Men's Hockey
Buckeyes Shut Out Northern Behind Caruson; Claim CCHA League-Lead
By Paula C. Weston
On the strength of Dave Caruso's fifth career shutout,
the Buckeyes beat the Northern Michigan Wildcats, 2-0, to pull ahead
of Michigan in the CCHA standings for sole possession of first place.
The game, which drew a season-high 4,573 fans, was the first meeting
between the squads in Columbus since 2001.
"We wanted to set the tone that we were here to play,"
said OSU head coach John Markell, whose Buckeyes outshot the Wildcats
19-4 in the first period. "We wanted to welcome them back to
our building after a long absence."
Caruso made 24 saves in the win. Bryce Anderson had the second-period
game-winner, and Domenic Maiani netted his fourth goal of the season
in the third period.
"The guys in front of me played extremely well," said Caruso.
"I don't want to say it was my cleanest game ever, but...they
helped me out."
The Bucks came out buzzing in the first but were unable to solve
NMU goaltender Tuomas Tarkki, in spite of having four power plays
in the period.
"Tuomas kept us in the game," said NMU head coach Walt
Kyle. "We were one-nothing, and we were right there."
Tarkki finished with 27 saves in the loss.
Anderson put the Buckeyes up 1-0 on the power play at 1:45 in the
second, taking JB Bittner's pass from the side of the net and stuffing
in the puck between Tarkki and the right post.
Domenic Maiani had OSU's second goal at 9:47 in the third, taking
a pass from Sean Collins at the top of the slot and firing it upstairs
and clean. The freshman later missed an empty net in the closing seconds,
shooting wide after Bittner generously fed him across the crease.
"Maybe if it was a one-nothing game, I would have shot it, but
I was trying to help him out," said Bittner, who jokingly added,
"Yeah, I'm pretty upset."
NMU's Dirk Southern had a goal waved off in the second period; referee
Stephen McInchak ruled that a Wildcat player was in the crease when
Southern scored.
"I haven't seen it, so I can't comment," said Kyle. "If
you're going to call a disallowed goal, you have to one-hundred percent
see it and know what you're calling, so I'm sure he made the right
call."
The Buckeyes went 1-for-7 on the power play, the Wildcats 0-for-7,
and each team had 10 penalties for 20 minutes, but NMU bore the brunt
of the calls in the early going, with five minors in the first to
OSU's one.
"At one point the power plays were nine-two - the most penalized
team in the country and they're ahead [in power plays] nine-two,"
said Kyle. "They had the puck the whole night.
"We started evening up the calls and our power play needs to
come through in those situations and they didn't."
"That's probably the best team that we've seen yet," said
Bittner, who said that the lopsided first period was the end result
of a week's anticipation. "I think we were just ready to play.
We expected them to do their best job and we were talking about it
all week. We were looking forward to this weekend."
"I thought we came out strong," said Markell. "I thought
we had opportunities. Obviously, they've got good goaltending...and
he did his job. They settled down and it was a pretty even game after
that. We got a power-play goal, got the one in the third, and took
care of a couple of our opportunities. I thought the big difference
was that we did a great job on our penalty kill."
The loss was the first of the season for the Wildcats (5-2-2, 3-1-1
CCHA). The Buckeyes improve to 8-3-0 (6-1-0 CCHA).
The Wildcats and Buckeyes face off again Sunday at 2:05 p.m. in Value
City Arena, their final regular-season meeting for 2004-05.
Said Markell, "We fully expect to have a fight here tomorrow."
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