Weekly Roundup: UConn swept by Ohio State

Making sense of the Huskies' brutal weekend in the midwest.

October 21, 2021

Weekend thoughts

  • Instead of getting into the details about what went wrong for UConn at Ohio State this weekend (keep an eye on Patreon for something along those lines), let’s take a wider view of the sweep.

  • How much did the two losses hurt the Huskies? They went from receiving 50 points in the USCHO Top 20 poll to receiving just one this week. Maine and Bentley both picked up more. Pairwise doesn’t hold a ton of weight yet at this point in the season, but UConn dropped from No. 4 to No. 30, while Ohio State moved up to No. 15.

  • Realistically, it’s hard to know how much the sweep hurt the Huskies at this point in the year. It’s never good to lose to a team picked to finish last in any conference, but it’s possible Ohio State will be better than expected.

  • I thought the Huskies defended really well against BU. The defensemen communicated and played in sync, there always seemed to be a stick in the way of a pass and they limited the Terriers’ opportunities in the house. UConn seemed a little disjointed and disorganized defensively against Ohio State and needs to clean that up.

  • UConn also isn’t alone in having a bad weekend. BU lost at home to Sacred Heart and BC got rocked by Bentley, 6-2, so maybe Ohio State’s 7-1 win against Bentley is more impressive than we thought.

  • Early losses happen, but the Huskies really don’t have a lot of margin for error the rest of the way if they want to grab an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

  • With no games next weekend, UConn will have plenty of time to work on its offense and power play while fine-tuning pretty much everything else. There’s a lot of ways this team can still improve. It doesn’t feel like the Huskies have played anywhere close to their potential — including during the 5-1 win over BU.

  • John Wojciechowski’s inclusion in the lineup is one of the most surprising decisions I’ve seen covering the team, but the senior actually played well. Considering he’s only ever been the last forward on the depth chart in his first three years, it was good to see him playing real minutes.

  • Darion Hanson continues to monopolize playing time in goal, though I’d imagine a large reason for that is because Logan Terness missed his second straight weekend with an ankle injury. Despite allowing six goals this weekend, Hanson’s numbers are still strong with a 2.37 GAA and .929 save percentage.

  • With a goal and an assist on the weekend, Jachym Kondelik took over the team lead in points with six. He now has two goals and four assists.

  • Marc Gatcomb has a team-high 18 shots but has only found the back of the net twice.

  • Harrison Rees continues to lead the team with 12 blocks — twice as many as the next closest player.

Links

Three stars

Continuing from last season, we don’t hand out stars after a series sweep.