Neil's Notebook: Retooled Buckeyes Pose Next Challenge

By Neil Koepke, MSUSpartans.com staff writer

ALSO: MSU-Ohio State Preview

EAST LANSING – In the annual Big Ten Coaches Preseason Poll, Ohio State was picked to finish last in the seven-team conference. Four months later, the Buckeyes are one of the biggest surprise teams in college hockey. Maybe the biggest. Instead of striving to stay out of the basement of the Big Ten, Ohio State is among four teams in contention for the regular-season championship. The Buckeyes, who finished in sixth place last season, are in second place with 27 points, two behind first-place Michigan, two ahead of third-place Minnesota and they lead fourth-place Notre Dame by three points.

For Michigan State, this weekend's challenge is to cool off the Buckeyes, end its four-game losing streak and get some points to remain in the hunt for a fourth-place finish and home playoff spot.

The Spartans (11-12-1 overall, 5-9-0 Big Ten) and No. 15/15 Ohio State (16-7-1, 8-5-1) meet for second time this season at 7 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday at Munn Arena.

In late October, the two teams split a series in Columbus. MSU won the first game, 2-1, and OSU broke open a close game in the third period with three goals in a 5-1 victory. Since facing the Spartans, the Buckeyes are 12-5-1 and 7-1-1 in their last nine games. Their only loss in the last nine came last Friday in overtime against Notre Dame, 3-2.

MSU coach Danton Cole said a big reason why Ohio State was picked for the bottom of the conference was the loss of standout goalie Tommy Nappier. "But they guy coming in has been top-notch for them,'' Cole said, referring to freshman goalie Jakub Dobes, a native of Ostrava, Czech Republic, now being called Czechnia. "They've added a few guys from the transfer portal that have played big minutes, and they have a couple of freshmen that are scoring.''

Ohio State's top four scorers are newcomers – three freshmen and a transfer. Georgii Merkulov, a 21-year-old freshman from Ryazan, Russia, leads the Buckeyes with 12 goals and 12 assist for 24 points in 23 games. He played the last two seasons for the Youngstown Phantoms of the U.S. Hockey League. He has eight goals and five assists for 13 points in OSU's last 10 games.

Dobes, 20, is 6-foot-5 and 197 pounds. He has a 15-6-1 record, a 2.12 goals-against average and a .929 saves percentage. He spent the last two seasons with the Omaha Lancers of the USHL. His saves percentage is second in the Big Ten, just behind MSU's Drew DeRidder's .937.

"They're a well-coached team. They stick to what they're doing (well) and don't get away from it too much,'' Cole said. "They've been that way since the first weekend of the year.''

After four straight losses – two at home vs. Minnesota and two at Wisconsin last weekend – the Spartans are striving to get back to a recent stretch when they went 7-3 and were playing well in most areas.

"When you win, everything is easy. You feel better, you're a little bit taller, a little bit faster,'' Cole said. "You get a couple of losses, you've got to get over that and have to figure out a way to keep moving forward. Good athletes and good teams do that. That's our job as coaches, when the guys are in that position, to keep giving them things and keep building their confidence.''

In each of the last two weekends, the Spartans have held leads in the second game of a series. One was late in the second period (3-1), and one was early in the third period (2-1). But in each game, the lead was lost and so was the game.

"The answer is to keep working and trying to get better,'' Cole said. "Defensively, there's some areas that we can be a little tighter, but that also starts with our forecheck and how we handle things in the neutral zone. We've been banging away on that the first couple days this week (in practice) and the guys look good.

"You do have to look at the challenges in front of you. We've played a lot of top 10 teams and we've been right there with them. We've won some games and done well. We know (Ohio State) is going to play well and we've got to play harder in certain areas and faster in certain areas.

"You always look forward to that next game. It's the most important game of the year and so (for our guys), have the most fun and go out there and let 'er rip.''

For sure, the Spartans are feeling the effects of losing senior left wing Mitchell Lewandowski to an injury, suffered in the Michigan Tech game on Dec. 30 and he's missed the last four games.

Lewandowski is still the team's top scorer with seven goals and 11 assists for 18 points in just 15 games. He's missed nine games, including five early in the season.

"We miss him in our lineup. We're 10-4-1 with Lewy in the lineup and 1-8-0 without him," Cole said. "We've got to get past that and figure out that everybody has to play a little harder. Everybody can't hesitate and everybody has to step up.''

Senior defenseman Christian Krygier said despite not having success at Wisconsin, there are positive things the team can take out those games.

"I don't think there's so much that we can happy about or relax, but we did some decent things,'' he said. "I think we've gotten better over the last four games, but it's not good enough and other teams were just better than us.

"We have to stick to what we do well and also have a lot more focus. We've been working on things that didn't go well over the weekend. This weekend, we're looking for a restart and get things rolling again.''

THE RIVALRY: Michigan State holds a 94-52-13 lead in a series that started with a 17-0 Spartan victory on Dec. 17, 1957. That's when the Ohio State was just a club program. Since MSU joined the Central Collegiate Hockey Association in 1981-82 and moved with Ohio State to the Big Ten in 2013-14, the Spartans are 81-49-12 against the Buckeyes.

Over the last 10 years, the two teams have played 43 times and Ohio State holds a 26-12-5 edge. Last season, the Spartans and Buckeyes split both series. MSU won 3-2 in overtime and lost 4-2 in Columbus in November, and in January at Munn Arena, OSU won the first game 5-1 but the Spartans rebounded to win the series finale, 2-0 with Drew DeRidder getting the shutout.

SCOUTING THE BUCKEYES: Ohio State is coming off a 3-2 overtime loss and a 4-1 win last week at home against Notre Dame. The previous weekend, the Buckeyes won 5-3 and tied 2-2 and won in a shootout at Wisconsin. OSU's last regulation loss was a 5-2 defeat vs. Michigan on Dec. 10.

Three freshman and a senior transfer lead the team in scoring. Freshman Georgii Merkulov is the top scorer with 12 goals and 12 assists for 24 points. Forward Jake Wise, a senior transfer from Boston University, and freshman defenseman Mason Lohrei are tied for second with 19 points. Wise has seven goals and 12 assists while Lohrei has two goals and a team-leading 17 assists. Freshman forward Cam Thiesing is fourth with five goals and 13 assists for 18 points, and has already amassed a team-high 81 penalty minutes.

The Buckeyes' offense is balanced with seven players with six goals or more. Other top forwards include seniors Gustaf Westlund (7-6-13) and Quinn Preston (6-7-13), juniors Mark Cheremeta (5-8-13) and Kamil Sadlocha (6-6-12), sophomores Patrick Guzzo (6-5-11) and Travs Treloar (6-4-10), and junior Tate Singleton (6-4-10).

The defense is led by freshman Lohrei, senior Grant Gabriele (4-11-15), freshman Cole McWard (1-9-10), graduate transfer Will Riedell, and senior James Marooney. Riedell, who played four seasons at Lake Superior State before joining the Buckeyes, was named team captain.

"Ohio State is always a fast, skilled team,'' MSU senior defenseman Christian Krygier said. "That's something we need to take away from them. It's us being faster than they are. I think it's getting in front of them and shutting down their rushes.

"They do have a lot of fast guys that can create the rush and cause a lot of 3-on-2s.''

Ohio State has some impressive wins and surprise losses on its resume. The Buckeyes won at Minnesota, 4-3, and beat Michigan, 6-1, at home. But they've also lost early in the season to two Atlantic Hockey Conference teams. OSU opened the season with a 2-1 loss at Bentley and lost at home to Mercyhurst, 5-4, Thanksgiving weekend.

"In the Big Ten, you really never know,'' Krygier said when asked about OSU's seventh-place preseason ranking by the conference coaches and their strong season thus far. "Some teams have rough starts, some have really good starts. Ohio State always have a good team and they've been good since the start of the year, and seem to be getting better.''

After facing the Spartans, the Buckeyes will have eight games remaining. Next week, they play at Penn State, then have back-to-back home series against Wisconsin and Minnesota before finishing their regular season at Michigan. OSU has a bye during the last weekend of the regular season, Feb. 25-26.

Steve Rohlik is in ninth season as Ohio State's coach and has a career record of 156-121-35. Rohlik, a 1990 Wisconsin graduate, served as an assistant coach at Omaha for one season before spending 10 years as an assistant at Minnesota Duluth. Under Rohlik, the Buckeyes have won one Big Ten regular-season title and made three trips to the NCAA Tournament, including a berth in the Frozen Four in 2018.

STATS COMPARISON:
Average goals-per-game: OSU, 3.63, 2^nd Big Ten, 8th NCAA; MSU, 2.33, 6^thBig Ten, 44^th NCAA;
Average goals against: OSU, 2.21, 2^nd, 10th; MSU, 2.83, 5^th,29th;
Power Play: OSU, 17.9%, 5^th, 36th; MSU, 20.5%, 2nd, 20th;
Penalty Kill: OSU, 79.7%, 5th; MSU, 82.3%, 4^th, 26^th.
Average Penalty Minutes: OSU, 11.75, 4^th, 23rd; MSU, 12.50, 3^rd, 20^th.

IN THE BIG TEN: First-place Michigan travels to Minneapolis this weekend for a showdown against third-place Minnesota on Friday and Saturday. The No. 3 Wolverines (18-6-1 overall, 9-5-0-0-2-0 Big Ten) have swept their last two series over Massachusetts and Penn State. The No. 11/11 Gophers (13-9-0, 8-4-0-0-1-0) are 3-1 in their last four series with a sweep of Michigan State and a split against Alaska.

Minnesota and Michigan, picked by the coaches to finish 1-2, met in early December in Ann Arbor and the teams split. The Gophers won the first game, 5-1, and Michigan captured the series finale, 6-2.

In the other Big Ten series, fifth-place Wisconsin (8-13-3, 5-8-1-1-1-0) plays at seventh-place Penn State (12-12-0, 3-11-0-1-1-0), also on Friday and Saturday.

No. 13/14 Notre Dame (17-7-0, 9-5-0-4-1-0) played a non-conference game on Wednesday and erupted for five unanswered goals in the second period and cruised to an 8-2 victory over Boston College. The Irish are idle this weekend.

Michigan State University Athletics

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