The Robert Morris Colonials are the hottest team in the nation, having now won seven straight games after beating the Canisius Golden Griffins 2-1 in overtime on Friday night.
With just 30 seconds remaining in the overtime period, senior forward Jeff Jones came streaking down the left wing and dangled around a Griffins defender. He faked a shot and then found his center, Greg Gibson, streaking down the slot and hit him or a perfect one-timer that beat Canisius goaltender Keegan Asmundson and gave the Colonials two important points in the Atlantic Hockey standings.
“I tried to take it down the side,” said Jones. “The ‘D’ stepped up on me so I just made a little move there and I saw (Gibson) stop in front of the net and I just dished it back to him and he ripped it top shelf.”
The Griffins (11-5-5) are now 10 points behind the Colonials (17-3-3) in conference play with just seven games remaining in their season. It was Robert Morris’ 20th overall win of the season, tying a program high. The Colonials also clinched a first-round bye in the conference tournament, as they can now finish no worse than fifth place.
Cansisius certainly had chances to win the game, most notably when Shane Conacher got behind the Colonials’ defense in overtime and came in on a breakaway but hit the post to the right of Dalton Izyk. Izyk made 29 saves in total to earn his 11th win of the season.
“That wasn’t textbook,” coach Derek Schooley said of his team’s performance. “We found away to get the job done. We just didn’t have a consistent effort.”
Redshirt junior defenseman Tyson Wilson opened the scoring with a power play goal from Cody Wydo and Zac Lynch at 3:55 of the second period. The Colonials finished 1-for-5 on the man advantage and killed all three Griffins opportunities.
Canisius was able to tie the game 2:52 into the third perod when Ryan Schmelzer made a nifty move and Izyk had to scramble to make the save, but Ralph Cuddemi found the loose puck and tapped it in for his team-leading 17th goal of the season. Conacher had the other assist.
The Colonials high-powered offensive attack was stifled at times by the physical play and strong team defense of the Griffins. The two teams will meet again Saturday evening.
“We have to chip pucks deep and beat their defensemen,” said Gibson. “I think that we have a lot of team speed and can beat them to pucks.”
At stake for the Colonials will be at least a share of the Atlantic Hockey regular season title, which they can earn with a victory.
Photo credit: Brian Mitchell
