Scoring goals in the final minute of the second period and overtime, Ohio State sent Lake Superior fans home unhappy Friday night, taking a 2-1 nailbiter at Taffy Abel Arena.
With less than 30 seconds remaining in the extra period, freshman Dave Steckel scored from out front of the Laker net. Steckel’s goal, his fourth of the year, came from Jean-Francois Dufour and Paul Caponigri.
With the loss, Lake Superior’s undefeated home streak came to a halt at four. The Lakers are now 4-1-0 at home this season.
Despite a lot of chances, the Lakers were unable to capitalize until the 7:45 mark of the second period. Yevgeniy Dubravin scored his fourth of the season from the right side of the Ohio State net. Matt Frick and Aaron Davis assisted on Dubravin’s goal.
“Ohio State had some extremely threatening opportunities. We had some shots that weren’t really great opportunities,” said Laker coach Scott Borek. “I do think we controlled the zone, but I think they had as many great opportunities as we had.”
With 28 seconds remaining in the second it looked as though the Lakers would get out of the frame with a 1-0 lead, but Paul Caponigri put the puck past Laker netminder Jayme Platt to tie the game for Ohio State.
The Lakers were strong with the puck in the first two periods, as they outshot the Buckeyes 30-14.
Shots dropped well off in the third period, with the Lakers recording four and the Buckeyes two. Neither team was able to net a goal and the game headed to overtime.
“This is the exact type of game we played against the Lakers last year in our building,” said Ohio State coach John Markell. “They (the Lakers) ended up scoring in overtime to beat us. At that time Scott (Borek) said it was robbery. Tonight was also a little bit of robbery. We stole two points here on the road; hopefully we can learn from it and improve from it.”
The officials also called back two would-be Lake State goals. Kyle Anderson put the puck right on the goal line during the second period and sophomore Aaron Phillips scored after the whistle from the doorstep during the third period.
The Lakers fell to 5-5-0 overall and 2-3-0 in the CCHA.
“We’ve got to bury some more chances against them tomorrow. We had a number of good chances, too many chances to not score more than one goal. We need to finish our chances a little bit better and continue to work on tightening our defensive gap,” said Borek.
Ohio State earned its fifth win of the season, jumping to 5-3-0 overall and 3-2-0 in the CCHA, but Markell wasn’t entirely satisfied.
“I’d like us to get more than two or three shots in the first 15 minutes of play,” Markell said. “I think we need to compete harder down in our offensive end and make some adjustments with our defensemen. We played a better third period and overtime, we played smarter and we were successful.”
