After starting the season with 10 straight road games, including a grueling four-game trip to the Bay Area, the Oregon hockey team finally played its first two home games of the season this weekend, sweeping USC.
Oregon took the ice Friday night with a 9-1 record, and made quick work of the Trojans, winning 7-0. The Ducks scored less than three minutes into the contest and never lost the lead thanks to a shutout from senior goaltender Jack Barry.
“The team did a great job of letting me see the puck, and keeping shots to the outside in places where I was able to see them the whole way in,” Barry said after recording his third shutout of the season. “They didn’t get a lot of sticks or guys in the way, so it made my job a whole lot easier.”
If there was a blemish in the Ducks 7-0 romp of the Trojans, it was discipline. Oregon committed nine penalties on Friday night in an otherwise stellar effort at the Lane County Ice Center.
Oregon coach Eddie LeRoy said he was slightly surprised at how easily the Ducks won Friday’s game, adding he had been expecting more of a challenge from USC. Still, LeRoy knew Southern California would put up a stronger effort in their second matchup.
“It always surprises me because the teams that don’t look like much in warm-ups sometimes come out flying,” LeRoy said. “And these guys looked like they had some good skill in warm ups and they were pretty flat, but you can also attribute some of that to road legs.”
The Ducks finished out the sweep on Saturday night, but the 3-2 win made up for the lack of drama the night before. The teams were tied until USC scored a power-play goal with 30 seconds left in the second period to take a 2-1 lead.
In the third period, the Ducks had numerous chances to tie the game, including a golden opportunity with a two-man advantage. But for much of the period it looked as if Oregon was going to come up short.
Finally, with just over five minutes left in regulation, senior Justin LaCasse scored on the power play to tie the game for the Ducks. Just 37 seconds later, Jeff Kraus lit the lamp to give the Ducks a 3-2 lead.
“We had just tied it up, and we had a lot of energy out there,” Kraus said. “It was the third period and we were down most of it. When Justin scored that goal, we knew we needed a big shift out of our grinders and we went out there and just got a hard-working goal. It wasn’t fancy.”
The Ducks played great team defense in the third period, holding the Trojans without a shot on goal — an accomplishment the Duck coaching staff holds in high regard.
“If they don’t get shots on net, guess what, they don’t score,” LeRoy said. “It’s just that simple.”
The come-from-behind win was a rarity this season simply because the Ducks have spent so little time playing without the lead. LeRoy said that a tough win on Saturday was a good learning experience for the team.
Just as they were on Friday night, penalties were a concern for the Ducks on Saturday. Both of USC’s goals came on the power play, and the undisciplined action is something the Ducks will work on in practice.
LeRoy attributes the penalties to end-of-shift laziness, saying that players will use their sticks to slow an opponent down instead of skating hard.
“It goes back to conditioning, even though we skate them hard, we still got to be in better shape so we don’t take those stupid penalties” he said.
The Ducks have the weekend after Thanksgiving off, and return to the ice for a non-conference series against Western Washington on Dec. 3 and 4.
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