Gianni Evangelisti was alone with only the goalie to beat.
He faked left with the puck and dangled it on his stick to the right. The puck found the back of the net, just 20 seconds into the second period.
By the end of Friday’s game, Evangelisti scored three goals and led Ohio to a 6-3 win over Syracuse in Bird Arena.
Evangelisti’s breakaway goal came because the Bobcats knew they could beat Syracuse’s defense and goalie with their speed, and had some ideas for a controlled breakaway coming out of the first intermission. The chance to capitalize on one came right after the middle period’s opening face-off.
Despite the game of hockey’s free-flowing nature, the thoughts generated in the locker room turned into an early goal.
“In the game of hockey, you can’t really draw up plays,” coach Sean Hogan said. “You can give them ideas.”
The time spent in the intermissions seemed to spurn Ohio forward the entire game. After Evangelisti’s goal in the second period, the Bobcats’ struggled throughout the final 19:40 of the period, giving up two goals and clutching a one-goal lead into the third period.
Ohio came back out onto the ice for the third period aggressive and held Syracuse scoreless for the final 20 minutes.
A lot of that comes down to talent that Ohio has. Sometimes it relies on it too much, and it can get in trouble.
“You can’t rely on talent to win,” Hogan said. “You have to play inside a structure, we have to get back to that.”
But of course, that talent can bail a team out often. Evangelisti might be the most talented skater the Bobcats have. Between his stick skills shown on his second goal, his skating, or his goal-scoring ability, with a hat trick in Friday’s game. He has 15 goals on the season.
His other two goals on Friday were similar in nature. Both on the power play, both slap shots that found their way past the goalie’s shoulder pads. Both were fed by defensemen Nick Grose and Jake Houston.
Evangelisti knows it all can’t be on talent, and he played within what Hogan wants to happen. Hogan has harped this season on his power play units taking more shots. When Evangelisti had the shots, he took them.
“Grose and (Houston) are making good plays to get open up top, and some guys down low, Harkins and (Matt) Rudin, are doing a good job of screening the goalie,” Evangelisti said. “So I just took my shots, I guess.”
It’s sometimes easy for Ohio to get wins when its best skaters play as well as they did against Syracuse. But mostly, it’s a relief for the Bobcats to get a win, because they know they almost didn’t.
“It felt good to get on the scoreboard,” Evangelisti said. “But it feels better to get the win.”
