Thirty-two players hit the ice for the Oswego State men’s ice hockey team on Oct. 20 during a 5-2 win over Nazareth College for the Lakers’ first exhibition game of the season.

The team has 34 players on its roster, but Michael Gillespie and Chris MacMillan were both scratched from the active lineup. Ten different players registered at least one point for Oswego State. Tanner Spink and Anthony Passero both collected two points.

“I don’t think we’re going to have a breakaway guy like we did last year,” Gosek said. “We’re hoping it’ll be by committee, and I think that’s a good thing. It shows our depth. It shows our ability to roll four lines and not have to overplay guys.”

The Lakers still have one more exhibition game on Oct. 27 before the regular season technically begins. Even after tonight, head coach Ed Gosek said the challenge of finalizing a roster got harder after the victory.

“These two exhibition games are a great opportunity for us to take a look at a lot of guys. I thought it was a positive from a lot of guys playing hard,” Gosek said. “It’s our first exhibition game of the year. Hopefully we can clean some of [our mistakes] up for next weekend and help prepare us for the regular season.”

Oswego State opened up scoring not even a minute after the puck was dropped to kick off the 2018-2019 season. Spink, who scored two goals in the game, scored off a rebound against Nazareth College goaltender Sean Kuhn.

The Lakers would not wait long to score again. At 2:39 of the first period, Josh Zizek scored the team’s second goal of the game to take a 2-0 lead. Joseph Molinaro would add his name to the score sheet a couple minutes later at 6:31 to extend Oswego State’s lead to three.

Last season, Oswego State scored 34 first period goals. The Lakers went 16-1-1 when scoring in the first period last season. The lone loss came to Manhattanville College and the tie came to Utica College.

Gosek said he wants the team to come out with high energy throughout the season, not just the game on Saturday.

“We weren’t worried about making everything look pretty. We just played hard,” Gosek said. “I thought we got away from that, tried to overcomplicate things and it made the game a little harder than we needed to.”

The simplicity for the Lakers’ strong opening ended later in the first period. At 13:01, Casey Kubara from Nazareth College cut Oswego State’s lead to two. Then about four minutes later, Mitch Culver scored a shorthanded goal on the Lakers to bring the game to a 3-2 score.

Despite giving up the shorthanded goal, the Lakers’ penalty killing units did not falter at all during the game. The powerplay unit for Oswego State went 1-8, with the goal coming in the third period. Mitch Emerson was able to score at 12:27 of the third period on the man advantage.

Before that, however, Oswego State was able to push the pace once again in the second period after Spink’s second goal of the game. Charlie Pelnik and Passero were both credited with the assists. Passero got an assist on both of Spink’s goals.

The Lakers’ five goals are above the average of three goals per game that Gosek talked about during the team’s press conference on Oct. 8. The amount of offensive weapons that the coaching staff brought in, between Passero and a couple other freshmen, will be strong contributors, Gosek said.

“I think it’s awful early to [expect that offense every night]. I thought we did have a lot of good looks, and pucks just didn’t fall,” Gosek said. “A lot of the new guys, they showed us what we thought. They got some savvy around the net and a lot of returners did too. We got two more weeks of practice and one more exhibition game before we have to try to finalize things.”

Outside of the offense, the Lakers have three goaltenders that all saw one period of action. David Richer, last year’s starter at the end of the season, played in the first period. Cedric Hansen played in the middle period. Steven Kozikoski, the freshman from Liverpool, closed out the game in the third frame.

Hansen and Kozikoski both had shutouts in their 20 minutes of ice time, but Gosek said he was not sure exactly how many saves each goaltender had to make. Richer let in both goals, but it does not bring any concern heading into the rest of the season, in Gosek’s mind.

“I thought, in fairness, Richer fought the puck a little bit tonight,” Gosek said. “Not necessarily the goals. I don’t know if he was just overhyped or whatever, but he’s a very good goaltender. It was a great start for all of them.”

While this game is only an exhibition and does not count for the team’s record, Gosek said the game gives things for the team for work on, and now, with the video from the game, Gosek said he can demonstrate what he is trying to do.

“We can improve on the things we did well,” Gosek said. “And we need to address our shortcomings. There’s a lot to clean up.”

Now, the mindset moves onto the second, and final, exhibition game for the Lakers. On Oct. 27, the Carleton Place Canadians of the CCHL will travel to the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena. The Canadians’ season started on Sept. 1 and have played 17 games. By the time Carleton Place travels to Oswego, it will have 19 games under its belt.

Compared to previous seasons, when Oswego State would host the CCHL All-Graduate team, a team formed just for the single game against the Lakers, Oswego State will now be taking on a team that Gosek describes as good as some NCAA Div. III programs – and may even be better.

The Lakers currently have two alumni from Carleton Place on the roster – Devin Campbell and Travis Broughman – and Gosek said this coming weekend will be a “heck of a challenge.”

“It’s going to be fun for them. They have the upmost respect for Jason [Clark] and the program. That community is very similar to Oswego. It’s a small community, it loves their hockey, it has great fan support.”

Gosek said the Canadians are extremely well coached and it will be a different environment compared to games against the CCHL All-Graduate team, for both the team and players.

“Jason Clark does an amazing job. There’s a reason we try to recruit players from there. We’re not reinventing the wheel,” Gosek said. “They’re a talented team, they’ll play hard. It’ll be a good test for us.”