Buffalo, N.Y. -- The Robert Morris University men's hockey team won its' second straight Atlantic Hockey conference regular season championship, securing two league points to take the title with a 6-3 victory over Canisius Friday night.
Fitting that on a night the Robert Morris won the regular season crown, the pair of Colonials at the top of the conference scoring charts posted three point nights.
Greg Gibson extended his Atlantic Hockey goals lead with two goals and an assist, bringing his season goals total to 25 and his points total to 44, second in the conference only to
Zac Lynch. Gibson is third in the nation in goal-scoring and sixth in the national point race.
Lynch netted a goal and two assists in the first two periods of play, bringing his season total to 46 points, tied for fourth in NCAA hockey with Chicago Blackhawks draft pick, Michigan forward Tyler Motte. Lynch is 8 points back of the national goals lead, held by Motte's Michigan teammate Kyle Connor, a Winnipeg Jets first round pick. Lynch leads the conference in scoring and will head into Satuday's senior night with 147 points, just three points shy of tying
Cody Wydo '15 for the all-time scoring record at Robert Morris.
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Timmy Moore starting things off right for the Colonials, popping home his third goal of the season just 2:03 into the game, with assists by
Brady Ferguson and
Chase Golightly. Canisius tied things up two minutes and thirty-two seconds later and pulled ahead 2-1 at the 14:20 mark of the first, both power play goals. Gibson found the equalizer 41 seconds later off assists by Lynch and
Matt Cope.
Tied at two to start the second period, Jimmy Mazza put the Griffins back on top 3-2. But that's where the scoring stopped for Canisius.
And that's when the Colonials power play came to life.
Lynch and Cope picking up the helpers again, but this time it was freshman defenseman
Eric Israel who fired home his first career goal to tie things up at three. Israel nabbed another point with an assist on Gibson's second goal of the game, to run his season point total to nine (1G, 8A).
Lynch recorded a point on three consecutive RMU scoring plays, cashing in with his 22nd goal of the season, assisted by
Tyson Wilson and Gibson. Wilson picked up his second dime of the night with his defensive partner Israel on Gibson's power play goal 6:50 into the third period. Wilson (2-21-23) leads the conference in scoring by a defenseman and Golightly (4-18-22) is just one point back of the Colonials captain.
The final goal of the game came from
David Friedmann, picking up his 30th point of the season with his seventh goal of the year. Friedmann now the fourth Colonials player surpassing the 30-point mark this season, along with Lynch, Gibson and
Brandon Denham who assisted on Friedmann's goal along with
Alex Bontje.
Terry Shafer stopped 30 shots to pick up his 15th win of the season, a personal-best for Shafer and he is now tied with Brooks Ostergard '12 for second all-time in wins at RMU is 39 wins. Shafer needs just three wins to tie Christian Boucher '08 for most wins in Colonials history with 42. Shafer is the only goaltender of that trio who will leave Robert Morris with a winning record in net. (Shafer 39-28-11, Ostergard 39-41-12, Boucher 42-59-12).
"I'm very proud of and happy for our guys," said Head Coach
Derek Schooley. "As preseason favorites, we got everyone's 'A' game and won the marathon."
"We need to honor our seniors with a great performance on senior night and put us in a confident state of mind heading into the playoffs."
Appropriately, seven of the Colonials nine seniors registered a point in the conference-clinching win at Canisius. Senior night awaits Robert Morris back home at 84 Lumber Arena in Pittsburgh, Saturday night with a pregame ceremony at 6:45pm, prior to the 7:05pm puck drop.
Champs.
A photo posted by Robert Morris Men's Hockey (@rmumhockey) on
