Men's Hockey starts November with trip to Bentley

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - The RIT Men's Hockey team travels to Bentley for a Friday-Saturday Atlantic Hockey America doubleheader with the Falcons. Faceoffs are set for 7:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., respectivley. 

The Tigers look to shake off a four-game slide - their longest since 2018-19 - following last Wednesday's 4-1 setback at Niagara. Bentley most recently swept a home-and-home series with Sacred Heart, earning a 4-2 home win and a 6-4 road victory last Friday and Saturday, respectively.

FOLLOW LIVE
Watch: Flohockey.tv
Local Audio: WITR 89.7 FM or FOX Sports 1280 AM
Web Audio: witr.rit.edu or foxsports1280.iheart.com
PxP/Color: Ed Trefzger, Matt Campbell
Live Stats:  http://www.bentleyfalcons.com/mhockey

TIGER REWIND
RIT is back in action following an eight-day hiatus and a 4-1 loss at Niagara two Wednesdays ago.  The Purple Eagles scored with eight minutes left in the first period and then scored twice in a seven-second span early in a three-goal second period to put the game out of reach. Junior defenseman Xavier Lapointe scored the lone Tiger goal, converting a 4-on-3 power-play opportunity with 10:37 left in the third period off assists from senior forward Tanner Andrew and sophomore forward Tyler Fukakusa. First-year goaltender Jakub Krbecek made 35 saves - his second-highest total to the 43 he stopped in the 2-1 OT setback to Bowling Green (Oct. 19) - in his fifth start of the season.

SIMON SAYS LIGHT THE LAMP
RIT junior forward Simon Isabelle leads the Tigers and is tied for second in Atlantic Hockey with five goals, and is tied for the team lead with seven points this season. He saw a team-high three-game goal scoring streak end in the Niagara loss, but is still tracking on another career year after finishing the 2023-24 campaign with 18 points, eight goals and 10 assists - all personal-bests. 

SIMON SAYS DROP THE PUCK
Isabelle also entered the week ranked fifth nationally with 105 faceoff victories and, of the 13 players that started the week with at least 90 faceoff wins, ranked first with a .629 winning percentage. Isabelle won a career-high 18-of-26 (.692) draws in the 3-2 win at Clarkson, before winning 18-of-23 (.783) faceoffs in the 2-1 Bowling Green setback. He had a streak of seven games with double-digit faceoff wins to start the season broken in the Niagara loss.

ONE GOAL BLUES
Four of the Tigers' six losses this season have been by one goal, including the first three setbacks during their current four-game slide, while Mercyhurst also tacked on an empty-net goal in its 4-2 win on Oct. 11.

FIFTY SPOT
Senior forward Tanner Andrew notched his 50th-career point in last week's game at Niagara. Tied for the team lead with seven points (3G/4A) this season, he currently leads all Tigers in career scoring with 20 goals and 30 assists the last four years. Classmate/linemate Grady Hobbs is one behind at 49 points on 26 goals and 23 assists.

HELPING HAND
Graduate student transfer Nick Cafarelli leads the Tigers with six assists and is tied for third with seven points. He notched his second career multi-assist game and first in a RIT sweater with two helpers in the 4-2 win at Mercyhurst.

SPREAD THE LOVE
Junior defenseman Xavier Lapointe became the 12th RIT player to score a goal this season and is one of 16 of the 23 total skaters on the squad with a point through eight games entering the weekend series at Bentley.

SAVINGS ACCOUNT
First-year Jakub Krbecek's finished October leading Atlantic Hockey with a .921 save percentage and 34.8 saves per game while ranking fourth with 174 saves in only five games. Stopping better than 30 shots in each of his five starts, he totaled a career-high 43 saves in the 2-1 OT loss to Bowling Green (Oct. 19) – the fifth-highest single-game total in the nation this year – and also stopped 35 shots in a 4-1 setback at Niagara (Oct. 30). Krbecek won the first of two-straight AHA Rookie of the Week honors after making 32 saves in a 3-2 win over Clarkson (Oct. 6) to win his first collegiate start.

FRONT RUNNERS
RIT's 5-4 loss to Colgate (Oct. 25) marked only the second time in 45 games the last three season the Tigers lost when building a multi-goal lead. RIT had been 41-0-2 when leading by more than one goal since letting 2-0 and 3-1 leads slip away in a 4-3 loss at Union in the 2022-23 season-opener (Oct. 1).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
RIT celebrated the 10th-anniversary of the first season of play in the Gene Polisseni Center during the Colgate games. After officially opening its doors on Sept. 18, 2014, the Tigers defeated St. Lawrence, 5-2, on Oct. 10 in their first game at the GPC.