The idea that history has a chance of repeating itself is not lost on the Ohio hockey team.
With two games against Lindenwood, who surprised the Bobcats (6-0, 4-0 Central States Collegiate Hockey League) by sweeping them early in the season last year, coach Dan Morris said things will be different this year.
I think one of the big improvements for this year's team is the lessons we learned from last year
he said. Even though we finished last year as national champions we came into this year looking to settle a few scores.
Last year, in Lindenwood's first season as a hockey team, the Lions took two games from the Bobcats at Bird Arena. At the time, it dropped Ohio to 0-2, a surprising start for a team that would go on to lose just seven games all season.
This year, with Lindenwood now an official member of the American Collegiate Hockey Association, assistant coach Steve Manning said that Lindenwood isn't going to surprise anybody.
I think we have a different set of expectations and a different attitude going into this game he said. They're not just an independent team anymore. They're part of the ACHA.
Morris said that the team was taking this weekend as a chance to really start putting things together while continuing their early-season run.
One potential change for this weekend could be the end of the goalie platoon. For the first six games of the season, Morris started Ryan Baksh on Friday and Derek DeFelice on Saturday. This weekend, he said he might give one of them back-to-back starts.
It's time to start putting more pressure on them
Morris said. We need to start looking at what they can do back to back to start figuring it out.
Morris did not say which goalie would take the first starting series. For the season, both goalies are 3-0, but neither has faced more than 30 shots in a weekend.
As the goalie situation finally starts to take a little more form, the offense hopes to get another big weekend out of its young players. The team has put on an offensive show through the first three weeks of the season -an onslaught led by freshman Jim Fuhs, Clay Labrosse, Dave Fitzgerald and Brandon Steffek. They have 33 points between them. Fuhs is leading the team with nine assists, and Fitzgerald is tied for the team lead in goals.
It's nice to have those young guys step in and participate in the scoring
Manning said. They have different expectation levels
but they are all playing together as a unit.
The team enters the weekend with a 23-game winning streak, having won every game since Jan. 16, when they dropped a 4-3 decision to Illinois. The puck drops at 7:30 p.m. today and tomorrow in Bird Arena.
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Mike Cottrill
