By Kevin Oklobzija
This could have been quite the statement game for Rochester Institute of Technology.
A chance, after the unfilled promise of last season, to immediately show the college hockey world that the Tigers were again ready play giant killer.
“We wanted to do what we do, play Tiger hockey,” said junior left winger Erik Brown, who scored the second and third goals.
And for most of two periods, and even for spurts later on, they did just that.
Ah, but then it all slipped away. A 3-0 lead after 35 minutes was sliced to 3-1 before the second period ended, and then a penalty for too many men on the ice led to the game-tying goal with just 2:40 remaining in regulation.
And a 3-3 tie with the country’s 14th-ranked team, per USCHO.com, felt a whole lot like a loss.
“Yeah, it did,” RIT coach Wayne Wilson said after the annual Brick City Homecoming game drew 8,835 fans downtown to Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial.
When you tie a game you know you should have won, even when it’s a team from Hockey East, well, it’s a little tough to find positives. Plain and simple, the Tigers had the Huskies beat but let the visitors gain the tie. Their all-time record against Hockey East schools is 1-8-3. Oh, and the one win: over New Hampshire in the 2010 East Regional final.
Video courtesy of RIT Athletic Communications.
“I thought we were opportunistic for the first two periods and then we just didn’t play very smart,” Wilson said. “We just kept putting them on their power play.”
RIT survived three second-period Northeastern power plays. They even turned a Mark Logan tripping penalty into the game’s second goal. Logan stepped out of the penalty box just as the puck arrived at center and he raced in on a breakaway, with Brown scoring on the rebound.
But the fourth of four third-period Northeastern power plays led to the tying goal by Dylan Sikura, with fewer than three minutes to play. It was Sikura’s ninth of what would end up being a game-high 10 shots on goal.
Talk about deflating.
“You keep giving the opportunity, they’re that good, they’re going to break through,” Wilson said.
Last weekend, Northeastern won their first two games of the season, piling up 14 goals in the sweep of another Atlantic Hockey opponent, Sacred Heart.
The Huskies’ game-night roster on Saturday included six NHL draft picks, including freshman goalie Cayden Primeau (seventh round by the Montreal Canadiens in 2017). He’s the son of long-time NHLer Keith Primeau and the nephew of former Sabres and Amerks forward Wayne.
Sikura was a sixth-round pick by the Chicago Blackhaws in 2014. Adam Gaudette, his center, was selected in the fifth round by the Vancouver Canucks in 2015. Nolan Stevens, a strong-on-the-puck left winger, was a fifth-round pick of the St. Louis Blues in 2016. He’s the son of Los Angeles Kings coach John Stevens.
And the Tigers? Defenseman Adam Brubacher participated in the Canucks prospect camp in July. Defenseman Matt Abt attended the Toronto Maple Leafs prospect camp in 2016. In the history of Division I play at RIT, the Tigers have only had one draft pick on their roster.
So when you compare how the hockey world views the talent, well, this 3-3 tie maybe wasn’t so bad. Especially considering how well freshman goalie Logan Drackett played. He faced 44 shots and stopped 41. It was an impressive debut for the Calgary, Alberta, native.
“I’d like to make more saves and win the game,” Drackett said afterward.
Wilson opted to start the freshman instead of returning junior Christian Short. Why?
“I don’t know why I did,” Wilson said, “because I thought Christian had a really strong camp too. But I guess I wanted to see what he (Drackett) would do in this environment.”
All he did was make those 41 saves, including 23 on shots by NHL draft picks.
Maybe they did make a statement after all.
History of the RIT Brick City game
2007 Cornell, 4-1 win
2008 St. Lawrence, 2-1 loss
2009 Colgate, 3-2 loss
2010 UMass-Lowell, 4-4 tie
2011 St. Lawrence, 6-5 win
2012 Penn State, 3-2 loss
2013 Michigan, 7-4 loss
2014 Boston College, 6-2 loss
2015 Bowling Green, 2-2 tie
2016 UConn, 1-1 tie
2017 Northeastern, 3-3 tie
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