Hockey gears up for showdowns
The Utah State hockey team will travel to Utah County on Friday to play the Provo Icecats and then to Ogden on Saturday to play the Weber State Wildcat’s Division II team.
The Aggies played the San Jose Spartans on Thursday night and won 10-1. A full recap of that game will appear in Monday’s edition of The Statesman.
USU will face-off against BYU for the second time this year – the first time in the regular season – at the Peaks Ice Arena in Provo at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
“These are three games that we really need to win,” said Head Coach Jerry Crossley.
The Aggies roughed up the Icecats 7-3 at home in front of a sellout crowd on Sept. 19 in an exhibition game. BYU scored first before USU scored four goals in a row to seal the win.
“I hope this time we come out with a lead instead of spotting them a goal or two to begin with,” Crossley said.
He said the last three or four times USU has played BYU, the Icecats have scored the first goal.
USU will then play the Weber State Division II squad Saturday night at the Weber County Ice Sheet. The game is scheduled to start at 8:15 p.m.
The Aggies also beat the Wildcats 5-4 in an exhibition game Sept. 26. USU overcame an early 2-0 deficit by scoring five goals in a row en route to victory.
With a sweep this weekend, the Aggies could improve their record to 3-2 on the year.
“It’ll just be a good, tough game,” Crossley said.
Despite a busy weekend, the Aggies are trying not to look at it as a three-game set, but as three, completely separate games.
“Every one of them in order has got to be the next one on the docket,” Crossley said. “We need to win them one at a time.”
Crossley admitted that he is a little concerned with the health of his team.
“The team has been a little bit sick this week,” he said. “I’m sure that by Saturday we’re going to be feeling a little fatigue. That [game] may be a tough one to get ready for. But it’s just one of those things that you need to work with.”
The Aggies are looking to make improvements after dropping the first to regular season games of the year to Colorado State and Weber State’s Division I team.
“We want to reduce the number of penalties, obviously,” Crossley said.
USU and Weber State’s Division I team combined for 113 penalty minutes in their last meeting.
“One of the things that we’re really trying to do is eliminate the number of shots we’re giving to the other team,” Crossley said. “We want to try to do a better job with our face-off situation. We want to win more of those. I feel we have done a poor job with that and then our turnovers. We’re giving up a lot of unforced turnovers. We’re creating turnover situations where we shouldn’t.”
Crossley said if they can improve on these things, they can probably reduce the number of shots taken on them by half.
The goalie situation is also up in the air. Crossley said Josh Groves will probably start against BYU and that no decision has been made for Saturday’s game.
“That’s not set in stone by any means,” he said. “A lot depends on what happens [Thursday] night.”
The team has had an extra week to prepare as they had no games scheduled for last week.
The Aggies lost their last game at home to Weber State’s Division I team 5-1 in a very physical and penalty filled game. The night before, they lost their season opener to Colorado State 5-4 in a close game that the Aggies felt they let slip away late in the game.
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu