Air Force played an inspired game Thursday night against an opponent that came in riding a hot streak but still walked out of Cadet Arena with its fifth consecutive loss to start the season.

If the 2-1 defeat to RIT in the teams’ Atlantic Hockey Conference opener proved anything it’s that the Falcons have virtually no margin for error right now. Goals, in particular, are at a premium, even in scenarios such as this one where Air Force carried play nearly all game.

Not only did the Falcons quadruple the Tigers’ shots on goal, 44-11, they outshot them in total by an astounding 88-31 margin.

“I thought our effort was fabulous,” Air Force coach Frank Serratore said. “Our guys have to keep their heads up. We’ve got to fight our way through this. Life is tough, life is hard.

“There’s games you tell your boys, ‘You got what you deserved.’ And then there are games you feel bad for them, and this is one of those games. They deserved a better fate. But that’s life. How are we going to respond?”

The Falcons scored one or fewer goals for the third time in five games.

Black and orange wall

RIT goaltender Logan Drackett, who entered the game with an unheard of .963 save percentage, made 43 saves. The junior has allowed just two goals on 166 shots against this season, a .987 save mark.

Drackett played well to be sure and he received some help in the form of 21 blocked shots by his teammates, but he also got acquainted with a goalie’s best friend, the iron behind him. At least three Falcons hit pipes, including Kieran Durgan and Brady Tomlak during a third-period power play.

Drackett also snuffed out breakaways by Shawn Knowlton off a nice stretch pass from Jake Levin in the second period and a rush by Max Harper in the third where the Falcon deked him twice.

Sustained effort

The Falcons didn’t let up all game, finally cashing in on their 39th shot when captain Matt Pulver beat Drackett from between the circles off a slick pass from fellow senior Tomlak, who had retrieved the puck behind the goal line.

“That’s the pride of our team, we’re not really fancy players out there, we like to grind on teams,” Pulver said. “Death by inches type of thing, keep coming, keep coming, keep coming. Brady was able to get on the forecheck and make a nice pass.”

That pulled Air Force to the final margin, but it could not tie it despite pulling goalie Zach LaRocque (nine saves) with 1:44 to play. As had been the case all game, the Falcons generated chances but couldn’t put another puck past Drackett.

“That was as well as a team could play,” Pulver said. “It’s frustrating. We played a really good game.

“If we play like that every night I think we’re going to be fine.”

Making the most of their chances

The Tigers’ winning goal came on one of their few sustained attacks. Andrew Petrucci won a battle along the left wall and got the puck to Elijah Gonsalves, who earmarked the puck over LaRocque’s left shoulder into the far upper corner.

A familiar error foiled the Falcons late in the first period. A too many men on ice penalty again bit the Falcons and led to RIT’s first-period goal.

“It’s pretty unacceptable,” Pulver said. “It was just a miscommunication on the bench. The coaches have been saying it all year, we can be shooting ourselves in the foot. Notre Dame got a few, Arizona State got a few with us shooting ourselves in the foot. We’re a young team, we’re still figuring it out.”

On the ensuing power play, junior Jake Hamacher‘s shot from the left circle was redirected by LaRocque to the right circle, where Shawn Cameron wasted no time burying it with just 1:15 to play in the period.

Cameron’s tally came on RIT’s sixth shot, by which time the Falcons already had accumulated 14 of them.

The Tigers went on to kill all three Air Force power plays, each of which was a result of the Falcons’ sustained pressure.

“There were two things that had to happen when a game is like this, one-sided territorially,” Serratore said. “Your goalie has to out-goaltend the other goaltender, and that happened, and your team has to out-special team the other team. Those things had to happen and they did happen. They found a way to win a game we territorially dominated.”

Notable

The early season lends itself to interesting statistical anomalies. For example, RIT had built its 3-1 start despite being outshot by more than 11 per game (20.75 for to 32 against). That trend continued and then some. … The teams were even on face-offs, each winning 32.

©First Line Editorial 2019