Quick Hits: Men’s hockey wins exhibition

Photo credit: Samuel Anthony

Dalton Link and Dalton Link
October 7, 2018

The RMU Colonials took on the Brock University Badgers in their lone pre-season affair. There was a lot of sloppy play between both teams which ultimately kept the game close all the way until the end. There was a grand total of 35 penalty minutes assessed between both clubs combined, but of course some time deductions as a result of some power play goals, including RMU’s own Nick Prkusic who ultimately scored the game-winning goal with just 3:30 remaining in the third period.

How did this happen?

The game started out fast and high paced for both teams in the first few minutes. First game jitters seemed to be prevalent, but the Badgers were the first team to slow down and it cost them early. The Colonials managed to do a great job preventing the offensive zone entry whether it was five-on-five, four-on-four or even five-on-four. They did a great job getting pucks to the net offensively and did a great job of preventing pucks from getting to the net defensively.

What does this mean?

It was just a preseason game, but there are a lot of areas RMU could use work on. They gave up few too many odd-man rushes while being on the power play. No goals resulted in these opportunities, but chances of winning increase without giving up those kinds of plays. This was a good game to get the jitters out for the new players and get the older players back into that real action for the first regular-season series against Bowling Green.

The Badgers

Their limited offensive attack would ultimately lead to their demise in this one. They managed to tie it up midway through the third, but only mustered a depressing 18 shots on goal through all three periods of play, while RMU managed almost triple that amount with 48. The time of possession was heavily in RMU’s favor, and the 11 fractions committed by the Badgers that resulted in 25 penalty minutes did not exactly help them.

Highlighted players

Sophomore forward Nick Prkusic scored twice in this one, with one of them being a late third-period game-winning power-play goal. Freshman forward Justin Addamo was key defensively in his backchecking ability to help disrupt a lot of the Badger’s opportunities and also added a goal in the second period and had an assist on the game-winning goal.

Crumbling Badgers

Ten power play opportunities were awarded to the Colonials, as the Badgers could not stay out of the penalty box. Too many neutral zone turnovers along with the lopsided penalty time resulted in a much greater time of possession in favor of RMU. No opportunity greater than when Ryan Burton was awarded a two-minute penalty for elbowing as well as a five-minute major towards the end of the second period which resulted in him getting disqualified for the remainder of the game. These key components led to the Badgers coming up short in this preseason contest.