By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
So that year of rebuilding for Rochester Institute of Technology’s men’s hockey team that everyone expected?
Turns out it was a week, not a year.
At least that’s how it seems after the Tigers on Saturday evening completed a weekend sweep of winless Mercyhurst at the Gene Polisseni Center and improved to 7-2.
Christian Catalano, Simon Isabelle and Zach Wigle scored goals and goalie Jakub Krbecek was terrific in goal with 33 saves in a hang-on-for-dear-life 3-2 victory.
A masterpiece? Not even close. As coach Matt Thomas said, it was more like the sketch you crumple up and throw away before anyone can see it.
But maybe that’s the sign that this is no mirage, that after that horrendous 10-23-2 season a year ago, the Tigers are again an Atlantic Hockey championship contender. A good sign in that you feel good about yourselves, you know you’re playing a lesser opponent, you perhaps think it will be easy and then, after the dogfight, you still manage to find a way to win.
“We’re excited right now,” said Catalano, the junior winger who shares the team scoring lead with Isabelle. “We keep on winning, we keeping on doing the right things.”
The Tigers have now won seven straight, their longest regular-season winning streak since October and November of 2022. Only one other team in NCAA Division I hockey is on a similar streak, powerhouse Michigan State.
At 7-2, they’ve also matched the best start in the 21 years of D-I hockey on the Henrietta campus.
So just what is going on here?
“I think we’re just playing the right way,” Isabelle said.
The results say that’s very true. The Tigers have allowed just 11 goals over the past seven games and have not been outscored in any of those 21 periods.
“We’re figuring out who can step up, we’re figuring out who we can lean on,” Thomas said.
Krbecek is one of those pillars. The sophomore from the Czech Republic has been in goal for each of the victories. He has a 1.43 goals-against average and .946 save percentage.
While Thomas and the coaching staff expected to be rotating, or at least giving Trent Burnham and Collin Mackenzie a longer look (their only action came in a 6-1 loss to Sacred Heart in the second game of the season), the crease has belonged to Krbecek.
“We went into the season believing we would give everyone opportunity, because they deserve it,” Thomas said. “But right now, if the roles were reversed for the other goaltenders, they’d say you have to play him (Krbececk).
“There’s no reason to take him out right now. That’s the right decision for the team.”
While the Tigers may have expected an easier test on Saturday, Mercyhurst (0-11) was determined to end its losing streak. Catalano provided a 1-0 lead 6:32 into the game with his fourth goal of the season but the Lakers retaliated just 26 seconds later.
The score didn’t change until 16:23 of the second period, when Isabelle redirected a Crossley Stewart point shot past goalie Charles-Edward Gravel
The goal came off quick transition, following a hit by defenseman Ben Roger deep in the RIT zone that separated Mercyhurst winger Christian Kocsis from the puck.
“We tell our D-men all the time, ‘End it so you don’t have to defend it,’ ” Thomas said. “You end it, you send it. It allows you to transition quickly.”
The Tigers gained a little cushion just 21 seconds into the third period when Wigle, the freshman center who played major junior in the Ontario Hockey League last season, scored his third goal.
William Moore’s wraparound try was thwarted by Gravel but the rebound caromed straight out into the slot and Wigle shoveled it home.
“Those goals are huge,” Catalano said. “They set the pace, they set the tone for the third period.”
The Lakers sliced the RIT lead to 3-2 with 5:52 remaining, and the remainder of the third period was mostly survival of the fittest. Krbecek made three big-time saves to preserve the lead and the Tigers withstood around 90 seconds of extra-attacker pressure.
“Moments like that just make you stronger as a team,” Isabelle said.
Thomas agreed. “Learning how to defend the 6-on-5, I think it’s a skill,” he said. “It’s a really important part of the game to get good at.”
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