WALTHAM, Mass. – Just three games remain in the regular season and Bentley plays its final road game on Friday night against the RIT Tigers. Puck drop is set for 7:00 pm and the game can be seen on both FloHockey and NESN+
Game Notes
Entering the penultimate weekend of the regular season, the Falcons are in first place in the Atlantic Hockey standings with 50 points at 15-4-4. They lead RIT by eight points with the same amount of games played and lead Holy Cross by 11 points with one more game played.
They are closing in on clinching the #1 seed in the AHA playoffs and need just one more point to do so.
The Falcons took a big step towards that goal with Saturday's 5-1 victory over Sacred Heart at Bentley Arena. After dropping Friday's game 4-0, they responded in a big way despite falling behind 1-0, 30 seconds into the contest.
Bentley scored five unanswered goals from that point, by five different players. Goaltender
Nicholas Bevilacqua made 17 saves in the win.
Among qualified goalies, Bevilacqua leads the nation in save percentage (.940) and is second in goals against average (1.54).
RIT last played on February 10 when they defeated Niagara 2-1 at home. They are 10-3-1 at home this season.
These teams played back on November 21 in Waltham and Bentley won it, 3-2. RIT scored the game's first goal at 11:15 of the first period, but just over four minutes later
Ryan Mansfield tied it. Bentley then scored once in the second period (
Colton Cameron) and the third period (
Michael Mesic) to take a 3-1 lead before RIT scored a late goal.
Heading into this weekend's series, Bentley leads the AHA in fewest goals allowed per game at 2.39 (T-11
th nationally). They are third in the league in goals scored per game (3.06) and have the top ranked power play (21.3 %).
Bentley's penalty kill is ranked 13
th nationally (84.0 %) and fourth in the league behind Sacred Heart, Canisius and RIT.
The all-time series favors RIT 30-18-4. Bentley last visited Rochester in January of the 2023-24 season and were swept.
Next weekend, Bentley closes out the regular season at home against Air Force.
