Final season face-off with BYU
With a trip to the regional tournament locked up as the No. 6 ranked team, the Utah State hockey club will play one more grudge match against BYU before they leave.
The Aggies will welcome the Provo Icecats to the Eccles Ice Center Friday at 8 p.m. Before the game, fans are invited to “Skate with the Aggies” at 6 p.m. Tickets for both events will be on sale in the TSC as well as at the door.
Aggie Nate Pierce said the team will not be treating this game as an exhibition.
“It’s BYU,” he said. “Any game against BYU is crucial.”
Aggie Nels Hansen said USU is feeling comfortable about Friday’s game.
“[The Icecats] better be expecting a loss,” he said. “This group of guys is not ready to lose.”
Head coach Jerry Crossley said he wants his team to use this game to prepare for regionals.
“You want to stay sharp,” he said. “It doesn’t count for the ranking, but there’s a pride factor. And we’ve been trying to improve every game.”
Hansen said USU/BYU games tend to get out of hand, but the Aggies won’t lower themselves to fighting.
“They’re a gong-show team,” he said. “They play normal BYU hockey. We’ve been keeping our composure this semester. I’m not worried about guys getting suspended.”
If a player gets dis-qualified from a game, he is required to sit out the next game. In this instance, a USU player would have to sit out the first game of the regional tournament.
Pierce said BYU is just as big of a rival as Weber State, but the two can’t be compared side by side.
“They’re different rivals,” he said. “They’re both big. Weber has been our biggest rival forever. Now we have two instead of one.”
The American Collegiate Hockey Association released its final ranking earlier this week. USU moved from No. 9 to No. 6 after defeating seventh-ranked Weber State twice and fifth-ranked Colorado.
Crossley said he would have liked to see his team finish higher in the rankings, but he’s satisfied with the seed his team has.
“It doesn’t matter if you are [satisfied] or not,” he said. “You’ve just got to win the tournament. If you’re not good enough to win that, then you don’t want to go to nationals anyway.”
Pierce said because there is a regional tournament now, teams like USU can get away with a bad start to the season.
“If a team struggled in the first half of the season, like us, and the goes balls-to-the-wall in the second, it gives us a chance,” he said.
Pierce said the Aggies have been somewhat inspired by the Super Bowl XL champ Steelers. Pittsburgh was competitive in the early part of its season but was left for dead after a losing streak midway through the year.
But the Steelers rebounded by winning their final eight games and the championship.
“It would be nice to do exactly what they did,” Pierce said. “We already have done what they’ve done to a point. We’ll see what happens when the playoffs start.”
Goalie Greg Finatti enters the weekend with the third best save percentage in the country for goalies who have played in at least 10 games.
Finatti’s save percentage of 93.5 is the best in the country among all goalies who have played as many games as he has (25).
Assistant coach John Eccles said Finatti will most likely break two USU records this season with his save percentage and goals per game (2.20). The current records are 90.1 and 3.30, respectively, and are both held by Chris Webber.
Crossley said the Aggies’ defense is a big reason why Finatti is breaking records in net.
“There are two parts to it: He’s playing well and what’s going on in front of him affects it,” Crossley said. “It goes back to that team concept.”
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu
The Aggies host BYU this weekend for the last time this season. (Tyler Larson)