Garrett Jenkins ripped a shot, Gianni Evangelisti recovered the deflection and, after the puck was poked away, Nick Grose prevented it from crossing the blue line.
Both Ohio and Eastern Michigan fought for the puck across the Eagles’ blue line and in the neutral zone. The puck found its way toward the Bobcats’ net but Jake Houston cleared the puck away once, and Cody Black dove in front of a shot to block it.
And while all this happened, all Jimmy Thomas had to do was watch. At this point in the game, Eastern Michigan hadn’t been able to get a lot of shots on target. But on its third, the Eagles were able to recover a loose puck in front of the net and slot one past Thomas.
Ohio had outshot Eastern Michigan by seven at that point, but found itself down by one, halfway through the first period. Thomas knew situations like that can happen as the netminder for a team that has a focus on puck possession and getting a ton of shots off.
“You just gotta stay focused on those games,” Thomas said. “You never know when a puck can hop over to the defensive side, especially on bad ice, which we’ve had (in Bird Arena) at the beginning of the year.”
For Thomas, staying in focus means following the puck. He has to block everything else out. The Bird Arena crowd prides itself on attempting to get into the heads of opponents around the American Collegiate Hockey Association.
“You can’t really pay attention to anything else,” Thomas said. “It just keeps you involved on the puck and the play the whole time.”
The Bobcats take a lot of shots and give up a few. They have outshot opponents 322-100 this year — including a 68-15 thrashing of West Virginia on Oct. 6. The Bobcats almost had 100 shots themselves against Eastern Michigan last weekend.
To go with all those shots, Ohio has been scoring goals. A lot of goals. The Bobcats have scored 58 goals this year and only allowed eight.
That means the Ohio goalies — Thomas and his backups — haven’t needed to be perfect, but there’s always the pride of recording a shutout. As the Bobcats begin their Central States Collegiate Hockey League slate — which begins Friday night in Ames, Iowa, against Iowa State — games will begin to tighten up.
“You’re basically always trying to hold them to zero,” Thomas said. “It’s a lot less stressful when you’re up by a lot of goals.”
In those tighter CSCHL games, any mistake that a goalie might make can be amplified. One goal could snowball into more, and the game could take a different shape.
“One slip-up could cost you a goal,” Thomas said. “One goal could lead to two that easy, and then you have a game.”
Being able to focus on the game in front of the goalie isn’t always something that a coach can help with. So, when coach Sean Hogan is perched on the bench, it can feel like a games taking forever.
Hogan has to rely on his goalie to stay in the game.
“In general, goalies have to be mentally tough,” he said. “There’s going to be games where they don’t get a lot of action, and when they do get action, it’s a breakaway. That’s usually what happens.”
Even with the Bobcats’ puck possession offense, goalies have to be ready for the other team to force a turnover and have its own chance down the ice.
To start the season, that hasn’t happened often. But when it has, the Bobcats’ defense has been quick to recover. They know the importance that the goalies — especially Thomas — have. They are aware that he plays a lot of key minutes for Ohio, such as last season, when he leads the ACHA in minutes played and games played, and was tied for second in shutouts.
The skaters want to take the load off their netminder.
“Jimmy has been one of the better goalies to come through here,” said Grant Hazel, a senior defenseman. “He bails us out a lot. We need to be there for him.”
