When the NCAA finally started letting Division I teams play against one another for in-season exhibition games last season, it was a big relief to coaches across the country.
Now, no longer at the whims of whatever Canadian team was able to cross the border during the first few weeks of the season, coaches have much more flexibility to schedule games whenever they can get them against whoever they want.
Count Bob Daniels as one of the coaches who is very glad to be able to schedule those games. His Ferris State team took on Mercyhurst in an exhibition last weekend, beating the Lakers 5-1 in between two weekends of CCHA play in which the Bulldogs normally would have sat idle.
“It gave us a week of practice that was meaningful,” Daniels said. “Instead of just practicing and taking the weekend off, we were able to focus and channel our energies towards Mercyhurst. Then playing the game, that really helped, when you’re not playing you forget how hard you need to compete just to be successful at this level.”
It sounds simple, but simply playing in a game against another team – as opposed to hitting one another in practice – does wonders for a team in the middle of its season. And Daniels said he prefers the Bulldogs to keep at it if at all possible this early in the season and have more breaks later.
But Ferris’ schedule is a bit strange this season.
Because the Bulldogs (3-5-2, 1-2-1 CCHA) are participating in the Great Lakes Invitational right after Christmas, that forced some other series to be moved around at the 11th hour. It’s why they played Michigan Tech in a single nonconference game at the beginning of October. It’s also why they’ve already had two off weekends and will have another over Thanksgiving.
“It’s the complete opposite of what I would have liked, and it’s no one’s fault… maybe a little bit my own,” he said, adding that after the GLI they have another off week, followed by nine straight weeks until the end of the season in January and February. “We’re thrilled to be in the GLI, and we wanted to be in it so bad, so we had to maneuver our schedule to make it work.”
Consequently, the Bulldogs’ first two months have been something of a mixed bag. Daniels said he likes how his team’s goaltending tandem of Logan Stein and Noah Giesbrecht has played, but thinks the Bulldogs’ even-strength, five-on-five play has been poor. The Bulldogs have scored 11 of their 24 goals on special teams.
“Our power play and penalty kill are going along at a pretty good clip, but I’m really concerned about our ability to generate offense five on five,” he said. “We’re just not generating enough chances. Part of the issue I think is, in the offensive zone, our forecheck hasn’t been as good as I’d like it to be. We seem to play a lot on our end of the rink, and I’d like to change that.”
Perhaps the victory over Mercyhurst can be considered a “sandbox” in that regard. All five of Ferris’ goals against the Lakers were at even-strength.
“It was good for us to score those five-on-five goals, and a lot of them we got in those greasy areas, got some greasy goals, so that’s a positive for us,” he said.
There have been some other bright sports offensively. Freshman Connor McGrath leads the team with four goals.
“He’s a talent. He’s been seeing a lot of ice and a lot of valuable minutes. He’s been a real positive addition,” Daniels said. “But for the most part, our scoring has been pretty spread out.”
Three other players (sophomore scoring leader Bradley Marek, junior Stepan Pokorny and senior Jason Brancheau) have scored three goals apiece, while nine additional players have scored at least once.
One thing that has slightly made up for the lack of scoring is defense.
In addition to Stein and Giesbrecht’s play, the Bulldog defensive corps have generally done a good job keeping the puck out of the net. Ferris doesn’t have the ability at the moment to outgun opponents, but if they can keep them to two or fewer goals, they have a good chance at winning.
In their series against St. Thomas at the end of October the Bulldogs eked out a 3-2 overtime victory, but the Tommies scored five goals the next night and won 5-2. Aside from the OT winner, all four of FSU’s goals in that series were shorthanded.
“We’ve been pretty stingy defensively, and when we’ve made mistakes, our goaltenders have been there to mop it up,” Daniels said. “I think with the exception of the St. Thomas series we’ve done a pretty good job of staying out of the box and remaining disciplined… from a defensive standpoint, I’ve been really happy.
“It’s nice, because, for the most part, I can at least boil the issue down to five-on-five offense. We’re playing well on defense and special teams. We can figure this out, it’s just going to take a little hard work.”
The Bulldogs return to action this weekend against Bowling Green before taking another weekend off for Thanksgiving. They then have three more weekends of conference play before the GLI Dec. 27-28 in Grand Rapids, Mich.
“We’re at that point of the season where we’re still trying to figure out, do we have a good team? Is that team struggling? It’s really hard until you get maybe through the first half and then it really starts to separate,” Daniels said.
