WEST POINT, N.Y. – It’s been all positivity to start the 2025-2026 season for Army hockey, but Tuesday night saw the Black Knights hit their first speed bump of the season. To open up Atlantic Hockey America conference play, Army (2-1-1) fell 3-1 to the Canisius Golden Griffins (4-1-0) at Tate Rink.
After a relatively solid first period, the Black Knights trailed 2-0 with the Griffins capitalizing on two Army mistakes. They were never able to recover from that first period, and for the first time as head coach, Zach McKelvie suffered a loss in a “competitive game”.
“Yeah, I mean, we knew going into it they’re a pretty opportunistic team, and they took advantage of that for sure,” said junior captain Barron Woodring. “We gave them some bad turnovers, and they got some goal scores and put some in. So, that was kind of on us and frustrating, but something we got to look past and get back to our game.”
This was Army’s third game in five nights, and after pulling off two wins over the weekend, they just seemed to be out of sorts on Tuesday night. “There’s no doubt. Playing three games this early in the season in five days is tough,” said McKelvie. “Every game you play, you’re going to get more fit. There are a couple of teams in our conference that haven’t even played a regular game yet. So, we’re already four games in. I told the guys after the game, this is what playoffs are going to be like. We’re going to have to play three games in three days, potentially, so we’ll get there.”
Army actually got off to a fast start against Canisius and peppered Washington Capitals draft pick Casey Clark, a transfer from American International. In the first three minutes of the contest, Army had two shots sneak through the arm of Clark, but weren’t able to capitalize on the rebounds left by the 6’7 goaltender.
“Yeah, Chase is a good goalie. We’ve seen him now with four different programs. I thought that he left out some rebounds for us, and we just weren’t there to clean them up,” said Zach McKelvie. “We just got to be a little harder around the net, better around the net. It comes in spurts with our team. Our guys know that they need to be there, but he’s a good goalie.”
Leaving those rebounds and not making Canisius pay early would ultimately be Army’s downfall. Fast forward less than a minute, and the Griffins took a 1-0 lead. A Black Knight turnover in the Canisius zone jump-started a three-on-one rush the other way, with junior Walter Zacher taking the puck from the center red line and beating JJ Cataldo past his glove hand short side.
Canisius would double their lead on the power play six minutes later. Junior Rhys Chiddenton saw his shot trickle past Cataldo into the blue paint. Army’s freshman defenseman Lukas McCloskey was first to the puck and attempted to clear the puck away from danger, but instead threw the puck off his goaltender and into the net. Just like that, Canisius owned a 2-0 lead.
“I think we did do a lot of good things offensively in the O-zone. We were moving the puck around, but our passing or receiving wasn’t crisp, and they capitalized on our mistakes,” McKelvie said. “We kind of know what their strengths are. They’re a really good hockey team that can finish if you give them an opportunity, and we gave them two opportunities, and they scored on both of them.”
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McKelvie said his team “didn’t have the jump tonight,” and Canisius was able to seal the game with their third goal. Senior Killian Kiecker-Olson had his initial shot blocked by an Army defender, but his subsequent chop of the puck fooled JJ Cataldo and snuck through his legs and over the goal line.
The Griffins were able to flip the ice in the second period. It was a bit of a bland period at times for both teams, but Canisius outshot the Black Knights 13-5 in the middle period.
“I think actually in the first part of the period, we came out pretty good. Like we had a couple of good looks and good possessions,” said McKelvie. “Then we just didn’t manage the puck, we ended up getting hemmed in our zone, and we took a penalty. That sucked the life out of us. So we get behind the eight-ball, we’re three goals down, and it’s hard at this level to claw back.”
The third period saw Army take back control of the game as Canisius defended its three-goal lead. The Black Knights had sustained o-zone time, but the Griffins were able to limit the danger as they collapsed the blue paint, and when Army did break through the wall, Casey Clark was there to kill the play.
With around 3:30 left, Zach McKelvie pulled JJ Cataldo, and Army played the rest of regulation at six-on-five. With 40 seconds left, Army finally beat Clark as sophomore Ben Ivey scored his first goal of the season.
“That’s what we expect. We play for 60 minutes. It doesn’t really matter what the score is, we’re going to play,” McKelvie said. “We wanted to work on our six-on-five, and if we got one early, hey, maybe we get some momentum. I thought our guys did a good job. Three minutes with an empty net, and we didn’t allow a goal. So I was proud of that for sure that our guys played all the way till the end.”
It might be something small, but that fight to break up the shutout could go a long way for the Black Knights the rest of the season. “We were out there for a while on that six-on-five, and I think we had a lot of good opportunities,” Barron Woodring said. “Just the way this league is, we’re going to be in a lot of close games. So, being able to rely on that six-on-five, it’s not going to be the last time we see it. I’m glad we found some success there, and we were able to put one in the net. We would’ve liked it a little earlier, obviously, but definitely something that we can be positive about.”
One thing Army will need to work on is their power play. Against Cansisus, the Black Knights were 0/3 with the man advantage and are now 1/10 (10%) on the season. “Pretty frustrating” were the words used by Barron Woodring to describe the PP early this season.
“Yeah, we haven’t had too much success yet; I think we’ve got one. But for us, I think we just have to learn from it. We have spurts where we see success on the ice, but it’s those little things. We know we’re a good unit. Last year, we had success with the same guys, so it’ll come. It’s just the about process, and we have to stick with it and keep working hard in practice and keep learning from it, then I think we’ll be all right.”
Army will return to action next week when the 2024-2025 regular season AHA champions Holy Cross (0-3-0) comes to post, the same team that eliminated the Black Knights in the AHA tournament. Puck drop is scheduled for Friday night (October 24th) at 7:00 pm ET, while Saturday’s game is set to start at 4:00 pm ET at Tate Rink.
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