The Mercyhurst men’s hockey team experienced a power outage dropping a two game series to the Sacred Heart University this past weekend.
The two losses knock Mercyhurst back two places in the standings, now sitting in third behind the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Air Force Academy.
Head Coach Rick Gotkin attributed the team’s poor play to a fruitless powerplay.
“Our power play needs to score, we have struggled on the power play all year, and that needs to get productive,” Gotkin said.
The Lakers have only scored 17 powerplay goals in comparison to 26 power play goals by their opponents. Their .120 powerplay conversion percentage is .156 behind the NCAA leader in powerplay conversion, the University of Maine.
The Mercyhurst powerplay was 0 for 7 during the games against Sacred Heart.
Gotkin also discussed the competitiveness of the Atlantic Hockey Association this year.
“We play in a very competitive conference, if we do not play well it is tough to win. Sacred Heart is a very good team and they simply played better than us last weekend,” Gotkin said.

In the first tilt, the Pioneers doubled up the Lakers, scoring six goals against Mercyhurst’s three. Freshman Paul Chiasson, junior Mike Gurtler, and junior Brandon Coccimigilo all scored for the Lakers, tying the game after two periods. Sacred Heart then rattled off three unanswered tallies to seal the game.

On Saturday, Mercyhurst fell to the Pioneers again, this time by a score of 3-2. Sophomore Pat Goebel opened the scoring and put the Lakers on the board, 1-0. Sacred Heart erased the deficit quickly and added two more goals in the second period. Junior Jeff Terminesi scored in the third period but the Lakers fell short of the comeback.

Sacred Heart’s wins over Mercyhurst are the Lakers’ first losses in conference play since mid-November. Mercyhurst hopes to avenge the losses this upcoming weekend when the Lakers host the Bentley University Falcons.