Slow start dooms Miami

Despite being badly outshot and outplayed, Miami almost survived the first period without picking the puck out of its net.

But Niagara scored a pair of goals 44 seconds apart late in the opening frame and never looked back, beating the RedHawks, 4-1 at Dwyer Arena on Friday.

The RedHawks’ winless streak was extended to three games, and they have just one victory in their last 12 contests, going 1-9-2 since Oct. 27.

The weekend series concludes at 5 p.m. on Saturday.

RECAP: Jack Richard took a feed from the opposite side of the ice inside the left faceoff circle, skated into the slot and wired a quick wrister stick side with 4:26 left in the first period to give Niagara (7-10-1) the lead, which it never relinquished.

Just 44 seconds later, the Purple Eagles’ Jay Ahearn jabbed at a loose rebound at the right side of the cage and punched it past Miami goalie Logan Neaton to make it 2-0.

With 6:43 remaining in the middle frame, Miami’s Max Dukovac was stripped at his right point, creating a 2-on-0 breakaway for Niagara that Lars Rodne deposited in the net off a return feed from Olivier Gauthier.

The Purple Eagles had a fourth goal waved off, and Miami’s John Waldron slammed home a rebound off a Matthew Barbolini shot on a rush to make it 3-1 six minutes into the final stanza.

But Barbolini took a slashing penalty in the closing minutes, and Rodne’s power-play empty-netter sealed it with 56 seconds to play.

STATS: Waldron extended his current points streak to a team-best four games, including three goals. He moved into second on the RedHawks in points, recording his 15th.

Barbolini notched his 11th assist and 19th point of the season, both tops among Miami (5-10-2) skaters, and Vitolins has four points in his last five games.

— Miami failed to score on the power play for the fourth straight game, going 0-for-16 during that stretch. The RedHawks’ man advantage has converted 3 of 42 opportunities during their current 1-9-2 slide (7.1 percent) and is currently 56th out of 64 in Division I at 12.7 percent overall.

ANALYSIS: It’s really hard to understand how this team could show less energy than a sloth during a cold snap, yet Miami was outshot, 15-8 outscored 2-0 and outplayed by any other tangible or intangible metric in the opening 20 minutes, following consecutive off weekends.

Then, as head coach Chris Bergeron has so often said in his five years of postgame pressers at Miami, his team was left chasing the game.

“We weren’t ready to play, which is my responsibility,” Bergeron said. “In the first period, we looked a lot more rusty than they did, and it was competition, it was intensity, it was being ready to play, and we weren’t and they were.”

I mean, yeah? The team had been off three weeks. Energy shouldn’t have been an issue. Entering Friday, Miami had played two games in 33 days.

He later makes a solid point that the players obviously are the ones who have to exert said energy, and while he was a stud as Miami skater and thrived as a minor-league forward up to at the IHL (then-Triple-A) level, at age 53 and having used his four collegiate years of eligibility making this program into a winner, he cannot insert himself on the lineup card, jump over the boards and dominate like he did 30 years ago.

At 5-10-2, obviously things haven’t gone Miami’s way the first half of this season, but one thing that hasn’t been a major issue to this point has been effort…but it was somewhat of an issue at least early in this game.

Niagara had jump, showed life and played like it wanted to win from the opening faceoff and would have scored in the opening minute had Neaton made a quality glove save. Miami still looked like it was hungover from Christmas break.

And it was 2-0 before Miami realized its winter term had begun.

— By the way, this Purple Eagles team was playing without two of its top defensemen. Blueliner points leader and former RedHawk, Alex Murray (1-10-11), was injured earlier this month, and David Posma, who has played 52 games the past two seasons, chose to return to the USHL prior to this series.

— Neaton was better than his numbers indicated in this game. Officially he was 27-for-30 (.900), but as mentioned above, he stopped a great chance early and made several Grade-A stops. His three GA came on a great point-blank snipe, a rebound (off which he made a quality initial save) and an indefensible 2-on-0.

— On the Miami goal: Vitolins was credited with the second assist, but his juke and feed from the half wall drew two defenders to him, creating the chance on which Waldron capitalized. And Dylan Moulton chipped the puck ahead to him from along the wall in the defensive zone and would’ve picked up a point if three helpers were allowed.

LINEUP CHANGES: Just one: Rihards Simanovics was back in the lineup, replacing Alex Kumlin.

Kumlin dressed for his first 45 games since being declared eligible but this was the second time in four games he has not dressed.

Simanovics had played in eight straight before sitting in the finale vs. Duluth.

Apparently Michael Feenstra and Jack Clement had their names pulled out of the defenseman hat first prior to this game, since they were on the ever-changing top pairing.

Neaton has started nine straight games in net and 16 of 17.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Again, overskating passes or less-than-accurate feeds are understandable considering the layoff, but getting outhustled and outperformed is why Miami was ultimately outshot (15-8) and outscored (2-0) in the first period.

Then here we go, ‘chasing the game’ again.

That’s been the case far too often in recent years, and we know how that’s worked out: Miami is well on pace for its fourth straight sub.-.300 season.