Last season the Falcons hockey team averaged 3.2 goals a game, scoring 117 total goals which are the most since the 1998-99 season.
That same year was also last time that the Falcons have had three 30-plus point scorers in a campaign, however just as the scoring went up so did the numbers for those who produce the tallies, and last season also saw three produce 30-plus points as well.
Leading the way for the Falcons was Jonathan Matsumoto, who as a freshman contributed 32 points on 18 goals and 14 assists. He was followed by his fellow classmate, Alex Foster, who finished with 31 points on eight goals and 23 assists. Then junior Brett Pilkington who finished with 30 points on five goals and a team-leading 25 assists.
The three forwards were part of a group of four lines that saw points very evenly distributed throughout the season as many coaches couldn’t tell which line was their first.
“Bowling Green is the hardest working team we’ve played against this year,” Alaska-Fairbanks coach Tavis MacMillan said after the Falcons beat the Nanooks in January 6-1. “Those guys work so hard, they all looked alike, they looked like a bunch of little robots flying around.”
Those robots are players Falcon coach Scott Paluch feels will be “a very dangerous unit” if they get rolling on all cylinders again.
“I think that it’s a unit that’s going to be pretty successful throughout the year,” he said. “We move pretty well. We scored goals against Boston College and created chances in every other game and I think once we get all the chemistry sorted out we’re going to be very dangerous up front.”
Like last season, Matsumoto once again is leading the team in points as he currently has eight after five games on four goals and four assists. Foster again sits behind him with six points (1-5-6) as he has teamed up with Matsumoto and senior Mike Falk (3-0-3) to form what has been one of the hottest lines in the league accounting for 8-of-13 of the Falcon’s goals.
“It’s just been a continuation of last year,” Foster said of his line that formed towards the middle part of last season. “Last year we came together as a line and just clicked right away and our goal this year was just to further all of that.”
In all, 12 of the 16 forwards from last season’s team returned as the Falcons are as deep up front as they’ve been in Paluch’s four seasons as coach.
The group has become even deeper with the additions this year of freshmen Brian Bales, Justin Liut and Brandon Svendson who are all expected to contribute points throughout their college careers.
“It’s one of the deeper teams we’ve had in terms of guys who have played and who have contributed a lot of production,” Paluch said. “We saw comparatively over the last four years this group has scored some goals and brings that experience into this season.”
Some of the other big contributors the Falcons will look too up front this season are senior Ryan Barnett along with Pilkington, juniors Bryan Dobek, Rich Meloche and James Unger. Then in their talented group of sophomores which includes Foster and Matsumoto, Jon Erickson, Ben Geelan, John Mazzei and Derek Whitmore will also be looked to be big contributors on team.
Whether it’s on offense or defense the unit takes pride in doing everything they can to help the team win. Some make their presence felt on offensive side with their goal scoring while others have been a big part of the improving Falcon penalty-kill.
“We got guys blocking shots and breaking ribs just to block a shot,” Meloche said. “It’s not something that shows up in the stats, but a guy like Benny Geelan or Derek Whitmore, who throws his body in front of a puck just because it doesn’t show up in the stats doesn’t mean it doesn’t help our team. Then Dobek and Barnett have also done a good job with that.”
Conditioning has played a big part in the success up front as well as last season saw players like Dobek, Matsumoto, Meloche, Pilkington and Unger all had noticeable improvements in foot speed and strength.
Dobek, Meloche and Pilkington all became better playmakers on offense and stronger players defensively. Then Matsumoto and Unger used their conditioning to become bigger forces in front of the net as both accounted for most of the Falcons goals off rebounds.
This season the emphasis on strength wasn’t any different.
“There were quite a few of us who stuck around here in the summer to workout with Matt Messaros our strength coach,” Matsumoto said. “He’s really put an extra little jump in our step and I think that’s helped us out quite a bit.”
