The SUNY Potsdam Bears continued its perfect regular season and defeated the Oswego State Lakers 4-1 for the second consecutive time, dating back to last season, on Saturday night. With the win, Potsdam remains in first place with a 6-0-0 record (identical in conference play) and the Lakers fall to 1-3-1.
Oswego’s head coach Ed Gosek still believes that his team outplayed their opponent tonight, but hurt themselves with simple mistakes.
“It seems like every mistake we make the other team has taken advantage of,” Gosek said. “I didn’t think Potsdam was the better team tonight, I thought we clearly had more Grade-A chances, but pucks aren’t falling right now.”
One of the big mistakes was a turnover by sophomore defenseman Alex D’Oliveira in his own zone where it was cut off by a Potsdam player and put past Gilbert. Captain Chris Raguseo was not expecting the cross-ice pass and could not recover to deflect the puck away.
Gilbert’s first goal that he let up was one that he nearly stood on his head to save. After blocking back-to-back shots off of rebounds, Gilbert caught the puck in his glove while on his back, but could not hold on as the puck fell back onto the ice and Potsdam was able to put it past the defenseless Gilbert.
The third goal that Gilbert gave up though would be the last shot he faced, as he would be pulled for transfer Adrian Ignagni. Todd Thomas took the puck down the near side and took the shot uncontested near the post to give his team the three-goal advantage.
While Thomas was uncontested, he shot it far enough to give Gilbert plenty of time to track the puck in the air and make a clean save, as the puck was right into his chest.
“We have to have better goaltending,” Gosek said. “That’s not knocking them, for some reason they’re just not tracking the puck well. We’re giving up at least one or two goals that our goalies should have.”
The biggest moment of the game came near the end of the second period when Oswego State was handed a pair of roughing penalties.
On the play, David Ferreira was taken down by a Potsdam player and resulted in a massive scuffle near the blue line of Potsdam’s zone.
This occurred right after another potential fight started just a few minutes earlier that had tensions high not only on the ice, but with the Laker-heavy crowd.
After it took a couple moments to break up the players, the refs called a penalty against both Potsdam and Oswego. However, after deliberation gave Oswego both penalties, as captains Chris Raguseo and Mac Scott both served time in the penalty box.
Gosek said that the referees told him that Oswego was the aggressors on the play, but had no further comment on the discretion of the referees.
Gosek says that while there were a high number penalties called on his team, nine, that the penalties are coming at inconvenient times when it is stalling the offense and killing the team’s momentum.
“It’s got to turn around at some point,” he said. “We’ve played some pretty good hockey and have nothing to show for it. Just like last night, every mistake we’re making right now, the other team’s are capitalizing on.”
He said that the team still needs to improve across the board but the main things the coaching staff would work on with the players this week would be having the defense get rid of the puck faster across the blue line into Potsdam’s zone and being patient near the goal once they have possession.
“Nobody hates losing more than I do,” Gosek said. “Those guys are battling hard for five games now and have little or nothing to show for it. We’ll go down fighting.”
The Lakers will keep fighting next Friday when they play SUNY Morrisville Friday at home at the Marano Campus Center before heading on the road to Morrisville the following night.
