Season Kickoff – Buckeyes Come To Town!!

HAPPY GAMEDAY!!

:)

The Ohio State Buckeyes are coming into Amsoil with a game already under their belts.  The Buckeyes defeated the Waterloo Warriors last week in overtime by a score of 3 to 2.  This game is the start of a small road streak for Ohio State who, after losing to UMD both nights ;), will then venture to Connecticut to play Quinnipac and then on to Bowling Green for a close-to-home away series.

The Buckeyes’ head coach Mark Osiecki is now in his third season as head coach, and actually had a pretty successful second season last year going 15-15-5 before losing to 4 to 2 to Notre Dame in the CCHA Tournament.  Ohio State is predicted to finish 8^th this year in the CCHA and are currently unranked nationally.

So what about them Buckeyes eh?

Ohio State didn’t lose too much important talent from last with the exception of a goalie with much experience.  The graduating class last year was only 4 for the buckeyes but they also lost both of their assistant captains.  They do return 7 of their 8 top scorers from last year including Chris Crane and Ryan Dzingel who both led the team with 24 points each.  The biggest problem for tOSU will be whether they can find a decent goalie to play between the pipes.  They currently have 4 goalies on the roster including freshman Collin Olson from the US Development Program and Peter Megariotis, redshirt junior Jeff Michael and senior Brady Hjelle…  Sound familiar?

Brady Hjelle started his career here actually, at tUMD, but left when he realized he would have to compete with Mr. Kenny Reiter for the starting spot.  Hjelle was 2-4-0 last year averaging 2.53 goals against per game and a save percentage of .922 in the few games he played in.  Hjelle backed up former senior Cal Heeter last year (instead of Kenny), who played 83% of tOSU’s total minutes between the pipes.  Brady MOST LIKELY gets both starts for the weekend, but we’ll see how that goes!

Last year the Buckeyes won 14 games in the first half of the season including big wins over Notre Dame and sweeping Michigan, but faltered in the second half of the season winning only one game over Western Michigan by a score of 4 to 3.

The Ohio State Buckeyes will be looking for a little bit of positivity after last season’s terrible ending, expect them to come out aggressive and looking to find the Dogs on their heels.

(Photo: USCHO...  Happy Birthday #21)

As for THE University of Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs…

I previewed the Dogs earlier this year HERE (forwards), HERE (defense) and HERE (goalies).  So if you’re looking for some in-depth analysis click those links and have some fun.  As for unofficial lines, I’ll post them below.

Forwards:

Danberg – Hendo – Flaherty

J. Crandall – Herbert – Seidel

Farley – Cameranesi – Basaraba

DeLisle – Tardy – Krause

Defense:

Bergman – Casto

Olson – Welinski

McManus – Smith

Goalies:

A. Crandall – McNeely - Fons

The Bulldogs have a lifetime record of 0-2-1 against Brutus Buckeye and look to even out the series this weekend.  The series should be a fun one right out of the gate and hopefully tUMD performs as well as I have hoped!

Puck drops at 7:07!  BE THERE!!!

GO DOGS!!!