Ohio State hockey beats Canisius, 4-1

On a night where the football Buckeyes easily dispatched Illinois, the hockey Buckeyes did the same to a Canisius team any tournament contending hockey team should take care of.

After having to rally back to tie Canisius on Friday, the Ohio State Men's hockey team took care of business Saturday, as they won by three goals and outshot Canisius 41-21 despite the relatively early lead.

The Buckeyes jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first on a goal by Nick Oddo off a rebound. Darik Angeli would make it 2-0 in the second period on his goal off of a deflection. Neither were pretty goals but hey, whatever gets you up 2-0 when you desperately needed a win as OSU did after the disappointing last three games. Oddo would score again in the third, followed by a goal by linemate Kevin Miller to make it 4-0. Canisius' Braeden Rigney broke up the shutout with an unassisted shorthanded goal in the third at 15:34.

Matt Tomkins put up a second consecutive solid effort in net, saving 20 out of 21 shots and not surrendering a goal until the game was, for all intents and purposes, over. I'd still start Christian Frey in front of him because Frey's save percentage going into this weekend dwarfed Tomkins', but Tomkins has started making a solid case the last couple of tries.

This was just the type of game Ohio State needed, though. After getting dominated by Miami a couple of weekends ago and skating to a disappointing tie on Friday, they needed a dominant performance and they got one, outshooting Canisius 41-21 and not surrendering a goal until garbage time.

Five of the next six OSU games will be at home and they will host Nebraska-Omaha (4-1-1) next weekend in Columbus. The Big Ten conference schedule won't be starting until a series with Michigan State in late November. A home and home with Bowling Green is sandwiched in between those two series.