Ohio State hockey blown out at Minnesota, 6-2

Things just keep finding a way to get worse.

The Ohio State Men's hockey team fell once again at Minnesota, 6-2, to finish the sweep at the hands of the Golden Gophers over the weekend following OSU's 4-2 loss on Friday night. Minnesota moves to 14-9-3 while OSU falls to 7-15-2.

Travis Boyd scored for Minnesota at 6:31 to put them up 1-0 and just 30 seconds later, Hudson Fasching put Minnesota up by two. Just two minutes later, however, Sam Jardine, who is not exactly known for his offensive prowess, scored his first of the year on a shot from the neutral zone that took a strange bounce, as those shots often do, off the wall and ended up in the net somehow. Yes, with goals like this accounting for half of the team's offensive production, this was even more of a beating than it seemed.

The second period would be more of the same, sans fluke goals. Boyd scored another at :09 to restore the two goal lead and then scored his third of the game at 14:16 for the hat trick.

Things continued being awful in the third, as Kyle Rau scored at 4:00 to make it 5-1 but Victor Bjorkung slipped one in from the point to make it 5-2. At least the Buckeyes scored one legitimate goal. Michael Brodzinski would score the final goal of the night for Minnesota at 15:01 to make it 6-2.

OSU only allowed 28 shots but unfortunately were completely shut down on offense, as they only had 16 shots. Despite being down almost immediately and by multiple goals, the team couldn't rally or show any consistent signs of offensive life besides Bjorkung's power play goal.

Matt Tomkins got the start, and struggled. He allowed all six goals on just those 28 shots, for a save percentage of .786. Not that Christian Frey was Jacques Plante on Friday, but he was still at least in the .900 range. For a team that has no offensive punch right now, Tomkins' save percentage just isn't good enough, and Frey's probably isn't either. Shots are coming in bunches in most games and not nearly as many are going back the other way, and that's just not a formula for winning.

OSU will host the only team lower than them in the Big Ten standings, Wisconsin, next weekend in Columbus in a rematch of the Big Ten title game that Wisconsin won last year.