from senior captain J.D. Pogue. Less than two minutes later, Penn State tied the game, with the lone Nittany Lion goal coming from Kevin Wall.
The game remained tied until the 9:02 mark of the third period when junior Keaton Mastrodanto scored to put the Golden Griffins up to 2-1. Over five minutes later, senior Lee Lapid added to the lead making it 3-1 Canisius. Senior captain J.D. Pogue added his second goal of the night on an empty-netter at the 16:51 mark to seal the Golden Griffins 4-1 win.
Pogue recorded three points in the win on Friday, setting a new career-high.
“J.D. was amazing tonight,” Large told gogriffs.com. “It's his first game as captain and the first game of his senior year. You got that feeling he was locked in before the game and the fact that he got three points is very deserving.”
Junior goaltender Jacob Barczewski had a fantastic night in net making a career-high 39 saves in the win on Friday. Penn State’s goaltender Oskar Autio recorded 27 saves in the loss.
Neither Penn State nor Canisius was successful in executing on the powerplay with Canisius going 0-4 and Penn State going 0-3. The Nittany Lions outshot the Golden Griffins 40-31 on Friday.
Canisius continues the series against Penn State on Saturday, October 9th at the Pegula Ice Arena. Puck drop is scheduled for 1 pm.
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