Hockey Bucks Sweep Up Purps, Lose Tomkins

The Buckeyes prepare to put a beatdown on Niagara

Once again the Buckeyes played a good weekend of hockey and once again one of the biggest stories of the weekend is the loss of a goaltender. They should've bubble wrapped Tomkins during the game too.

What Went Wrong

No Friday Style Points: Friday’s win wasn’t as clean as the score might’ve suggested. Niagara created quite a few turnovers. The Buckeyes did their fair share of coughing the puck up too between the loose passes that got away from them and the ones they tried to force through traffic. Matt Tomkins’ excellent play in net kept the Purple Eagles off the board. Speaking of him…

No Depth Chart Now: Well we all saw that coming, didn’t we? Tomkins left Saturday’s game with an apparent leg injury. Jeff Svoboda tweeted yesterday that Tomkins is day-to-day and his injury isn't season ending. So that’s good news. Until I see him back on the ice, though, I’m maintaining a low level of panic on account of Ohio State has exactly one goalie who is a big unknown. Per J. Justin Boggs and USCHO the team can add any goalie that’s currently enrolled in the school, which they may do so that there’s someone to throw in net when something terrible happens to Logan Davis because OSU’s stupid crease is cursed.

What Went Right

Strong Goaltending: Before breaking his leg or whatever Tomkins turned in what I thought was one of his better games of the season on Friday night. He bailed the team out a couple of times and was just generally sharp throughout the game. The goal he gave up was so weird and out of keeping with the rest of his game that someone, somewhere had to have jinxed his shutout. (It was later confirmed that one of the student radio guys put the whammy on him.)

Welcome Back: Tanner Fritz returned to the Buckeyes’ lineup and had an immediate impact. He scored a goal, added five assists, blocked five shots, and won 21 of 33 faceoffs in the series. His chemistry with linemates Max McCormick (four goals, one assist) and Alex Szczechura (five assists) was instant and lethal.

Better Special Teams: Ryan Dzingel seemed to be on a mission to singlehandedly improve Ohio State’s special team statistics. He scored three goals in the series, two on the power play and one shorthanded, and had another shorthanded chance he wasn’t able to get past the Niagara goalie. Nick Schilkey also chipped in a power play goal to make the Buckeyes 3-9 with the man-advantage in the series. The penalty kill fared even better, holding the Purple Eagles to 0-6 with four shots on goal on Friday and 0-5 with zero shots on Saturday. Niagara had been struggling in this area as well, but it’s still nice to see the Buckeyes come out on top of the special teams battle.

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Defense!: The Bucks’ defensive effort on Saturday was stellar. Not only did they block nearly half of the Purple Eagles’ shots, their tenacious defense ended a lot of attempts before they could even be described as shots or blocks. Even after they’d run up a six goal lead, the team remained defensively responsible. I don’t know whether it was a conscious effort to support Davis or if, as Steve Rohlik said in his postgame remarks, Davis just happened to be in net when it occurred. Whatever sparked it, hopefully the Buckeyes can keep the defensive excellence going.

Hometown Hero: Logan Davis did about all you could ask a guy in his situation to do. I don’t think anyone is ready to crown him goalie king of the universe, but he was solid and didn’t allow any cupcake goals. (The one he did give up looked to have been through some traffic. I don’t know that he saw it.) The crowd knew who he was, understood the situation, and was really behind the hometown kid which was nice to see.

Rookie Power: Initially I was skeptical of the coaches’ decision to put rookie Drew Brevig on the power play unit, but the more I see of him the more brilliant the coaches look. I need to see if there are some stats to back me up on this but I think the power play is substantially better when he’s in the game

More good stuff: Matt Johnson and Nick Oddo do so many important but easy-to-miss things for the Buckeyes, offensively and defensively. Just something I felt like pointing out… It was another week of faceoff awesomosity for the Buckeyes. They had a 76-45 edge on the dot… The Schott’s elusive hot chocolate has finally been located. It isn’t on the menu, but you can get it at a stand that advertises coffee… The kids’ intermission games were pretty spirited this week.

Short Shifts

Buckeye Men

Ohio State is hosting another Pride Night in association with the You Can Play Project. You can get tickets for the January 11 game vs. Michigan State and read about all the events planned for the night at Gay Hockey Ohio.
Tanner Fritz and Max McCormick are your No. 1 and No. 2 Big Ten stars of the week. Rookie Hudson Fasching of Minnesota takes the third star on the basis of his outstanding start to the season.
Following a successful few weeks, the Buckeyes are receiving votes in the USCHO poll again. It’s still too early in the season for rankings.
Want free tickets to this week’s Canisius series? Anyone who attends one of the Buckeye women’s matinee games (see below) will get a free ticket for that night’s men’s game.

Around the Big Ten

No. 2 Michigan and No. 12 Wisconsin had the week off, but the Badgers got some good news about injured goalie Joel Rumpel, who has been physically cleared to play. Teams that were in action last week included Michigan State (swept at Michigan Tech), Penn State (win vs. Sacred Heart), and No. 1 Minnesota who suffered its first loss of the season in a split at No. 4 Notre Dame.
Paula Weston recaps the week in the B1G for USCHO here.

Buckeye Women

I’m sure by now you’ve heard about the ladies’ penalty-record setting game against Bemidji State last Friday night. Everybody’s talking about it. What they aren’t talking about are the actual games so let me give you a quick rundown. Despite going up 1-0 on Kayla Sullivan’s first goal of the season, the Buckeyes dropped Friday’s game by a score of 3-2. Based on this video and coach Nate Handrahan’s postgame comments it looks like a chippy game just boiled over after the whistle. It certainly didn’t look like 300+ minutes worth of penalties. I think the refs were making a point. Saturday’s game was played with just 10 skaters a side due to all the disqualifications. Bemidji State picked up the extra point in a shootout, but the Buckeyes made them work for it. They put 52 shots on goal and had another 22 blocked by the Beavers’ skaters. Breanne Grant scored her first collegiate goal in the game. The ladies next series is this Friday and Saturday against conference foe Minnesota-Duluth. Both games begin at 3:07 p.m. and will take place at the Schott as part of a pair of doubleheaders with the men’s team. Fans who attend the women’s games will get a free ticket to that night’s men’s game.

OSU’s recaps and postgame coverage are here and here.
Ally Tarr is featured in Ohio State’s student-athlete spotlight here.
Want to try your hand at designing a goalie mask? Check out this contest, whose winning design will be featured on a Buckeye women’s hockey mask in the upcoming seasons!

Buckeye Commits

Matt Weis (1g) and Team USA took home gold at the World Jr. A Challenge. Nick Jones (3g, 2a) and Canada West were upset by Russia in the semis, but defeated Switzerland for the bronze medal. Check out all the tournament scores and info here.
Andy Johnson names Buckeye commit Sam McCormick as one of the juniors-to-watch in Wisconsin high school hockey this season.

Nuts Abroad

Cal Heeter has been red hot for the Adirondack Phantoms lately and earned his first pro shutout against Springfield last week!
Dave Steckel re-signed with Ducks and was assigned to Norfolk, where he's been playing anyway.
Matt Bartkowski making most of his recent opportunity to crack the Bruins' lineup.