Since Last Time: Robert Morris

Last Time: Colonial Times (1/13/2011) // Weekend Observations: Robert Morris (1/16/2011)

It's the final "Since Last Time" of the year. ESCHLs are next week, followed by new opponent Rutgers and ACHAs. Crazy. For this edition, Robert Morris - remember, no parentheses - makes the trip to the Ice Pavilion for the standard 9:00-3:30, Friday-Saturday weekend.

One thing that hasn't changed since last time: RMU's website. Since they're not exactly getting coverage elsewhere with Derek Schooley's crew on campus, that sort of puts me in a bind. I'll attempt to piece this thing together from the opponents or anything else I might be able to find, but it may not be pretty. The good news is that we don't have too much ground to cover, just six games.


Among the notable events of December 13, 2010: RMU updates their website, Taylor Swift turns 21.



After the 9-4 and 7-2 wins by the Icers last month, Bobby Mo headed north to Stony Brook for two against the Seawolves. And in what has to be considered a lockdown defensive effort for them, they only gave up eight goals and split the weekend. Stony Brook's website has the story. Kind of.

In Saturday's game against 18th ranked Robert Morris PA the 17th ranked Seawolves came out on top by winning the contest 5-2. The Seawolves scoring was lead by sophomore John Jennings with two goals. Senior defenseman Peter Zarrella, junior defenseman Phil Borner, and sophomore forward Sean Collins had one goal each.

On Sunday the Seawolves were not as fortunate and lost the contest by a score of 4-3. Two of the three goals for the Seawolves were score by senior forward Bryan Elfant and the third goal was scored by freshman Mike O’Shaunassey. After both games assistant coach Colin Brumsted was asked how he thought the weekend went and he said "In the first game we were able to get to all the lose pucks and capitalize on our scoring chances. However in the second game we had a really poor second period and RMU was able to score on our mistakes. One thing I did like was our team never gave up and was able to come back from a 4-1 deficit to make the game close but time just ran out on us."

Just to add a little bit to the picture, Brian Chiavetta and Beau Roeder scored the pair of second period goals on Sunday that provided the winning margin, in spite of a furious rally from Stony Brook in the third.

Next up was another split, this time against improved West Chester. WCU blogger/beat writer Kenny Ayres has that one covered. Friday's game was a 1980s-style shootout that ended thusly:

[In the] third period, as RMU would add two more power play goals [both from Ryan King] to tie the game. Then, at around the eleven minute mark of the third period, lazy defensive effort led to an RMU breakaway and Chris Gentile was forced to drag [Zach Stern] to the ice, resulting in a penalty shot, and eventual goal by RMU to take a 7-6 lead. The game looked like it was destined to be a failure and a for sure win blown. However, Steve Meade would tie the game at around the eight minute mark, and Chris Doyle would add the game winner with less than three minutes to play. It was a great come back, but there's no way that this game should have been this close.

Ayres was pretty dissatisfied after that one, but it only got worse for him as RMU bounced back to win a much more subdued second game.

Saturday was not the high scoring shootout that Friday was, but it was a disappointing contest as well. Both teams played a very lack luster first period, and there was no score after the first period. WCU's undisciplined play was the theme of this game. The Golden Rams took eleven penalties in the first two periods, and could not get any sort momentum together. RMU would add three power play goals in the second period [by Luke Bennett, Roeder and Matt Javitt], and Harrison Welch would score for WCU, as RMU took a 3-1 lead into the second intermission.

In what was a slight positive in a disappointing game, WCU charged back in the third period and completely dominated play. The Golden Rams pelted RMU with shot after shot, but ultimately only solved RMU's Robbie Fallick once, on a Steve Meade goal with around eight minutes to go in the game. Fallick shut the door after Meade's tally, and RMU held on for the 3-2 win.

The Colonials carried the momentum from that win into a pair of home games last weekend - a Friday engagement with an awful Washington & Jefferson team (they've given up 44 goals in four games against Delaware this year) and a game with less-bad Indiana (PA) on Saturday. With the step down in competition, RMU ran up two six-goal wins, 8-2 and 12-6 respectively. Bennett led the way with four goals and four assists over the two games and Stern contributed a goal and seven assists.

Since I'm just a blogger and not a right wing, I have the luxury of pointing out that the regular season ESCHL standings are finalized. Plus, Robert Morris is long-removed from the ACHA national championship picture and Penn State has survived the toughest stretch of games leading up to the tournament cutoff ranking. If you're looking for Stanley Cup finals intensity, you should probably look somewhere else. But at the same time, it's vital that the Icers find enough in the basement to keep winning or risk undoing all the good done over the last three weeks.

Outside Reading

VFTB had another big interview week, first with Andrew Duval (last Friday's hero) and Paul Daley, then with Josh Hand. Perhaps the most important thing to emerge from these:

Daley wears the same hat as me. That is soooo clutch.

The official site checked in with a Bubble Watch and quite frankly did a much better job with it than me, since it accounts for autobids and notes the Robert Morris (IL)-Iowa State season series that may prove vital in terms of that last tournament spot.

Finally, if you're one of the three people who care about Penn State hockey and haven't seen this yet, watch it now:

Since Last Time: Rhode Island

Dan Lassik is still busy playing on a team I'm rooting for. Photo: URI official site

Last time: Ramchargers (11/12/2010) // Weekend Observations: Rhode Island (11/15/2010)

Rhode Island (now No. 6 and 25-3-1) actually had another game the day after laying waste to the Icers back in November - against NCAA Division III doormat (okay, it's a second-year program, but still) University of New England. The Rams jumped out to a 3-0 lead in that one, then hung on for a 4-3 win. Here's a copy/paste of quotes from URI's newspaper, The Good 5-Cent Cigar. Despite the creativity on the name, the paper makes me extremely grateful that I don't blog about URI. Thanks for not sucking, Collegian.

"There's not much you can do on those goals [that cut the lead to 4-3]," [Kyle] Krannich said. "A lot of it is bearing it down and not taking it easy."

Rhody won with no additional goals as [Matt] DeJulio made 14 stops in the final period to help seal the win for the Rams.

"We used all 32 of our guys this weekend, seeing what they can bring to the table," [coach Joe] Augustine said. "All in all it was a good weekend."

Four of the next six, spanning the holiday break, were against West Chester, with the other two against Robert Morris. These games were Exhibit A in the Rams' tendency to look like the best team in the ACHA one day, then play down to competition the next.

November 19th: URI 9 at West Chester 0
November 20th: URI 6 at West Chester 4
December 3rd: Robert Morris 1 at URI 7
December 4th Robert Morris 4 at URI 5
January 7th: West Chester 2 at URI 4
January 8th: West Chester 4 at URI 3

Of course, they can also play up to competition, as Delaware found in a showdown for first place in the ESCHL the weekend after those last two lackluster games against WCU. Since the Rhody media more or less ignored the big weekend (maybe they were still on break, if so, I picked the wrong school), I'll go to the Delaware side of the story. UD held a lead on Friday until...

The delay [for a broken panel of glass] certainly seemed to slow down the Blue Hens, as URI was able to knot the score at 3 by the end of 2. After an evenly contested opening ten minutes of the final frame, URI eventually squeaked one by Broadt again for a 4-3 lead with just over 9 minutes to play. The third period turned out to be the worst of the season for Delaware as they surrendered two more goals, including an empty netter to seal the game 6-3 in favor of the Rams.

The Saturday game was knotted at 2-2 going into overtime, then...

After an icing call forced tired UD skaters back into their defensive zone with under two minutes gone in the extra session, coach MF Schurman called timeout to get fresh legs out for the critical draw. The UD center was ultimately beat clean leading to hard one timer from the weakside URI point that bounced off the crossbar and right onto a URI stick for an empty net rebound goal.

Sweeping the Hens placed the Rams in the ESCHL driver's seat as four key players departed for the World University Games. These players include Alan Dionne and Dan Lassik, one of the best defense tandems in the ACHA, as well as Krannich and Devin Sheehan, two of URI's many talented forwards. Head coach Augustine is not on the WUG staff, as he has been in the past. Which is probably fortunate for Rhode Island, otherwise the team would be in the hands of these guys.

Even with Augustine behind the bench, Rhody has sort of limped along for a couple weeks against weaker competition, although they have gone 4-0-0. Ho-hum 6-2 and 6-1 wins at Cortland were followed by 4-3 and 5-3 home wins against No. 17 Stony Brook last weekend that were even tougher than the scores indicate.

Rhody took a 3-1 lead into the third period in Friday's game but was unable to keep Stony Brook from tying the game later...Freshman center Sean O'Neil scored the game-winning goal with 4:20 left in the game.
********************
Stony Brook scored two goals in the tail end of the second period [Saturday] before taking the lead early in the third period.

"The second one [goalie Paul Kenny] had no chance because that was a heck of a shot," Augustine said. "The third goal was a 2-on-1 and is the easiest goal that kid will ever score because it was misplayed by our defenseman, but I thought our goaltenders over the weekend played very well."

After several scoring chances went unconverted, [Jay] Dupras scored the tying goal off a setup pass from [Shawn] Tingley with 4:19 remaining in the third period.

On a similar play just more than three minutes later, Dupras scored on another play setup by Tingley to give Rhody the lead with 1:13 remaining.

This weekend, of course, is alumni weekend at Penn State. Terry Pegula will be there, fresh off of finalizing his agreement to purchase the Buffalo Sabres this week. A new class will be inducted into the Icers Hall of Fame. The assembled dignitaries will be treated to two pretty important games in terms of the ESCHL standings and national polls. But maybe the best news of all for the the Icers and their fans is that after last weekend, the pressure's off a little - not entirely, but just a bit. Penn State is depleted by injuries (Taylor Cera, Kevin Miller and now Michael Longo) and the WUG (Tim O'Brien and Eric Steinour), but gets to face an inconsistent team that's just as shorthanded. And since a split more or less locks up a nationals bid, I'm pretty confident that I'll be booking a hotel room next week.

Outside Reading

Steve Penstone's VFTB was back on the interview trail this week, treating us to personal favorite Dan Petrick and Mike Broccolo, one of last weekends heroes. And if you want to relive last Saturday's big win, he has it broken down into six convenient minutes (well, 5:54).

Here's an AP story about Big Ten hockey that made the rounds this week. I can't really call any of it new information, but it popped up on enough websites to get me to break down and link it here anyway.

I'm not one who normally believes in statistical anomalies as evidence of anything, but a Collegian piece this week laid out a convincing argument to the contrary for the Icers' third period success.

Since Last Time: Delaware

All part of Kenny Ayres' master plan for West Chester dominance. Photo: Delaware official site

Last time: Hen-d of the Semester Showdown (12/3/2010) // Weekend Observations: Delaware (12/5/2010)

Just when I thought I was done with the worst post title I've ever written until the end of days, there it is again, right on the eve of possible season-defining games on the Olympic ice at No. 4 Delaware's Fred Rust Ice Arena tonight at 7:00 p.m. and tomorrow at 5:00 p.m.

This might end up being a pretty short post, for a couple reasons. First of all, it hasn't actually been that long since last time on the college hockey clock. Four weekends, eight games. Secondly, the Blue Hens get screwed in the school paper coverage department - as far as I can tell, this November 8th article that I used last time the teams played is the most recent thing the UD Review has to show for their hockey coverage.

The good news is that the person who writes the game recaps for UD's website actually, you know, writes, so that should help us out. Sometimes that official site stuff can be painful - "Pat Verbeek scored, assisted by Andrew Cassels and Adam Burt. Then the other team scored. Then the other team scored again. Then Geoff Sanderson scored, assisted again by Cassels. Sean Burke played well in goal." Make sure you get as many names in as possible for the parents, and try to use their real names, and not 1990s-era Hartford Whalers as fill-ins.

After the split with the Icers, the Blue Hens went to Robert Morris for a pair of games that actually looked a lot like the ones PSU just played against the Colonials. RMU scored, Delaware scored more. Both games were actually pretty tight through two periods, including a deficit on Saturday after a wild second, but followed a similar pattern in the third.

Friday:

The 3rd period was all Delaware as they buried three insurance markers to handily take the first game of the weekend and third of the year from RMU. Goals were scored by [Dave] Lombardi, [Vinny] Pontrello, and freshman Nick Lepore. Sophomore Nick Casella made 24 saves in net for the win, his 12th of the season.

Saturday:

Despite several starters out due to injury and exams, Delaware looked to familiar faces to lead them in their comeback. [Mike] Piet scored again, this time on the powerplay 1:46 into the [third] period. The goal was his fourth in his last four games and brought the Hens and Colonials back to even at 5-5. Just two minutes later [Christian] Tasker deflected junior Jason Michaud's shot in to give the Hens the lead for good. Junior Kevin Miller added an insurance goal on the powerplay with 1:44 to play.

Two big third periods, six different goal scorers. Delaware in a nutshell.

After the break, the Blue Hens hosted West Virginia, and were again boosted by a big third period in a 7-3 win on Friday, before riding Connor Moore's second period goal (and a late empty-netter) to a 2-0 win in the back half of the series. Deceptively close? I have no idea, I was busy avoiding banjo music at Bird Arena at the time. But here's what the UD site says:

The Mountaineers hung tough for two games this weekend, utilizing a collapse and clutter style defense in their own end to frustrate the Blue Hens.

Collapse and clutter?


Makes sense, since half of all Hoarders episodes are filmed in West Virginia.


All of this winning (remember, UD's only regulation loss to this point was against the Icers in December) put the Blue Hens in a showdown for first place in the ESCHL with Rhode Island, which went a little better for next week's opponent than it did for this week's. In game one, Delaware held a 3-1 lead after one period, then gave up five unanswered the rest of the way. Then in game two, UD again had a second period lead thanks to Ryan McDonald's pair, but gave up the equalizer 25 seconds after taking the lead and eventually fell 3-2 in overtime.

Last weekend, Delaware went back to Pittsburgh to play Washington & Jefferson in games that were only entertaining because of how upset the team was at having to play them. This tweet from Zach Reubel while on the road was fairly representative:

Three doo doo movies, zero food stops, five long hours. The lost weekend off to a rousing start. Thanks, Deangelis

DeAngelis, of course, is former Delaware coach Mike, who apparently scheduled the games. Considering the Blue Hens won 11-1 and 17-4, Reubel kind of has a point.

Which brings us to now, and a couple pretty important games, if you haven't heard. A great rivalry. Second place in the ESCHL on the line. And possibly Penn State's season. Despite Josh Weiner's highly-publicized tweet however, I'm not convinced the Hens can put a nail in the coffin of the Icers' season - as long as an 0-2 is followed up with a 2-0 against Rhode Island next week. I've said many times that we need 2-2 over the next two weeks, and I really don't care where the wins fall on the calendar. That said, needing a sweep is a lot to ask, and URI doesn't suck even without their WUG players, so...maybe not the final nail, but at the very least, PSU will be up against it big time without a split or sweep here.

Put all that together with seeing if Paul Daley survives to Sunday and yeah, this is going to be fun.

Outside Reading

VFTB did a great job with something I didn't pay enough attention to on here - the sudden retirement of Michigan State's Rick Comley, effective at the end of the season. Don't think that doesn't affect Penn State either, as both programs will be in the market for some of the top coaches in college hockey. Oh, and Josh Hand also gets an interview in the post. And he linked me. Basically, the post is a few copy/pasted tweets from perfection, check it out.

Mr. Penstone also got freshmen Matt Madrazo and Mike McDonagh to say things to a camera. Needless to say, the Icers would be in a pretty tough spot without those two.

The official site's preview always does a great job with the essential information.

Finally, the Collegian informs us that Icers D Kevin Miller is out for the weekend (along with Taylor Cera and the WUG players of course). Also, everyone's over the Twitter incident, but still talking about it.

Since Last Time: West Chester

Last time: Less Than Golden (11/5/2010) // Weekend Observations: West Chester (11/7/2010)

For reasons you'll see shortly, it's probably not worth getting into too much detail concerning the end of West Chester's fall semester, which involved a 3-4-0 mark for the Golden Rams following those games with the Icers. While some credit is due for two of those three wins coming against ranked teams (No. 25 West Virginia and No. 16 Stony Brook), there was very little indication that the team was moving up in the ACHA world anytime soon. At the break, the WCU Quad gave a brief state of the team address.

The WCU Men's Ice Hockey Club is far from where they want to be. They are far from a winning record, far from a healthy lineup, and certainly far from contention. As dismal as this season has played out, the Rams are also far from giving up. After being thoroughly outplayed for weeks at a time, the Rams still show glimpses of the team they can be. The last few weekends have certainly had their share of bright spots. Coming off four straight losses, the Rams proved they could still skate with the best. The Rams record of late does not tell the whole story. Some luck, aggressive play, and timely heroics have put a little bit of fear back into the opponent's eyes.

You know your season's going well when the school paper's beat writer gets into to the PR business and drops a "they're not giving up." Or the opposite of that.

I'll admit it, I laughed at that "little bit of fear back into the opponent's eyes" line at the end. Then I stopped laughing when I saw "West Chester 4, RHODE ISLAND 3" pop up on my Twitter feed sometime during the evening of January 8th. URI's a team I've talked up quite a bit here, so I'm impressed. WCU certainly got more out of their trip to The Boss (apologies, Bruce) than we did. Quad beat writer Kenny Ayres apparently started a blog about Golden Rams hockey sometime in December, and had this to say about the big win against the (other) Rams on it.

This game was evenly matched from the drop of the puck in the first period. It was physical, up and down, well played game by both teams...[it] was an absolute classic thriller, and the whole weekend showed the WCU squad that they can play with anyone in the country.

By the way, if you clicked on that link, you might have noticed something.

Blogger desperately needs more templates.

Yep, Ayres is a Twitter account and a rink design graphic away from taking over my life, SWF-style. Hopefully that includes my student loans. Enjoy. (In all sincerity, I'm glad to see someone over there take it up - if every ACHA team had a Kenny Ayres, it would be a more enjoyable place, and most importantly, allow me to do more lazy cut-and-paste posts. Welcome to the club, please accept full-time linkage in a moderately obscure place on TYT as a token of my gratitude. But said gratitude doesn't mean I won't rip on you for rationality-optional reasons - see just before the parentheses for reference.)

So...just how does a team go from getting stomped 15-4 (over two games) by Rhode Island in mid-November to beating them in January? Well, that one's pretty easy. The team we'll see tonight and tomorrow will look a lot different than the one we - and URI - saw in November, as it includes eight - that's E-I-G-H-T - new players for the spring semester. Ayers took a look at them in two parts, here and here. It's a pretty impressive group, headlined by forward Chris Gentile, who was recruited by NCAA Division I Merrimack, and goaltender Randy Japchen, who has played in the USHL, even if it was only for 4:45 (still, he was good enough to be there).

The overhaul of the team has been drastic, to say the least. Of WCU's 20 goals so far this semester, half have been scored by newcomers Gentile, Chris Doyle, Harrison Welch and Bob MacLaughlin. Doyle and Welch have joined with Steve Meade to form the Golden Rams' best line right now. Japchen has started three of the four games and played well throughout, and Gordon Nicholson has steadied the defense corps.

All of this has led to a 3-1-0 start to the spring semester, with the Rhode Island split being followed up by a home sweep of ECHA doormats Drexel and Towson last Friday and Saturday. The Towson game was a blowout; the Drexel game was not, with the Golden Rams pulling it out 4-3 in overtime on the back of a Steven Jones winner. Ayres explained the close score between a pretty bad team and his WCU squad thusly.

The story of this game was Drexel netminder, Dan Pyne (as I was afraid of). The Golden Rams seemed a little full of themselves in the first period of the game, perhaps having a little bit of a hangover from their big victory in the previous weekend. They came out and completely dominated the rest of the game, though, firing 40 shots on Pyne in the second and third periods, as well as the overtime period. Pyne was outstanding in the Drexel net, and the Golden Rams had trouble solving him all night. The final shots were 50-28 in favor of WCU. After seeing Pyne live, there really are no questions as to how he made the WUG team.

Pyne's a great goalie without a doubt. So as much as I think the "hot goalie" argument is overused (sometimes by me), I can accept it here.

So there you have it, 2010-2011 West Chester hockey, 2.0. However, despite the improved opponent, once again, wins are what's needed. Without them, whatever margin for error we may have is completely gone - and no, I have no idea if we'll get the appropriate poll credit for these games, win or lose. I'm definitely looking forward to breaking down pairwise rankings as an NCAA team, which is something I think I'd be better at than guessing at the whims of ACHA coaches.

Oh yeah, and - recurring theme alert - we'll have to do it without four key components of our team - don't forget Taylor Cera's shoulder separation in addition to the WUG departures.

Outside Reading

I'm going to break pattern here and start with the opponent's work. My WCU doppelganger previewed the Icers for his blog. I always think it's interesting to get an unfiltered look at your team from the other side's perspective and he doesn't disappoint - dude did his homework and gave me a shout out, which gets you credit every single time from me. Tip of the hat.

Steve Penstone had a pretty prolific week over on VFTB, talking to Chris Cerutti, then Josh Hand, who probably wouldn't have minded a softer entrance into head coaching duties.

The Collegian, in their pregame, does a better job than me at contrasting the roster situations of both PSU and WCU.

One Final Note

No updates for Friday's game. I mean it this time, unlike last week when I said no updates, then ended up retweeting everything I saw about the games from the Robert Morris Twitter and from the Icers' Facebook page.

Why? Well, if you know me personally, you know I attend graduate school at the University of Akron. Akron has an ACHA D2 team, and I wanted to check them out once this year. Their three home games left are Friday, then opposite both games of the Rhode Island series. So I chose this one. It should have zero effect on Saturday updates or my Weekend Observations, because I actually live here. And I get in free because of this.

That's right, I don't have to pay $3 to get in. Jealous?

Some Akron YouTubeyness to close it out. I promise I won't bother you with Zippy stuff ever again unless they do something major, like wear matching uniforms.

Since Last Time: Ohio

Clutch goaltending from Teddy Hume and some great penalty killing in a physical game helped lead to this celebration following Steve Thurston's OT winner with one second left. The Saturday win allowed PSU to battle back and earn a split at Bird Arena last season.

The spring semester is here, which means plenty of opposite-site rematches against teams with whom the Icers have already tangled. Rather than present another primer on these opponents as throughout the fall semester, I'll take a slightly different angle - updating what these teams have done since playing Penn State. This may crash and burn once I hit teams that don't get regular coverage from their student newspapers, but it still beats me telling you for a second time that Ohio goalie Blake MacNicol transferred from Alabama-Huntsville. Oh wait, I just did.

Last time: O-H, They Go (10/22/2010) // Weekend Observations: Ohio (10/24/2010)

So how have the No. 4 Bobcats been since then? Pretty well actually - OU's last regulation loss was in the Friday game against the Icers. First up was a down Iowa State team in Ames. The No. 14 Cyclones are in legitimate danger of missing the ACHA national tournament for the first time ever (probably, educated guess on my part) and the Bobcats treated them accordingly in a revenge series, winning 4-1 and 5-1.

A veteran Ohio (6-3-1, 2-0 CSCHL) team relied on a tenacious forecheck to take advantage of the inexperienced Cyclone defenders. The [then] No. 6 Bobcats wore down Iowa State (5-9-0, 1-3 CSCHL) with sustained physical pressure, and the Cyclones broke in the final stanza of each contest.

"When you wear them down then those opportunities arrive late in the game, and I thought we did a good job capitalizing," Ohio head coach Dan Morris said. "You can see with three third-period goals Friday and two third-period goals Saturday."

It was a pair of seniors who led the way for the Bobcats Saturday as Billy Hemann and Brett Molnar combined for two power-play goals and five points. The goal was Molnar's first since the season-opener against Goderich Oct. 1.

Ohio next returned home to face No. 6 Arizona State and lost 5-4 in a shootout Friday before winning 3-2 Saturday. The power play was vital to the 1-0-1 weekend.

During the weekend, six of the Bobcats' seven goals came on the man advantage, a statistic head coach Dan Morris finds positive but also troubling.

"It's good and it's bad. We want to win the five-on-five battles ... We got beat this weekend on even-strength goals." Morris said. "That's an area of concern."

The next four games were against ACHA Division 2 Miami and Ohio State, all Ohio wins by a combined 25-8. Yawn. Next.

The Bobcats participated in the Wheeling Mountaineer Invitational over Thanksgiving weekend and came away with the tournament title on the strength of a 6-4 win over host West Virginia powered by the usual suspects - four assists from Tyler Pilmore, two goals each from Michael Schultz and Brett Agnew - the guy who torched the Icers for three power play goals in that 6-3 loss on October 23rd.  A pair of wins at No. 13 Illinois followed, and while the Illini, like ISU, are a little down this year, collecting Ws on the Big Pond is never easy. Especially when you have to drop 'em every minute and a half or so.

I had the chance to attend Ohio's last game, a decisive 7-3 result against No. 20 Kent State December 11th (following a tight 2-1 win the night before). In particular, I felt like the Bobcats special teams dominated the penalty-riddled game, particular OU forwards Hemann, Alex DiMassa and Jared Fuhs on the penalty kill - the ability of Penn State to break through this group with a sort-of-struggling power play might be the key to these two games. You might look at the box score, see that KSU had three on the power play, and think I'm an idiot, but I only see one that wasn't in garbage time, and that was with the Flashes up two men. I actually think the box score's wrong about the second PPG too - I only see matching roughing minors in effect for that one.

Also, look out for defenseman Jake Holzemer on the Ohio power play - he likes to sneak down low fishing for a juicy rebound. It paid off with the game's first goal, but he also got burned at least once.

When you go to Athens, you always have to account for a couple different things.

1. Bird Arena. The place defines "quirky, old school hockey barn." The surface is ten feet short of the usual 200, with most of that extra distance taken out of the neutral zone. The benches are on opposite sides as a result, giving the whole setup a high school football feel to it, but one that has an effect on the game itself - with a quick trip from O to D, the importance of transitional play is always an emphasis. As is physicality on the small ice.  
2. The fans. Fan involvement can be kind of hit-and-miss in the ACHA, but OU is one of the places with engaged spectators who don't have a kid on the team, including a student cheering section called Gang Green. One of them runs a lap around the ice with a flag after every Bobcat goal, although the excitement from the goal wears off, the "Hey! You suck!" chant concludes, and play gets back underway long before he's actually finished. Always kind of awkward.

Would you pay $18 to sit with these people all season long?

As tough of a venue as Bird Arena can be, the Icers are a team without much of a margin for error at this point, in terms of making the ACHA national championship tournament. PSU sits in a tie for tenth in the polls and probably needs to stick in the top 12 to go to Delaware in March. What does that mean in terms of this weekend? In my opinion, a split is needed. The team simply can't afford another Rhode Island-like disaster right now, and a split maintains the status quo at worst, and maybe even helps a little - OU is No. 4 after all. An Icers sweep (which has happened exactly once at Bird since Party of Five was on the air) would obviously be phenomenal and give some protection against slipping versus URI or Delaware over the next several weeks.

Outside Reading

Steve Penstone, in VFTB, reiterates a lot of what I just said. Well, okay, he was first, I'm reiterating him. He also has clutch interviews with Marek Polidor and Josh Hand, which I obviously don't have. They get into things like the Icers' road-heavy January schedule (seven of eight games) and the fact that they'll be playing on three different sized surfaces this month.

I'm happy to report that The Athens Post's sports blog has stepped it up since earlier in the week and offers this effort. A little TYT 24/7 for you: when I watch a game, the first thing I do is jot down the line combos (for TYT, not all the time, that would be pretty lame of me). Price of trying to do this from four hours away. I felt like a big wheel last week when they were already up on the live stats before the WUG team-Vermont game. So Mr. Logan's efforts in that area are appreciated, even if they're only "projected lines."

Here's their pre-series story, which contains this quote from Morris.

"There is always added intensity when we play Penn State. The rivalry dictates it should be that way. They're coming into our barn desperate for a win, so we've got to be prepared for that."

They're important games, no doubt. Rivalry games. Desperate? I wouldn't take it that far. It maybe gets "desperate" if we lose, but as of now, it's just a matter of knowing the situation and knowing what has to be done to reach the finish line.

A feature on MacNicol, who transferred from NCAA Division I Alabama-Huntsville (boom, got it in again), is also part of The Post's hockey coverage this week.