After winning the Central States Collegiate Hockey League Tournament last weekend and with the American Collegiate Hockey Association National Tournament next week, the Ohio hockey team is in a weird position when Michigan State comes to Bird Arena this weekend.
With a regular season series in between two tournaments, Ohio coach Dan Morris said it has been tough to keep the team focused.
You know you're going to have a lot of ups and downs during the season
Morris said. And we really hit one of our peaks for the year in that (CSCHL) tournament. It's tough not to have a little letdown after something like that.
Aside from the fact that the series comes in between two tournaments, it enters at an odd time for the players, as both the CSCHL All-Star game and Senior Night are this weekend.
Ohio (24-7-2) will send four players to Saturday's All-Star game, including forwards Sean Gallagher and Nick Bassarab and defensemen Craig Foglesong and Joe Branco. But because of Senior Night, Ohio will not send any of its seniors, including league Most Valuable Player goaltender Brian Gallagher, who will start for the Bobcats that night.
Even though we traditionally can't send seniors it's not like we aren't sending great players Morris said. (Sean) Gallagher is our leading scorer
and Branco is our best defenseman.
Between the players lost from the All-Star game and Morris' desire to dress all eight of his seniors this weekend, the Bobcats will feature a few different lineups, Morris said.
The team will also try to get some of the younger players in, including splitting time between freshmen goaltenders Ryan Baksh and Derek DeFelice today.
This weekend is a chance to shake off some of the rust going into the national tournament for DeFelice and Baksh, who saw no action in the CSCHL Tournament.
Both Ryan and I haven't had a lot of time to play
DeFelice said. So I know that we both jumped at the chance to get into a game this weekend.
With all the lineup changes, Morris said the team would still take this weekend seriously.
Those guys like Senior Night
Morris said. Besides
even when we switch things around
I'm comfortable with any lineup we can put on the ice.
Besides the desire for the older guys to put on a show in their last game at Bird Arena, there is pressure on the younger guys to perform to keep up momentum, DeFelice said.
Senior Night is definitely a big deal to those guys
he said. And for the younger guys who get to play the last thing we want to do is kill the momentum we have from winning the tournament. We don't want anything slowing us down going into nationals.
The Bobcats will play host to Michigan State at 7:30 today and Saturday night in Bird Arena.
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