Ohio coach Sean Hogan knows things can get a little stale on the ice.
He knows the season is approaching what he calls the “dog days,” despite the recent month-long break. It’s bitterly cold outside, weather issues have led to cancelled games and the season has been going since September. For whatever reason, Hogan knows that sometimes he needs to change things up — especially after Ohio lost both games to Robert Morris-Illinois last weekend, one in a shootout and the other in overtime.
“Sometimes, you got to mix things up because things get stale,” Hogan said. “I do believe great teams are repeatable, great lines are repeatable. They need to stick to the process. When things go poorly, you don’t want to abandon everything and hit the panic button.”
Heading into Friday and Saturday’s games against No. 19 Syracuse, Hogan has decided to mix some of his lines up, along with moving captain Cody Black from forward to defense.
Black covers the ice up and down as a forward, and as a defenseman, that’s something he’s going to bring to Ohio on defense. Black says one of the biggest parts of his game will be keeping the puck out of Ohio’s net.
Two of the three defensive pairings for Ohio will remain the same. The Grant Hazel-Tom Pokorney and Jake Houston-Nick Grose duos will remain paired together. Black will slot into a rotating trio with Shawn Baird and Scott Bagby.
Wherever Black is on the ice, it doesn’t affect his game.
“My mentality of how I play on the ice doesn’t change much,” he said. “Going forward, I’m just going to keep it simple by moving the puck quick to the forwards, getting shots on net and avoiding risky plays that may result in a turnover.”
As for the remaining forwards, Hogan has an idea for some of his lines heading into the weekend. Gianni Evangelisti, the Bobcats’ leading scorer, will center a line with a combination of Kyle Craddick, Timmy Thurnau and Austin Heakins. Bryan Lubin will be in the middle of Tyler Harkins and Matt Rudin.
Earlier this season, Black’s line with Harkins and Rudin excelled. As the season wore on and competition got stiffer, Hogan shook up the lines. Evangelisti was paired with Harkins and Heakins often in what could be Ohio’s most talented line.
But it has come to a point in the season when the lines needed to be shaken up. Hogan doesn’t want the season to come to a point where everything starts falling apart.
“We can’t let bad weekends define us,” Hogan said. “When things go poorly, we can’t implode.”
