Rollercoaster ride moves on Men's hockey win, lose and tie over break

Author: Jason lockhart

The men's ice hockey team looked as if they were ready to climb out of their rut after starting a three game winning streak against the likes of Plattsburgh, St. Anselm and New England, all of which are quality opponents. However, since then, the Panthers have continued to hit a few more snags in the road, following up their winning streak with a tie and a loss in the past four games.

The Panthers struggled to earn three points at home just as February Break started. On Friday they could not get the much needed the timely goal, earning a tie against a highly skilled Babson squad 1-1. Saturday they were able to muster enough goals to get a close victory over lowly U-Mass Boston by the score of 2-1.

This past weekend the Panthers traveled to NESCAC foes Amherst and Hamilton. There they squeaked out a victory against Amherst 3-2, but fell to Hamilton by the same score on Saturday.

The key component to the Panthers sudden drop in consistency is the lack of goal scoring. Since a 7-0 win over Tufts on Jan. 8, the Panthers have failed to score more than four goals in a game. Prior to the three game slide against Bowdoin, Colby and Williams the Panthers were scoring on average five goals per game. Since then, the Panthers have scored only 2.4 goals per game.

"We do not have one guy that will always get the goal every night," admitted Darwin Hunt '07. "Every game there will be a different hero. As a team we are starting to understand that we can not wait around for someone else to do it for us.

The Panthers have had to rely more heavily than usual on the goaltending tandem of Yen-I Chen '06 and Ross Cherry '08. "Both Chen and Cherry have been playing well, and they will continue to be a big factor in our success," said Mickey Gilchrist '08.

The Panthers have recently struggled to put teams away, a departure from how they did earlier in the season. They have allowed teams to get back into the game during the late stages of the third period

In the U-Mass Boston game, the Panthers were clinging to a 2-0 lead until halfway through the third when they gave up a power play goal to the Beacons. Luckily, Middlebury was able to hang on for the win.

The following weekend saw a similar situation with the Panthers taking a quick 3-0 lead against Amherst, only to see it cut to one near the end of the game.

The Panthers recent tendencies of giving up late goals finally caught up to them on Saturday as the Panthers allowed a late third period goal against Hamilton, dropping the team's record to 14-4-2.

"We have been completely outplaying teams for 40 of 60 minutes," said Hunt. "To be successful we have to get to the point where we are playing a full three periods of our best hockey.

The Panthers are certainly not out of the running by any stretch, tied for second in the NESCAC standings. Goaltender Chen still has confidence the team can go far, stating, "Championship teams are made during these times and we need to approach this situation as a challenge. I think that this experience will help us build the necessary character that will enable us to have success down the stretch."