Here's my recap from www.hockeyeastonline.com on this Saturday's game.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 
Lowell Grinds One Out Over Clarkson
 
Lowell junior forward Chris Bell (Chase, B.C.) scored two goals and senior
goalie Scott Fankhouser
stopped 21 of the 22 shots he faced as the Riverhawks treated the 2,563 home
crowd to a 4-1 victory
over the Golden Knights of Clarkson. The visitors came to play and
eventually outshot Lowell by a 30-21
margin but the Lowell defense, especially on the penalty-kill, held strong
and Fankhouser made the key
saves when needed. Lowell killed off all 6 Clarkson power-plays including a
5-minute minor as well as a
5-on-3 for over a minute. That gives Lowell 38 consecutive penalty-kills
which has certainly help them on
their recent four-game winning streak.
 
The hitting happened right from the start as Clarkson took the body and
Lowell’s reaction got them in
some serious penalty trouble early. With just 0:40 played, Riverhawk senior
captain Anthony Cappelletti
took a charging call as Clarkson crashed the Lowell net. Lowell held off
Clarkson’s first power-play unit
but the Golden Knights continued to press and with 0:11 seconds to go on the
penalty, another scuffle in
Lowell’s crease led to another Riverhawk defenseman in the box. This time it
was Jason Allison for
hitting-from-behind for 5 minutes as well as a game misconduct. Lowell would
have to play the rest of the
game with 5 defensemen.
 
Clarkson had some really strong bids on the ensuiing power-play but
Fankhouser was solid in net. He
also seemed charmed at times which was something that lasted all game. On
one Clarkson bid, the
puck popped straight up and came down on Fankhouser’s back but somehow
managed to roll forward so
the goalie could tie it up at his feet.
 
Lowell kept the game scoreless and didn’t muster their first shot until
11:57 when Bell made a great
move down the right side and cut in on Clarkson freshman goalie Shawn Grant
(Potsdam, NY). The play
generated into some great up and down action and Lowell would strike first
at 14:31. Freshman forward
Yorick Treille took a feed at center ice and faked a slap shot as he crossed
the blue line, then skated
wide right to beat the Clarkson defense as well as Grant with a blistering
wrist shot through the goalie’s
five hole. It was Treille’s second goal of the year.
 
Cappelletti would add his astonishing 9th goal of the year at 17:13. He
gathered a clearing attempt just
inside Clarkson’s blue line and wasted no time in rifling a shot low to the
far left which broke off the
outside of Grant’s pad. The goal was the result of the hard forechecking
work of Treille with linemates
Brad Rooney (St. Catherine’s, ONT.) and Jeffrey Boulanger (North Bay, ONT.)
with the latter two getting
assists.
 
The period ended with Lowell up 2-0 despite a Clarkson shot advantage of
13-10. The rest of the game
would be more of a grind as the hard-hitting teams kept eachother tied up.
The second period saw
Clarkson start strong only to have Fankhouser making some spectacular
saves - one on freshman Ian
Manzano (Dorval, QUE.) who had plenty of open net only to see Fankhouser
make a diving save with his
stickhand at 4:29.
 
A little while later at 5:49 Lowell would get its first power-play when
Clarkson took a holding call as
Lowell tied the puck up along the boards in the Clarkson zone. One minute
into the power-play,
Cappelletti took a shot from the point with forwards Bell and linemate John
Campbell (Westboro,Mass.)
on the doorstep. Campbell inadvertently kicked the puck over to Bell who had
a wide open net only two
feet away for his 11th goal of the year.
 
Lowell enjoyed the three goal lead for a while even though Clarkson had a
few more power-plays.
Eventually, during some 4-on-4 play, Clarkson got on the board at 14:46. A
Lowell turnover set up Matt
Poapst (Monkland, ONT.) high in the slot and he let go a hard turnaround
slapshot the beat Fankhouser
between the pads.
 
A bevy of penalties in the period’s last few minutes saw Clarkson enjoying
some more man-advantage
situations including some 5-on-3 time (1:02) which spanned the two periods.
The period ended with
Clarkson enjoying an 8-5 shot advantage but Lowell enjoying a 3-1 lead.
 
Lowell killed off the remaining time to start the third period and Bell
would score a big goal at 3:19. This
time a 2-on-1 (possibly 3-on-1) found Bell using Campbell as a decoy before
skating deep into the slot
and letting go a hard shot, beating Grant cleanly. The goal chased Grant in
favor of fellow freshman
Andrew Gibson (Lakefield, ONT.) The only goal that beat Gibson was called
off at 7:11 as the officials
thought the puck had been tied up. Gibson also spent 5:31 of the games
remaining 16:41 on the bench
as Clarkson pulled their goalie early in an attempt to climb back into the
game. Lowell couldn’t score on
the empty net although they came close a few times but Clarkson couldn’t
score either with the
manpower advantage, time which doesn’t go toward Lowell’s penalty-killing
streak.
 
Lowell’s four straight wins have now pulled them up to 10-9 although all
four wins have not helped their
4-7 HockeyEast record. Clarkson loses its third straight by the identical
score to which it fell last night
to UNH. The losses drop Clarkson to 7-9-1 although they are 6-3-1 in their
last nine games and hold a
4-3 ECAC record. Clarkson returns to ECAC league play next weekend with road
games at Vermont and
Dartmouth and Lowell continues its ECAC competition with roads games at
Union on Tuesday and Yale
next weekend. They also host HockeyEast’s Providence next Sunday afternoon.
Lowell is now 6-1 in
non-conference games although they also have a non-league loss to HockeyEast
’s UNH during tourney
action.
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.