Despite a disappointing 0-2 weekend to start the regular season, the Falcon hockey team is staying positive and not letting those opening setbacks weigh heavily on their minds as they prepare for their second straight weekend playing against a ranked opponent.
BG opened its schedule at home with a 3-2 loss to Merrimack on Friday before dropping their highly-anticipated game against fourth-ranked Boston College on Saturday, 9-6. They were both games in which the Falcons had a shot to win, but lost in the final period when costly mistakes turned into key points for the opposition.
Tonight the Falcons will look for their first win of the season when they open their Central Collegiate Hockey Association season by hosting third-ranked Ohio State in the first game of a home-and-home series. The series will conclude tomorrow in Columbus, both face-offs are scheduled for 7:05 p.m.
“We’ve taken a lot of positives out of last weekend,” BG coach Scott Paluch said. “Both nights we played extremely well in a lot of areas. Friday night we control a hockey game for a majority of the time and generate a lot of scoring chances. Then on Saturday night we played a lot of good hockey and we saw great determination by our team when it was 6-2 to get back in the game and really work with the crowd.”
Sophomore Jon Erickson played in Saturday’s loss to BC and saw no one hanging their heads at practice this week.
“Nobody is really down on the team which is really good to see,” he said. “Everyone is real positive about the year and everyone is real confident about the team and coaching. We’re real positive going into Ohio State here.”
Ohio State is coming off a split two-game series at Colorado College, who is ranked fourth this week, where they won 4-2 Friday before being shutout 1-0 Saturday. The Buckeyes (1-1) were the unanimous preseason favorites to win the CCHA championship as they return all but three players from last year’s team that went 27-11-4 overall finishing second in the CCHA with a 21-5-2 record.
OSU lost to Michigan in the title game of the CCHA playoffs last season and fell in the NCAA quarterfinals to Cornell. This season they hope their depth and skill will be enough to make them a national title contender.
“They’re so experienced at every position,” Paluch said. “They score goals. They’ve got All-league caliber players with (Rob) Pelley and (Tom) Fritsche and those types of guys. Every one of their players has played a lot of hockey and a lot of winning hockey.”
Playing winning hockey is something BG will look to do tonight as they come into the game having lost nine in a row to the Buckeyes. A streak that has plagued BG since the 2001-02 season as the Buckeyes are one of two league teams Paluch has yet to beat in his first three seasons. The other team being the Michigan Wolverines who he is also winless against in 10 tries.
“That’s something that we want to change,” Paluch said. “We’ve proven at times that we can take portions of the games and play well and be successful, but now we need to do that in a 60-minute game and earn some points.”
Points weren’t a problem for the Falcons this past weekend as they scored eight goals in two games. The Falcon power play for the weekend was 7-for-25 including a 5-of-12 performance Saturday that helped them climb back into the game.
It included putting five goals past BC goalie Cory Schneider, who last year had a goals against average of under two and is considered one of the best goalies in the country.
“On Saturday we moved the puck so strong and so quick in a lot of those plays that it wouldn’t have made much a difference who was in net – they were just some terrific plays,” Paluch said of the power play performance.
Goaltending still remains a big question for BG however, as both goalies took some hits this past weekend. It is still unclear whether they’ll use one goalie for a majority of the year or if they’ll continue splitting time.
The man in net for the Falcons on Saturday night was Jimmy Spratt, who made his first collegiate start and struggled, allowing five goals on 21 shots. He was replaced by Jon Horrell who didn’t fair much better allowing four goals on 12 shots. Horrell allowed seven goals on the weekend as he started Friday night as well and allowed three goals on 23 shots.
One of the problems coach Paluch pointed this to was the fact that his team was turning the puck over a little too much and were creating opportunities for the other team to capitalize on.
“Saturday night was clear against a real quick team that we gave a couple of odd-man rushes that we want to crack-down on,” Paluch said. “Our team defense has to be there. I think for a lot of the 120 minutes our end-zone defense was really strong and we want that to continue to be a trademark of our team.”
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