One and three are two prime numbers Air Force’s hockey team could do without right now.

One as in one power-play goal on 34 chances in the Falcons’ first eight games. Three is the percent of the time Air Force has converted with a man advantage. Four of the 60 Division I teams have not scored a power-play goal (including Atlantic Hockey rival Niagara), but two of those have played two or fewer games.

As it is, the Falcons have just 12 goals total thus far, and four of those came in the team’s first win, 4-3, at Sacred Heart last Saturday afternoon.

“We’re offensively challenged, period,” coach Frank Serratore said. “Our even-strength production for two years (just 47 goals there last season) hasn’t been good.

“Last season we finished third (in Atlantic Hockey) – which is a miracle – despite being last in goal scoring.”

Keep in mind that the Falcons had 31 power-play goals among their 90 tallies last season and converted almost 21 percent of their chances up a man. Even with the departures of four of last season’s top five scorers, it’s not as if the current roster can’t score. So what will it take to snap out of the funk this Friday and Saturday when the Falcons play host to Bentley?

Draw, pardner

A starting point is the starting point: face-offs.

“The issue for us has been face-offs,” senior center Brady Tomlak said. “Those are huge, that’s free possession. If you win that, get the tap, that’s probably a minute of possession in their zone.

“We haven’t been good on those, which I take some responsibility for. Our breakout has to be better. When they clear it out, we have to do a better job getting it back in, getting set up. We’re getting bad releases or getting outworked. Every time they clear the puck we can lose 30, 40 seconds.”

Junior defenseman Zach Mirageas, like Tomlak a power-play mainstay, said that is one area the Falcons are incrementally improving in.

“Face-offs are probably the most important thing aside from scoring and giving the team energy,” Mirageas said. “If you don’t win that, there goes 30 seconds or more. Last weekend, Tommer and others won more, which has increased our in-zone time.”

Getting to know you

Much of last season’s top power-play unit graduated. So not only are there new players involved in both units, but they’re playing with new combinations of teammates.

“The first couple years I was here we had an OK power play, 13, 14 percent. Last year we were better, up around 21,” Tomlak said. “We had a great top unit that spent a lot of time playing together and knew each other’s tendencies. So I think as the season goes on you’ll see our unit start to develop a little more chemistry.”

Just as it is with line combinations, sometimes finding “it” takes time on the power play.

“It’s not that you can’t put good combinations together,” Serratore said. “It’s just finding them.”

Back to basics

It’s a rallying cry of every hockey crowd: “Shoot … The … Puck!”

“What do you do? Generate shots!” Serratore said. “I’m a no-frills guy. Move pucks to the point, bomb shots – that’s what I’m pushing. Getting cuter is not the answer.”

Tomlak agreed, Atlantic Hockey isn’t about to stage beauty contests.

“We’re not going to out-pretty teams, but we can work hard, we can make good plays when they’re there,” the assistant captain said.

Strategically, there are some things the Falcons need to be more cognizant of as well, Tomlak added.

“When you get to the college level, if you’re not moving (the opposing goalie) East-West or if you don’t have guys in front, it’s going to be tough to pick a corner and score on any of these guys,” he said. “You have the shooter, does he have open looks, is he trying to pick a corner? Or is he trying to get the puck to the net and create a rebound?

“We need to get it off our tape a leader quicker, get it to the net, not so much going for a target. Put it off a pad, off a blocker, maybe a stick off to the side. We’ve got to get more guys to the front of the net. Even when we played RIT, we had a lot of opportunities but we needed more guys at the net.”

In fairness, there have been some near misses – Shawn Knowlton hit posts vs. RIT and Matt Pulver‘s go-ahead goal in the second period in Saturday’s win came just a couple seconds after a power play expired.

There are some rays of hope.

“Since the beginning of the year, that aspect of our power play has gotten better every week,” Mirageas said. “We’ve had some near misses. … It’s not like we aren’t getting Grade A chances because we are. They’re just not going in the net for us.

“This past two weekends we’ve done a much better job.”

Stay aggressive

Mirageas added that even if the Falcons don’t score on a power play, there can be some fringe benefits that can lead to goals later on.

“If you can’t score, you’ve got to find a way to ignite the bench, give the rest of the team energy to follow up at even strength,” he said. “Find a way to not demoralize the team. Whether it’s a shot, getting a rebound and knocking a body off the puck to keep it in the zone.”

And it’s important to stay in attack mode.

“People think because you’re up 5 on 4 that it’s easy to get to pucks on rebounds or win battles, but I would argue that it may be harder because the team with four is going to try harder to get the puck out of the zone,” Mirageas said. “That was one of the things that hurt our power play at the beginning of the year.

“Now we have the mindset of get pucks through. If there’s a rebound, win the one-on-one battle so we can stay in the zone. If we battle harder there is no reason the puck won’t start going in.”

©First Line Editorial 2019