Consistently Inconsistent: Icers Doing the Splits

After a January of solid play, the Icers found themselves with the #2 ranking, trailing only Lindenwood in the rankings. They hoped to keep things rolling as they moved into February. A set on the road at #10 Liberty University, followed by a weekend at home against the Blue Hens of Delaware would set the table for the coming tournaments.

(Sadly, I didn't catch most of these games due to various reasons. Thankfully, I still know a guy who knows a guy who helps me along with some of these details.)

What Happened: The boys took to the road since the beginning of January, and the bus trip looked to have affected them. They let Liberty jump all over them, allowing the Flames to get the first 4 goals of the game until Luke DeLorenzo finally got the Icers on the board with 6 minutes left in the 2nd period. (This was DeLo's 100th career goal as an Icer - only the 9th Icer to reach that plateau.) The 3rd period saw Tim O'Brien try to get the Icers back into the game with 2 goals. But each O'Brien goal was met by a matching Liberty goal minutes later, as Liberty took game 1, 6-3.

New rule - don't anger Steve Peck.

via pennstatehockey.com

Wow...we always find the happy athletes here at Penn State, don't we?

The Icers came out with a bit more pop in their stride on Saturday. Timmy O'Brien would continue his torrent scoring pace with the lone goal in the first period. The two teams traded a couple of goals in the second, and Liberty just didn't want to go away. An Icers goal and a 2-goal advantage just 5 minutes into the 3rd period was back to 1 just 20 seconds later. Just when it seemed Liberty might be able to pull out a game where they were overly out-matched, Steve Peck slammed home a power play goal with 5:28 left to play. From there, the proverbial flood gates opened for the Icers, as they would add 3 more goals (including captain Frank Berry's first of the season) to win 8-3, splitting the weekend series.

The matchup with Delaware from this past weekend further determined the seedings for the ESCHL tournament. It was senior night, and with two of our top players set to leave for the World University Games, everything was flowing right for the Icers. Unfortunately, nobody told Delaware of this. An early goal by Mike Diethorn (his first of the season) was the only bright spot for the next 25 minutes, as the Blue Hens would score the next 4 goals of the game. Luke DeLorenzo would stop the bleeding with 5:24 left in the second. A goal for each team in the 3rd left the Icers on the wrong side of the score for the 2nd straight Friday - 3-5.

With a couple of adjustments to the line-up needed for Saturday's game, the Icers once again came out with fire. Steve Thurston, who ended up skipping the WUG, started the scoring with the only goal in the first period. The second period picked up the action, as Ryan Paradis found the net just 2:30 into the period. Delaware responded a minute later, but captain Frank Berry returned the 2-goal just 17 seconds later. Tim O'Brien continued his torrent pace, putting up two goals around the Blue Hens' second goal. A Kyle Mills goal a minute into the 3rd period would end the scoring, giving the Icers a resounding 6-2 victory.

What It Means: The team needs to stop splitting weekends. With just a couple weekends left until the ESCHL tournament, and about a month away from nationals, there needs to be some consistency at all levels. Goaltending goes back and forth - as soon as Signet or Hume have a good day, they'll turn around and put in a poor performance. Also, it's getting to the point where we need to stop rotating goalies every weekend - Signet plays better with multiple starts, and Hume comes up big in spot starts. Getting that together will be huge.

It will be interesting to see how the team does without DeLo and Jaime Zimmel over the coming weeks. They are two important players, but thankfully it's only 2 and there is enough depth to keep rolling. Still, losing your top scorer and a high-energy player for a couple of weeks is never an easy task.

As for the ESCHL, well... I have no clue. This is a league that was created last season, lost a member from last season (Scranton), and is trying to pretend it's something worthwhile with 5 teams. Yes - they have 3 of the top teams in the ACHA (PSU, UDel, URI), and they'll be adding another top team in West Chester next season, but it's still such a thrown together league, it's laughable. Each team has a few more league games left, but it looks like URI will likely win the regular season title and go into the tournament as the #1 seed. We'll likely end tied with Delaware, which means something...

Players of note - O'Brien has 10 goals in the past 10 games; DeLo and Steve Peck have 7 over that same span. Scott Dakan, Frank Berry, Kyle Mills and Mike Diethorn all scored their first goals of the season over these past two weekends - scoring depth is key. Also, getting Berry off that horrible scoring slump could lead to a solid bump in scoring for the team.

What's on the Horizon: The Icers finally get a break in the coming weekends. This weekend set is a home-and-home with ESCHL opponent Drexel - we need to sweep them for our own confidence. Next weekend is a home set against #14 Oakland University - a team we lost to in the championship game two years ago. But they are no where near the team they once were, so another weekend sweep is easily in reach there.

After that, it's the ESCHL tournament, a final game at Pitt, and then the national tournament in March. Next week, I'll work on putting up a summary and set of links for the World University Games to follow the Icers who will be representing team USA and the ACHA against the world.