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Remember the Ohio State hockey team that kept coming back against Providence and couldn't be killed? Yeah, me too and I kinda missed them. But they made at least a five minute cameo appearance last night.
OSU was down 1-0 with just under five minutes to go in regulation, when Matt Weis knotted the game up at 15:28 of the third. It was his first NCAA goal. Tyler Lundley scored just under three minutes later at 18:26 to give the Buckeyes their first lead. Bowling Green tied it 18 seconds later at 18:44 when Brent Tate scored his second of the game. But with just 34 seconds left, Anthony Greco put in the ultimate difference maker to give the Buckeyes the 3-2 lead and eventual victory.
Despite being down 1-0 for a majority of the game, the Buckeyes were outshot, 27-24. Score effects continue to elude the Buckeyes and their shot totals continue to make no sense at all. Logic would say that the team winning would act more defensively and allow the other team a better shot, but OSU was horribly outshot, 11-4, in the second, despite being down 1-0 for the entirety of the period. In the third, OSU rallied to outshoot Bowling Green, 12-10, and Matt Tomkins held up well enough to get the team the win.
Tomkins played well even as he's been up and down for a majority of the season. With his save percentage now eclipsing Christian Frey, who has been mediocre since his 60 save performance earlier this season, Tomkins is earning his playing time. He put up a .926 SV% for the game, which is outstanding, and unless Frey steps up soon, it seems that it's Tomkins' job for the taking. Both have only played a small number of games, however, so the sample size is concerning and with SV%, it's a troublesome stat to say the least with that small a sample. Things can go wrong in one game or really really right, and there's no effective way to determine which one was right. So, we'll just see how this plays out but it looks like Tomkins' job to lose.
OSU improved to 3-5-1 on the season while Bowling Green fell to 7-3-1 overall.
After playing last night's game at Bowling Green, the second half of the home-and-home will be at 7pm tonight at Value City Arena. Script Ohio will be performed on the ice and OSU is hosting a canned food drive for Mid-Ohio Foodbank.