Following Saturday night’s 5-1 defeat to Adrian, Ohio coach Dan Morris expressed his frustration with two areas of his team’s game that have been a recurring nuisance all season — lack of discipline and inconsistency in goal.
In Ohio’s 26 wins, strong play from the net minder and staying out of the box have been key prerequisites. Sounds like ‘well duh’ keys for any winning hockey team, but at times Ohio’s powerful offense and strong group of penalty killers have been able to mask deficiencies in both areas.
Both problems both were laid bare in front of a Bird Arena crowd Saturday in just the fourth home defeat this season. Ohio took nine penalties in the game, killing any comeback chances.
But it just wasn’t the quantity, but the quality of penalty that got Morris a bit peeved. The bulk of the calls were for losses of discipline by a Bobcat squad unable to keep its composure, not for the regular penalties that go against a team in every game.
“They’re all guilty of it, I thought we were very undisciplined,” Morris said. “I’m going to get bruises, I’m going to get cuts, I’m going to get scrapes. But what are you going to do about it?
“Really, are you going to skate down to the other end and push a guy?”
Goaltending was the second chief problem Saturday. Brendan Madden, a freshman walk-on, has been a revelation all season, surpassing all expectations with an 11-3-0 record. But Saturday night his game was off in a bad way, letting in four goals, at least three of which could be called soft.
Morris was especially frustrated with Adrian’s third goal with 4:35 left in the second, which put the Bulldogs up 3-0. Ohio had been clawing itself back into the game, but the third goal was a deflator.
“The tough part is when you play well and you play hard and you give up an easy goal, it just deflates the bench,” Morris said. “We had our chances tonight, their goalie made the saves, their bench didn’t get deflated.
“It’s tough when your battling, battling, battling then you give up an easy goal. It takes so much wind out of your sails, and tonight that happened.”
With the American Collegiate Hockey Association less than a week away, these problems could quickly end the Bobcats season if they pop up again next Saturday against Illinois. But although he expressed irritation following Saturday night’s loss, Morris said he didn’t think it would mean much when Ohio takes on the Fighting Illini.
“It’s kind of a draw this weekend. You just kind of take it for what it is."
cd211209@ohiou.edu
