Hockey club nabs two victories despite excessive time in box
The Utah State hockey club extended its winning streak to seven games with home victories last Thursday and Saturday.
The Aggies defeated BYU (Thursday) 8-2 and the Eastern Washington Eagles (Saturday) 5-2.
That is the good news.
What the scores don’t show though, are the massive amount of penalties collected in both games.
Against EWU the Aggies collected a season-high 24 penalties (totaling 47 minutes) and one disqualification for fighting — USU’s Rad Anderson and EWU’s Robby Pfarr were tossed with 2:41 remaining in the third period for jabbing each other with a referee sandwiched in the middle trying to stop them.
“It’s probably one of the worst games I’ve seen us play as far as [penalties go],” said USU Head Coach Jerry Crossley.
Amazingly, the Eagles topped this as they tallied 25 penalties (83 minutes), including four misconducts, one major and one disqualification.
The penalties-in-minutes cost USU (14-9-2) a shutout. The Aggies have failed to hold an opposing team scoreless all season.
Down 5-0 midway through the third period, the Eagles put in their only two goals — both on power play opportunities.
USU freshman netminder Josh Groves — who was a utility defenseman up until the team came back from the Christmas break — was disappointed in not getting the shutout, knowing how much confidence it can bring somebody that started off cold turkey.
“Yea. You can’t really do much about it,” Groves said. “I wish our team would have stayed in control a little bit more. I wish the referees would have done a better job in what they were doing. In the second period, [USU center] Jake [Guttormsen] got crosschecked, and that’s what started it off and everything.”
Groves has started six of the seven games of USU’s current winning streak, allowing 3.5 goals per game, while USU is averaging seven goals each game in that span.
“He’s doing great,” Crossley said. “I’m just a little disappointed the guys, when he has [a shutout going], aren’t willing to make a little self-sacrifice and really help him out more so. To me that’s just kind of like selfish play, give him a chance to get that shutout.
“The rest of those guys all want hat tricks and things like that [so] maybe they ought to help him. After all, he’s stepped in and is doing a huge job for us.”
USU is 3-0 this season against BYU and will not face them again until Feb. 15 at Provo in the final game of the regular season for both teams.
EWU and USU met for the first time this season.
The Aggies know they will have to tone it down this weekend as they travel to Wyoming, Colorado and Colorado State on consecutive nights. USU is a combined 0-4 against Colorado and CSU.
“One of the major flaws on our team is penalty counts,” Guttormsen said. “We’re working on it as we speak. When we come against teams like [Eastern Washington] we normally do stuff down to their level and play with them, which means we retaliate with anything we do. It’s ridiculous.”
–samhis@cc.usu.edu