HOCKEY: Irish look to get back on track
By CHRIS FEDERICO
Assistant Sports Editor
The Irish hockey team takes to the road tonight for a two-game series with CCHA rival Miami of Ohio. The Irish and the Redhawks are currently tied for the eighth spot in the division with 16 points each.
With only the top 10 teams advancing to the conference playoffs, the next two games could prove pivotal to the team's post-season future.
"Obviously it's a big game, especially since it's against Miami, but really every game from here on out is a big game," Irish center Connor Dunlop said. "It just makes it that much bigger being tied with [Miami]."
The Irish are coming off of a disappointing conference-weekend in which they dropped two games to Nebraska-Omaha, and failed to take a point in a conference two-game series for the first time all year.
"We had a disappointing weekend last week," Irish captain Evan Nielsen said. "It just put a little more importance on these games now that we're tied."
The division standings in the CCHA conference are still very much up for grabs, as only seven points separates the eight teams between third and 10th place.
"We are still right in the middle of the pack [in the CCHA]," head coach Dave Poulin said. "We are looking to go into this weekend and get some points."
In the last weekend series, the Irish fired a commanding 90 shots on goal, but only got four past the impressive Nebraska-Omaha goalie Dan Ellis. In the Friday night session, Ellis turned away 45 shots, more than any other Irish opponent this year.
"We had a great week of practice this week," Poulin said. "The team has accepted that they ran into a hot goaltender."
Even though the Irish appeared to outplay their opponents last weekend, the team still lost both matches, as they failed to convert on many scoring opportunities.
"I think the only thing we need to change from last week that we worked on this week is scoring," Dunlop said. "We had the chances to win the games last weekend. We thought we played pretty well, but we just couldn't put a few of the shots in the back of the net like we needed to."
During the week of practice, the Irish worked on converting their scoring chances. For the most part, the team knows that it played well enough to win last weekend, but was unable to finish their chances.
"We just made a couple of little changes," Nielsen said. "We tried a couple of things that might give us a spark to score a few more goals."
The trip away from home ice at the Joyce will be the first in six games for the Irish. During their last homestand, the Irish finished only 1-4-1, so the trip away from South Bend may be a welcome change for the team.
"I think we play pretty good hockey on the road," Nielsen said. "The change of scenery will be nice for us I think."
The Irish and the Redhawks will face off at 7:35 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
All Sports Stories for Friday, January 25, 2002
