.png&type=webp)
Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcon Hockey Team Off This Week
November 30, 2008 | Ice Hockey
Nov. 30, 2008
BOWLING GREEN, OHIO -
What's Ahead
The Bowling Green State University hockey team has the week off from competition and will resume the 2008-09 season with a home-and-home series against Notre Dame on Dec. 12-13. The first game of the series will be played at the BGSU Ice Arena before the setting changes to the Joyce Center in South Bend for the finale. These two teams just played a series on Nov. 21-22 in which the Fighting Irish took both games. The Friday contest will be the first appearance this year for the Falcons on the NHL Network Friday Game of the Week. The game will air live on NHL Network in both the United States and Canada. The game will also air locally on a tape-delayed basis on BCSN. The Saturday game is part of the CCHA/Comcast Saturday Game of the Week and will air live on the NHL Network in Canada and on Comcast Television.
The Schedule This Week
The Falcon hockey team will practice on Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week between 3 and 4 p.m. They will have Tuesday and Thursday off before resuming a normal "game week" schedule on Monday, Dec. 8.
Last Week
BGSU hosted a Western Collegiate Hockey Association team for the first time since 1990 and the nationally-ranked Mavericks of Minnesota State took three of four points on the weekend with the two teams skating to a 2-all overtime tie on Friday and MSU scoring five of the last six goals to earn a 5-2 victory on Saturday. Minnesota State scored a goal in the first and second periods of the Friday night contest and seemed have things going their way. But, Falcon junior forward Kai Kantola deflected a Nick Bailen shot past MSU goalie Mike Zacharias at the 14:42 mark of the second stanza to cut the deficit in half. And then, Kantola knotted the score with just 23 seconds left in the period on a power-play goal and that is the way it ended. The Falcons had a 12-6 edge in shots in the third period, but could not get the game-winner and both teams had four shots in the extra period. BG had a 40-23 edge in shots for the game while MSU was one-of-four with the extra man and BG converted one of their seven opportunities. In the Saturday contest, the Falcons got on the board first with a point shot from junior defenseman Kyle Page finding the back of the net at the 11:09 mark of the first period. MSU scored twice in the second period and midway through the third to take a 3-1 edge. Then, Kantola scored his third goal of the weekend at 11:57 of the final stanza to make it a 3-2 game. But, MSU got the next goal, just 26 seconds after Kantola's tally, to steal back the momentum and later added an empty-netter. MSU turned the tables on the Falcons winning the shot battle, 41-27, including a 30-15 edge over the final two periods. Zacharias had 25 saves for Minnesota State while BG senior Jimmy Spratt had a season-high 36 stops. BG could not convert on any of their six power-play opportunities while the Mavericks were one-of-seven.
Top Line Getting Some Scoring Help
The Falcon coaching staff has been looking to get some scoring help for the top line of senior Brandon Svendsen and sophomores David Solway and Dan Sexton. Coming into the weekend series with Minnesota State, the trio had accounted for more than 70% of the goals, assists and points in league play and almost 60% of the points in all games. But, while the top line had only one point in the Minnesota State series, BG got all four goals and 10 of the 11 points for the weekend from other sources. In fact, the top line has just the one assist in the last three games while the other lines have provided the five goals and 13 of the 14 points in the last three games.
Kantola Has Three-Goal Weekend
Junior forward Kai Kantola had the best goal-scoring weekend of his career with three red-lighters in the weekend series against Minnesota State. He had his second multi-goal game of the season, and third of his career, with a pair of goals Friday night and then had a tally Saturday night that cut the MSU lead to 3-2 in the third period. With his performance, he is now tied for the team lead with seven goals on the season and his eight points are fourth-best on the squad. His seven goals, along with the seven scored by teammate David Solway, rank tied for fifth in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association. Kantola's three goals were the most scored by any player in the country last weekend.
Additional Contributions
A number of Falcon players contributed offensively over the weekend. Sophomore forward Patrick Tiesling came into the weekend series with Minnesota State having not scored a point in the first 14 games of the season. Tiesling not only scored, he had three points for the weekend, three assists, matching his point total in 26 games as a freshman. He also had the first multi-point game of his career with assists on both Falcon goals Saturday night. Sophomore forward Jacob Cepis, who was a CCHA All-Rookie selection last season and was the next forward in line to make the preseason all-league team, did not score in the Saturday game with Minnesota State, but had assists in the previous two games. He had scored just one point during an 11-game span (Oct. 17-Nov. 21) before collecting assists against Notre Dame (Nov. 22) and Minnesota State (Nov. 28). Junior forward Josh Boyd had an assist Saturday night against Minnesota State, his second point in the last five games.
Defensive Corp Chipping In
The Falcon defensive corp has also been helping at the offensive end of late. Freshman Nick Bailen, after scoring just one point in his first 12 games of the season, has contributed a goal and an assist in the last three games. Senior Kevin Schmidt had an assist in the Notre Dame game (Nov. 22) and junior captain Kyle Page scored his first collegiate goal in the Saturday loss to Minnesota State. The four points in the last three games is the best scoring streak for the defensive corp since they started the season with five points in the first four games. They, the defensemen, had scored just one point in a nine-game span (Oct. 24-Nov. 21) before getting on their current roll.
Falcon Ice Chips
The tie with Minnesota State Friday night snapped an eight-game unbeaten streak for the Falcons against WCHA teams...with the Minnesota State series, BGSU will play 10 of its next 12 games at home where they are 4-3-2 this season...the loss to Minnesota State on Saturday broke an eight-game (5-0-3) unbeaten streak the Falcons had compiled against non-league teams at home recently...defenseman Tim Maxwell has left the team for academic reasons...the senior had played in 11 games this season with a +5 on-ice rating before making his decision prior to the Minnesota State series...BGSU heads into its off week in ninth-place in the CCHA standings with nine points...they are three points out of sixth-place and five points behind a three-team logjam for third place...sophomore goalie Nick Eno, who has missed the entire season with an ankle sprain, could possibly resume practice this week and the coaching staff is hoping he could see his first action of the season in the upcoming Notre Dame series...sophomore Dan Sexton, who leads the team with 16 points (5-11), is tied for fifth in the CCHA for all games scoring...he is tied for fourth in the CCHA with 11 assists for the season...after yielding an average of just 2.67 goals per game in the first 12 contests of the season, BG has given up an average of 5.25 goals in the last four games, including three game of five or more...over the last four games, the opposition has scored in nine of 12 periods in regulation time with the Falcons yielding two or more goals in six of those nine periods...BG's struggles on the power play continued in the Minnesota State series going one-for-13 (7.6%)...BG is 11th in the CCHA at 9.4% for the season with the man-advantage...BG has had the most power play opportunities in the CCHA this season with 106...BG still leads the CCHA averaging 34.8 shots per game...senior goalie Jimmy Spratt became only the ninth goalie in school history to reach 2,000 career saves over the weekend...he now has 2,003 saves to rank ninth on the BGSU list...in CCHA play, he ranks eighth in school history with 1,473 stops, just 10 behind Bob Petrie (1993-97) in the #7 spot...in CCHA games, senior Brandon Svendsen is tied for eighth in the CCHA with 12 points, the top total on the team, with his eight assists tied for ninth-best in the conference...BG is 2-5-2 in their last nine games.
