Grant Hazel skated off the ice with a grin on his face and his head held high. The senior defenseman took one final look at the crowd in Bird Arena before entering the locker room after Ohio’s 4-3 overtime win against league rival Illinois.
“It feels really good,” Hazel said about Ohio’s first overtime win of the season. “That was a really good shot by Gianni (Evangelisti) and obviously (Matt) Rudin was in a good position, that’s exactly what we needed.”
Aside from Rudin’s circus goal, where the puck deflected off his head and into the back of the net, one of the Bobcats’ strengths throughout Saturday’s game was their penalty kill unit.
The man-down unit operated at an unprecedented 100 percent against a highly-skilled Illinois team. Led by Hazel, the Bobcats sent puck after puck deep into the Illini zone and caused fits for their man-advantage throughout the night.
“We had a lot of guys chipping in tonight,” Hazel said. “A lot of the times when we get caught up on the penalty kill it’s just the entries, if we get caught flat-footed but today we really didn’t do that.”
While the PK unit executed to perfection, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was perfect, as coach Sean Hogan was quick to analyze things the unit could’ve done better.
“We’re still not as aggressive as I want us to be,” Hogan said. “I think we laid off of them a bit too much and that’s a mindset – I’d prefer them to go all the time.”
A new style of PK being adopted in the NHL is called the “15 seconds of chaos” in which teams’ man-down units wreak havoc on the opposing power play units for at least 15 seconds. While it’s an up-and-coming strategy in the game, it’s one that Hogan would like to utilize come the spring semester.
“It’s all about pressure, pressure, pressure,” he said. “That’s not what’s been taught for a long time so it’s hard to break that mindset. We want them to be all over them, it’s really hard to set up a power play if you’re constantly on them.”
It hasn’t been formally introduced yet to the Bobcats’ PK units, but the blueprint for the 15 seconds of chaos scheme was on display as the night progressed. Illinois only had a few good chances with its advantage.
Inversely, the Bobcat’s power play unit also performed well. After it went 0-for-3 in Friday’s game, it was able to find the back of the net twice on Saturday. A power play unit that’s been much too passive, finally found some aggression as both the goals were scored in the midst of net-front scrums.
“I thought that was the best game we’ve played in three weeks,” Hogan said.
It’s also the last game the Bobcats will play in 2018 as they head into the semester break with a 12-3-3 record.
