The hockey season got off to a bit of a rocky start for Tufts as it dropped two straight home games at Malden Forum. The Jumbos fell to the St. Michael's Purple Knights on Saturday, 6-4, and to the defending national champion Norwich Cadets on Friday night, 9-4. The squad's record now sits at 0-2.
Last season, Tufts traveled to Vermont to take on these two proven programs, and the results were a little more in the Jumbos' favor. They beat St. Michael's 6-3 and took that momentum into Norwich where they battled mightily before falling 5-3.
Saturday's loss to St. Michael's was Tufts' first in five match ups with the Purple Knights. The story of this one was the number of penalties each side incurred. There were 20 between them, and seven of the ten goals in the game were of either the power play or shorthanded variety.
"We felt we were pretty evenly matched with St. Michael's," coach Brian Murphy said. "But talent alone doesn't win games."
Junior forward John Hurd picked up where he left off last year as the Jumbos' leading goal scorer (along with junior and senior co-captains Shawn Sullivan and Pat Byrne with 12) as he had two goals, one on the first period and one in the second. He had also netted another one a day earlier. Sophomore forward Matt McCarthy and sophomore defenseman Jack Thompson also found the net in the game.
On the defensive end of the ice, senior goaltender Ben Crapser turned away 29 of 35 shots and played the whole game -- something that couldn't be said Friday night when he got pulled in the second period in favor of sophomore Matt Ninneman. But Murphy does not leave the blame to the man between the pipes.
"We gave up three tipped goals in front of our net to these guys, and that is something we had worked on in practice," he said. "Also, we were in the penalty box way too much. If we are on the penalty kill as much as we were, we can't blame the defense or the goalies."
The penalties he referred to are the 25 that Tufts alone had in the two games.
The Norwich game was more tightly contested than the 9-4 score indicates, as the Jumbos went into the first intermission down only 3-2 to a very talented and deep team.
Jumbo goals were claimed by sophomore forwards Adam Delaney-Winn and Ken Cleary, as well as sophomore defenseman Pat Walsh and Hurd. Delaney-Winn's goal in the first period, assisted by Byrne, knotted the score at 2-2 with seven minutes to play.
But five more unanswered goals by the Cadets in the second period thwarted any hope of a Jumbos comeback and sealed the fate of Crapser for the night. Crapser left after giving up seven goals on 21 shots. Ninneman came in and was a bit steadier, yielding only two goals on 20 shots.
"Norwich is clearly a better team," Murphy said. "We feel we have a chance going into any game, but that is a tough one to win."
On the whole, Murphy says the team still has a lot of things to work on and there is much to learn from this past weekend's games.
"We played undisciplined in both games," he said. "The effort was there and our guys were working hard, but they were just playing a little bit out of control. But there is nothing to panic about. We know we can play better, and we need to play better."
Tonight at 6:30 at Malden Forum the Jumbos face off with another non league opponent, this time the Southern New Hampshire Penmen. They are currently 3-1 in the ECAC Northeast division.
@jump: see HOCKEY, page ??
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