BGSU hockey (0-2-0) kicked off its regular season on the road for a weekend series against the Purple Eagles of Niagara University. The series resulted in the Falcons falling to the Purple Eagles both nights, with NU earning a 2-0 and 5-2 victory over the weekend.
This weekend, the Falcons will return home to the Slater Family Ice Arena and will be hosting the University of Windsor Lancers in an exhibition game. This game will be the Falcons’ final contest before conference play starts the following weekend at Lake Superior State University.
Head coach Dennis “Willi” Williams addressed his team’s performance against Niagara, the benefits of having an exhibition game at this time in the season, what he wants his team to improve, and the team’s goaltending during the weekly press conference on Tuesday, Oct. 14.
Here are the Falcon Four takeaways from the press conference:
Win or we learn
So far this season, BGSU hockey has lost 4-1 against Robert Morris in an exhibition match and then lost both games of their opening regular season series to Niagara.
“Disappointed, just like the team and the players, everybody. We don’t go out to lose hockey games,” said coach Williams.
“We use the term a lot, we win or we learn, and we definitely have to start learning from these three games we played,” continued Williams.
While BGSU hockey is yet to secure a win this season, they have certainly done a lot of learning, but still have a lot more learning to go.
“I always say that the real result is in the next game,” said Williams. “If we can take what happened this past weekend, make some corrections to it, tighten up our details and habits with and without the puck from an individual standpoint, and then collectively, structurally, from a team standpoint, that just gives us a chance to win a hockey game. It doesn’t guarantee it.”
Exhibition play comes with benefits
This weekend, BGSU will play its second exhibition game in three weekends. While some teams would want to just hop right into the regular season, there are benefits for the Falcon roster in having multiple exhibition games in the first month of the season.
“I think if we were in a different boat, it’d be like let’s get into league games, but we do get this time, and the schedule was kinda set for three weeks of kinda understanding who we are, trying to evaluate where everybody’s at, and then putting together our best effort come Lake State,” explained Willi.
“We’ll utilize this week and this weekend (to) continue to grow and continue to teach and then obviously next week is not that we’re not ramped up this week, but next week is really what’s gonna count.”
Willi is confident in all three goalies.
Some have said that another word for hockey is goaltending due to the importance of the position for a team’s success. A good goalie can carry teams to wins that they don’t always deserve. A bad goalie can cost their team the shot at glory that a roster might deserve.
Due to the position’s importance, goalies will always be under a microscope. So far, Coach Williams is satisfied with what he’s seen from all three of his goalies under the microscope.
“We have, I said all along, three goalies that I’m comfortable playing,” said Willi.
Junior netminder Cole Moore started both games against Niagara, and sophomore goaltender Tyler Palmer made his first NCAA appearance in the third period of Saturday’s contest.
“As we go into this week, we still have Jacob Steinman, like I said, all three goalies are, to me, capable, elite Division I goalies, and their job is to continue to fight to earn that ice time, take it, and run with it.”
Getting to the inside is a concern after first series
Hockey is a physical game, and it is arguably most physical in the slot and in the blue paint. Slashes go uncalled, shoves and punches are expected, crosschecks are a given, but if a hockey team wants to win games, they must be willing to enter this part of the ice.
“Both offensively and defensively, the game is played within the dots and the blue paint. Anybody can stay outside and just circle around and stay perimeters, but in today’s day and age, you need stacked screens, you need second, third opportunities,” said Willi.
The Falcons’ ability to storm the slot and the blue paint still has much to be desired in the eyes of Willi.
“We need more players that are gonna wanna get to those areas, and I said some have a knack for it, some struggle, some are scared to get in there,” said Williams. “It is an area that we need guys continuing to do, we need guys to battle in there and be uncomfortable getting in there.”
“We were going through the middle of the ice and the blue paint, but we weren’t stopping. We were drifting across instead of putting on the brakes and boxing out and buying your ice,” continued Williams. “We gotta work on that.”
