Continuing the early season philosophy of working on their own game and not worrying about the opponent, head coach Dan Morris and the Bobcats spent most of this week’s four practices tweaking the stages of the game that were lacking in last weekend’s 7-2 win over West Virginia.
The Bobcats spent most of the first half of Thursday’s practice working on odd-man rushes, going three-on-two, three-on-one and two-on-one, while also mixing in some dump and chases into the offensive zone.
Morris followed with drills moving the puck through the neutral zone from the defensemen to forwards, a part of the game he keyed in on as needing improvement specifically focusing on his wingers coming back to puck as its brought out of the defensive zone.
“We really worked on how we skate through the neutral zone with the puck and how we plan our attack,” Morris said. “We looked a lot better (Wednesday) working on it then we’ve worked all year. You start to see the light bulbs come on a little bit.”
After a break it was special teams time as the first two power play units worked on breaking out of their zones and controlling the puck into the defensive zone rather than just dumping in and fore checking. Morris had his scout penalty kill teams pressure the puck up high, a strategy West Virginia used to great success against Ohio last weekend.
The team also worked going five-on four in both directions on Wednesday, giving everyone some time to work on special teams play in case their needed in a game situation.
“It lets everybody play power play and penalty kill, so you get to see how guys play who maybe don’t get to play there in a game situation,” Morris said of the drill, which paid off in last weeks game as freshman defenseman Mike Kretz stepped in for an injured J.C. Gulch and acquitted himself well on both the P.K. and man advantage.
Gulch is a game-time decision for Friday night’s matchup with West Virginia, while Josh Fodor, who sat out last Saturday with a gash in his leg from his own skate, is expected to play. Alex DiMassa, who also missed last week’s game, is out again this weekend.
cd211209@ohiou.edu
@ThePostSports
