Hockey is supposed to be a low-scoring sport. The Oregon club hockey team apparently missed that memo.
Four games into what may be their final season, the Ducks have scored 40 goals en route to weekend sweeps of Washington State and UCLA.
While it’s impressive to look at the statistics, head coach Eddie LeRoy knows that not every game will be as easy as the Ducks 15-2 thrashing of the Bruins. He said he tells his team to treat every opponent like Eastern Washington, a team that consistently qualifies for nationals.
“It’s definitely hard when you blow teams out like that to keep them focused,” LeRoy said. “But we just keep stressing over and over again that you have to work hard every shift.”
This weekend, the Ducks will make the drive up Interstate 5 for a pair of games against rival Washington. LeRoy said the level of competition the Ducks see in Seattle will be much higher than any other team the Ducks have seen so far this year.
“They’re going to be our tough test, they really are,” LeRoy said. “I didn’t anticipate to be blowing teams out the way we have. It’s great, but make no mistake, UW will be the toughest team we face all year.”
LeRoy said the Ducks will need to skate hard for three periods and “win every shift to win against the Huskies.”
Team captain Douglas Reese echoed that sentiment.
“We’ve got to just keep battling through and keep playing because when we go up to someone like Eastern Washington or Washington, we’ve got to play 60 minutes of hockey or we’re not going to compete,” Reese said.
Both Reese and LeRoy said the Ducks’ strongest asset is their depth, because it allows the Ducks to get scoring from so many different players. In all, 17 different Ducks have recorded goals already this season.
“You hope you can have a solid third line — that’s what you hope for,” LeRoy said. “Well, we’ve got a solid four lines, which is incredible. I didn’t anticipate that coming into tryouts.”
That secondary scoring is important, because it allows the team to succeed even if the first and second lines aren’t finding the net, Reese said.
While their offensive numbers this year are impressive, so too are the Ducks’ defensive numbers. In four games, Oregon has given up only four goals, including a shutout at the expense of Washington State.
That’s good, but with a coaching staff made up entirely of defensemen, it leaves room for improvement.
“Believe it or not, UCLA did expose some things that we want to work on,” LeRoy said. “Just some defensive zone coverage because even though they only scored three goals on the weekend, we don’t want them scoring any goals.”
Another key for the Ducks has been their team chemistry, which Reese said is stronger this year than it has been in the past.
“It’s a lot more of a team, it’s just a different atmosphere in the locker room,” Reese said. “We play together really well, we mesh together really well and I feel like we all kind of buy into our system of the hockey style that we want to play.”
After their trip to Seattle, the Ducks will have the next two weekends off before starting a marathon road trip to Northern California. Starting Nov. 11, Oregon has games on four consecutive nights, two each against the Stanford Cardinal and California Golden Bears.
The Ducks home opener is Nov. 19 against defending Pac-8 champion USC. All told, Oregon will play only eight home games this year. The team is looking to make those games count, because budgetary issues may close the Lane County Ice Center before next season, leaving the program without a home rink or training facility.
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