Photo Credit: Kelsey Lee-Violet Turtle Photography

The Good

The Yellow Jackets had their chances in this one early on. They were able to score first on a nice setup by Julius Janhonen to Chris Dodero in front of AIC’s net. Early on, up until that goal, AIC was getting more chances and was playing well for playing their first game against a team who is playing its third game of the season. The effort was there last night.

Things to work on

After that point, Head Coach Eric Lang did not have a lot to like. Whether it was questionable goals allowed or poor spacing, AIC gave the Friars a whole state’s worth of time and space throughout the rest of the game. Doing that against a veteran group with similar skills to the national champions in front of the net is a recipe for a bad time. Adding countless trips to the box as makeup penalties for getting beat and not killing those penalties only added to the woes of AIC last night.

Now what

Now, Lang’s group has little time to prepare before facing the Minutemen of UMASS-Amherst. That team is lead by Greg Carvel. He, like Lang values perfection and is a coach always working on building the team and the culture of a group dedicated to being elite on and off the ice. Lang said the Providence team his group just lost to is a more veteran version of Carvel’s group.

For AIC to have more success, they need to win a few of their non conference games , if they want a chance at an out large spot. To do all of that, they have to tighten things up in their own end. They have the skill to compete with anyone in this game, but as the UND game taught them last year, and as the Friars did last nights, their margin for error against this type of team is basically zero.

With that said, if players like Janhonen can keep elevating their games, all options are in play for Lang’s group of elite humans. If they play like they did after going up 1-0 throughout the rest of the game against the Minutemen, well another two evenings of bad time could be in store.

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