While the final score Friday – a 4-0 Michigan victory that was aided by two empty-net goals – wouldn’t seem to indicate progress for a young Ohio State team, coach Mark Osiecki would disagree.
“This is good for us right now and believe it or not it stinks to lose but it’s good for us and we are better,” he said after the second ranked Buckeyes’ winless streak stretched to three games.
“Last time I looked that was one loss. No big deal. Let’s move forward and find a way. Our guys have that mentality.”
The Wolverines (13-8-4, 7-6-4-1) are ranked 15th but Osiecki knows better and a 6-0-2 streak backs him up.
“That club is a top five team, in my opinion, in the nation,” he said.
Lee Moffie and AJ Treais scored in the first period and Shawn Hunwick made 46 saves to back them up before Luke Glendening and Alex Guptill added the late goals after OSU goalie Cal Heeter was pulled for an extra attacker before a season-high crowd of 9,828 in Value City Arena.
“It was important the way the game started that we scored the first goal,” Michigan coach Red Berenson said. “Shawn made some saves early then we finally got one.’
OSU (14-5-3, 10-4-1-1) remained first in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association but chinks began to show last week after tying last-place Bowling Green twice.
That’s why Osiecki was pleased to see a good response vs. Michigan even with eight freshmen in the lineup.
“We played much better. We’re slowly getting back to where we were,” he said. “You’ve got to keep forging forward. It’s inevitable when things don’t go in with the opportunities we had you are going to try some different things and sometime we were a little too cute but I thought our guys for the most part continued to stay with it.”
Michigan is halfway to avenging a sweep by the Buckeyes in Ann Arbor in November and will carry the momentum into Sunday’s highly anticipated rematch in the Frozen Diamond Faceoff outdoor at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, home of the Indians.
The puck will drop at 5:05 p.m. with a crowd of around 25,000 expected.
OSU played Michigan with more intensity in the game than the series at Bowling Green last week when they managed just two out of a possible six points to the lowly Falcons.
In fact, the Buckeyes had some quality chances such as the yawning net that Chris Crane missed at the end of a power play but solid goaltending from Hunwick frustrated OSU long enough for Michigan to strike first.
“You’re going to have those games where you throw everything toward the net and nothing goes in for you,” OSU senior defenseman Sean Duddy said the of the 19 first-period shots. “We had one of those nights tonight.”
Moffie gave Michigan the lead on a rebound goal at 10:23 of the first.
“The game could have gone either way had they scored the next goal,” Berenson said.
OSU didn’t and Michigan increased the lead at the 18:47 mark, a tick after its power play was over, when Treais blistered a shot from the top of the left circle.
“We definitely improved on our last couple of games,” Duddy said. “There’s a huge difference. Michigan’s a good team. We got a lot of shots on net. We did a lot of positive things tonight.
“Even though you do some things better you never want to lose like that. I wouldn’t say morale is down. We’re going through a funk right now. We’ve got to work through it.”
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