Offense runs dry for Bengals on road

Buffalo State kicked off their season-ending five-game road trip by losing to Potsdam on Friday, 5-1, and falling to Plattsburgh on Saturday by a score of 1-0.

The Bengals (10-10-2, 6-6-1 SUNYAC) blamed themselves for not taking advantage of the opportunity to collect a pair of wins over the weekend.

"We didn't do a great job of trying to create shooting lanes and we didn't put enough effort to get pucks on the net, so that was tough," head coach Nick Carriere said.

"Hockey's a game where sometimes you get an opportunity and you execute on it, and it looks like there are no problems and everything's going well," Carriere continued. "Other nights you get 50 opportunities and you don't execute on any of them and you end up with nothing. We didn't try hard enough to do some of those things, and we didn't give ourselves enough chances to win."

One aspect of the team that didn't perform up to expectations was the power play. After scoring a school-record eight goals with the man-advantage the week before against Morrisville State, the Bengals came away from their back-to-back losses without a goal in seven tries.

Sophomore defenseman John Corrigan believed that the team is working hard to find answers for the power play's inconsistency.

"Our power play has been kind of hit-or-miss this year," Corrigan said. "We're moving guys on and off those units all the time. If someone is playing poorly, we'll put someone new in and hopefully they can fill that spot. We have guys who can one-time it well, guys who can move the puck well, so we're trying to find those guys who can fill those positions."

Carriere agreed, saying that the Bengals were also missing some personnel that helped the power play run smoothly.

"You obviously want to be able to score on the power play and we had some injuries that affected our ability to have some poise in their zone and the ability to move pucks," Carriere said. "Sometimes we just don't execute the way we practice, so hopefully we can get back to doing some better things with the man-advantage."

Despite the team's inability to put the puck in the net, one area of the Bengals that did show stability was the team's play between the pipes. Sophomore goaltender Kevin Carr recorded a combined 71 saves over the weekend.

"Carr's one of our leaders; he's a passionate competitor. He gives us a chance to stay in games," Carriere said. "He's been great for us.

"On Friday night, he probably wanted a couple of those goals back, but that doesn't take away from him making some huge saves," Carriere continued. "Saturday night, he absolutely stood on his head. He made some big-time saves for us."

The Bengals' next opponents, Cortland and Oswego, present many challenges for the Bengals. Despite having beaten Cortland 8-0 earlier in the season, Carriere believes the Bengals will see a hard-working effort from their opponent on Friday.

"It's the second semester of the year, and every team is working that much harder and everybody forechecks and backchecks that much harder," Carriere said. "We're going to have to earn every opportunity that we get and that's what I expect against Cortland."

The Bengals' opponent on Saturday, Oswego, is currently the top-ranked team in SUNYAC with a record of 17-2-2. Yet senior forward and team captain James Durham seemed to relish the opportunity to face them again after losing to the Lakers, 5-3, earlier in the season.

"That's going to be huge motivation for us, playing in Oswego's barn," Durham said. "It's a different atmosphere there. They play in front of 3,000 fans and the fans there are nuts. But it's always good playing against teams on the road because the pressure is on the home team.

"When we're at home, we have a lot to think about and we've got to stick to our style of game," Durham continued. "When we go on the road, we just play a smash-mouth, in-your-face and grind-it-out type of game. That's what we need to do when we go into their place."

Tony Fiorello can be reached at fiorello.record@live.com.