Sloppy, inconsistent and up-and-down. But also a sweep.
Although it looked rough at times, Ohio opened its season with a sweep of John Carroll for the sixth consecutive time.
The Bobcats won Friday and Saturday’s games a combined 15-3, much different than last year’s 20-0 routing.
The difference in this season's bout? Special teams.
The Bobcats' penalty kill unit was on the ice a combined 17 times over the weekend, compared to only seven times a year ago.
One storyline of this year’s team is its youth on the penalty kill. Two new defensemen, Shawn Baird and Nick Grose, made their debuts this past weekend.
Senior defenseman Jake Faiella knows as time goes on, the penalty kill unit will get better.
“There are a few things we need to clean up,” Faiella said. “We had a couple of sloppy (penalty kills), but, all in all, I thought we did an OK job.”
A couple of sloppy penalty kills gave way to two of John Carroll’s three goals.
“We let a couple of easy ones in,” coach Sean Hogan said.
For the Bobcats, the weekend had a lot of trial and error. Ohio is yet to completely install its penalty kill systems.
“We really haven’t run over our systems a bunch,” Baird said. “I mean, we’ve worked on them, just not as much to be perfect at it.”
The conditions at Bird Arena, which has insulation issues, did play a factor. The building reached temperatures of above 70 degrees. Playing on bad ice had an effect on the puck, making it hard to move, giving it more of a bounce than a slide.
On the other side of the penalty kill unit is the power play unit, and the Bobcats’ performed well on Saturday.
Ohio’s power play unit went 2 for 5 with goals scored by Faiella and Gianni Evangelisti. Saturday’s success topped Friday’s blunder, when the Bobcats were 0 for 8.
Much like the penalty kill unit, the power play unit has not established schemes or lines just yet, but that’s something to come soon, according to Hogan.
“The first couple of weeks we just try to roll everybody through and see where we are,” Hogan said.
While it’s only now the second week of a long season for Ohio, the expectation for both special team unit is to improve vastly.
“They aren’t the numbers we want, we just have to go through the adversity every once in a while,” Faiella said. “We’ll work through it in practice more closely and things will get sorted out.”
Ohio’s special teams units will have the chance to go to work next week in Annapolis, Maryland. The Bobcats have a series with Navy on Friday and Saturday.
