Throughout the 2013-14 season, Prisuta will serve up weekly stories surrounding Colonial hockey as well as the latest notes and news around college hockey.

Prisuta on Pucks: As the Season Progresses

The idea for every team every season is to get better as the season progresses.

That's a concept the Robert Morris Colonials are embracing this season.

"One of the things guys keep bringing up, every year that I've been here, at least, we've started out really well," captain Colin South pointed out. "But once playoff time comes we seem to kind of fizzle out a little bit.

"We're taking a lot of positives out of the way we're playing. We think we're going to peak at the right time here."

Last season illustrated South's point better than most.

Robert Morris went 5-1-1 in non-conference play and opened 4-3-1 in the Atlantic Hockey Association on the way to a school-record 20 victories.

The Colonials also finished the regular season on a five-game unbeaten streak (3-0-2).

But after a postseason-opening sweep of Sacred Heart the Colonials fizzled out a little bit and were swept at Connecticut in the second round of the AHA playoffs.

This season's marks of 2-8-1 overall and 2-3-1 in the AHA suggest there's room for improvement.

The Colonials have already seen such growth from goaltender Terry Shafer, among others.

They'll look for more of the same at AHA-rival Bentley (5-7-1, 4-2-1) this weekend (7:05 p.m. Friday and Saturday).

"He's given us a chance," head coach Derek Schooley assessed of Shafer. "All of our goalies every game have given us a chance to win. The one thing we lose track of is we had 180 minutes of experience in goal coming into the season in Terry. With that you're going to have some ups and downs, some bumps.

"But our goaltending has not been an issue for us."

Shafer went 1-2-0 with a 3.08 goals-against average and a .888 save percentage in 194:32 as a freshman backup in Eric Levine's record-setting season in 2012-13.

This season Shafer is 2-7-1 overall with a 3.51 g.a.a. and a .908 svpct.

In AHA play the numbers are 2-2-1, 2.40 and .926.

Shafer will get the start in net in the opener at Bentley after turning in his best back-to-back efforts of the season in RMU's split with Holy Cross on Nov. 22-23.

"He made the saves he had to make and he made the big saves we needed against Holy Cross," Schooley said. "Terry's a talented goaltender. He should have a lot more confidence in himself. He needs to keep going.

"He's built up some credit in the bank. The better he plays the more credit he builds up."

Shafer has been supported by freshmen Dalton Izyk (0-0-0, 1.68, .909 in one game) and Brandon Lane (0-1-0, 2.35, .922 in three appearances).

The inexperience in net is an unfamiliar dynamic for a Colonials program that in recent seasons had the luxury of relying upon veteran stalwarts Brooks Ostergard and Levine.

"To ask them to be on a big stage as Eric Levine was last year and steal games for us isn't realistic," Schooley said. "Brooks Ostergard didn't start a game until January of his freshman year. Eric Levine didn't have to carry the mail right off the bat. These guys had to be ready to go right off the bat.

"When you're coming in with as few minutes returning as we did you would hope as the season goes on it gets better and better."

For the goaltenders and for the Colonials.

"We've only played six league games," Schooley said. "As dire as it would appear to be at 2-8-1, and in 11th place (in the 12-team AHA), we're two points out of fourth place and four points out of second place and we have some games in hand on some teams.

"If we play as hard and as well as we played the last three games we're not going to be in that position for long."