When the coaches poll came out in September, the Big Ten opener between the teams predicted to finish sixth and seventh probably didn’t cause many to bust out the Sharpie.
That being said, both Ohio State and Michigan State have, at least to a point, navigated their early-season nonconference schedule successfully and will be looking at this weekend’s series at OSU as a potential springboard for the rest of the first half of the schedule.
After dropping the season-opener to Bentley, Ohio State comes into this weekend with a 3-1-0 record. The Buckeyes also garnered a few votes in this week’s USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll and are coming off an early-season bye week.
“I think (the bye) came at a good point for us,” Buckeyes coach Steve Rohlik said Monday. “It kind of gave us a little restart to look at things that we need to continue to work on and get charged up for three Big Ten weekends in a row.”
In their four games, 17 players have registered at least one point for the Buckeyes. The days of relying on a players like Mason Jobst or Tanner Laczynski to pace the offense have passed and scoring by committee is now the law of the land.
“There’s a lot of guys that contribute and that’s our team,” Rohlik said. “We need everybody to contribute up and down the lineup, (and) we need goals from every line and every single one of our guys can contribute to each win. That’s one thing that we’re realizing that our whole group has to play because we can’t count on one or two guys.”
Even with the committee approach, Tate Singleton has been the cream that Buckeyes’ fans have hoped would rise to the top of the proverbial crop so far this season. After a tough 2020-21 season where he recorded 11 points, the junior has three goals and two assists through four games this season.
“You, me and everybody else, last year was a challenging year for everybody,” Rohlik said. “It was no different for Tate or anyone else on our team, what our guys had to go through. The one thing I love about Tate is his work ethic never changes, and maybe it didn’t show up on the score sheet last year, but he brought the work ethic every day and eventually that’s going to pay off.
“For him, it doesn’t always have to matter to be on the score sheet for him to be an impact player.”
With Tommy Nappier’s graduation, goaltending was also a question mark for the Buckeyes heading into the season. Junior Ryan Snowden started opening night, but freshman Jakub Dobes has made a strong case for himself in the next three games, allowing only four goals while recording three wins.
“All three of my goalies have been working hard in practice, (volunteer assistant coach Dustin Carlson) has done a fantastic job with them,” Rohlik said. “Snowden went in there and he made some fantastic saves and played well, even though we lost that first night out in Bentley. He did his job and he gave us a chance. (Dobes) came in and he’s been very good. Now it’s about being consistent over the long haul.
“I like our goalies. Certainly, it’s an area everyone looked to, as far as Nappier played so many games over his career, but I like what we have. We’ve just got to learn to be consistent and show up every day.”
With Michigan State coming into town, Ohio State is basically looking into a mirror. Rohlik loves to preach team defense from the goaltender out and the Spartans seem to like to play the same style of game.
“They just try not to give you a lot of space or a lot of room,” he said. “They get the goaltending and they clear things out, they don’t want to give you second and third opportunities. If they can shut you down with their five men and goaltender and then create some chances at the other end, that’s exactly how they play. When they’re on, they’re tough to beat.”
At his press conference on Monday, Michigan State coach Danton Cole echoed Rohlik’s thoughts on the series.
“They work extremely hard, they’re really good defensively, they put a lot of pressure on you that way,” Cole said. “The penalty kill has always been outstanding for them, the goaltending has always really good.”
