The Bobcats will be relying on two relatively green goaltenders to keep the red light off this season.
Teddy Dushkin, a sophomore, and Brendan Madden, a freshman, are currently the only two goaltenders on the Bobcats’ roster. Neither has a great deal of experience playing at the collegiate level, with only seven games between them coming into the season — all of them belonging to Dushkin.
The duo’s youth is exacerbated when paired with a veteran-laden returning cast of forwards. The Bobcats should have no trouble putting the puck into the back of the net this season, as evidenced by the seven goals they blew by West Virginia in last Saturday’s season opener.
It’s on the other end of the ice where the Bobcats, with the pair of untested goaltenders and three freshman defensemen playing big minutes, could run into some trouble.
“You can have all the firepower you want up front and getting guys back,” head coach Dan Morris said. “But if you can’t keep the puck out of the net, we don’t play in the 7-5 game world. For us, a blowout is 3-0.”
While entering the season with such young players at arguably the most important position on the ice could be a cause for concern early on, Morris emphasized that the goalie is just one piece of Ohio’s overall defensive strategy.
“Your goaltender, he’s your last line of defense, but your layers in front of him have got to work together too,” Morris said. “So to individually say we’re going to rely on our goaltender, a sophomore goaltender or a freshman goaltender, to win us a national championship or something, that’s pretty lofty.”
Freshman defensemen Craig Myerhoff, Ross Pilmore and Mike Kretz all played major minutes Saturday night.
“It’s our biggest area of concern and the biggest area we need to work on and those guys are going to get minutes early on so they can get adjusted,” Morris said. “They still make mistakes, but they’re going to learn by getting the minutes. I think we’ve got good defenders and that’s part of the process.”
The first part of that process was a success last Saturday, as Myerhoff and Kretz each had an assist while also acting on the power play and penalty kill. Morris said he was particularly impressed with Kretz, who stepped in for an injured J.C. Gulch at the last minute.
The Bobcats were faced with a similar goaltender situation last year, when Blake MacNicol, a senior transfer from the University of Alabama-Huntsville, stepped up and won 25 games in net for the Bobcats.
While that transition was different, Morris said he expected playing behind MacNicol last season would help Dushkin this year.
That hope came to fruition for at least one game, as Dushkin was impressive in the season opener, stopping 21 of 23 shots by West Virginia, with the goals coming on a breakaway and a defensive missed assignment.
“Teddy’s a very talented, well-rounded goalie,” Madden said of his counterpart. “He’s a hybrid between a butterfly and a standup goalie, which is really nice because he can cover both the high and low parts of the net.”
Morris said Madden, a walk-on who Morris called “a nice surprise,” could get one of the two starts this weekend as the Bobcats again face the Mountaineers. While the less experienced of the two goaltenders, Morris said he was already impressed with the freshman’s work ethic.
“He’s got a couple little kinks that we need to work on and we’ve been working on,” Morris said. “If he can get to that and he can understand that, he competes and that’s what you want.”
cd211209@ohiou.edu
