Weekend in review

Columbus Blue Jackets
Went 1-1 on the weekend to bring their record to 24-21-5 which is 9th in the conference. Please see previous posts for in depth reviews.

Syracuse Crunch
The Crunch continue to slide dropping both of their weekend games by a combined score of 7-1.

On Friday the Crunch were blanked by Lake Erie 3-0. Dan LaCosta stopped 20 of 21 shots while the Monster netted 2 empty net goals to close this one out.

On Saturday they fell to the W-B /Scranton 4-1. Steve Kelly picked up the loan tally. It was a nasty one as John "nasty" Mirasty got into two fights in the first period. New comer Mike Blunden also got into a scrap. Dan Lacosta stopped 36 of 40 shots on the loss.

The losses drop the Crunch into 5th in the North Division with a 22-20-3-2 record. My how that team has fallen since such a hot start. They could certainly use a guy like Filatov there to help jumpstart things.

Mike York is currently their leading scorer with 32 points in 44 games. The highest rookie scorer is Maksim Mayorov with 20 points in 41 games.

Hockey Buckeyes
Like the Jackets they went 1-1 on the weekend splitting their series with Alaska Fairbanks (talk about a road tip!).

On Friday they lost to Alaska 4-1 which was their first back-to-back losses since Oct. 31-Nov. 1. Kyle Reed got on the board for the Buckeyes but the game was already well in hand for Alaska.

The boys responded on Saturday taking it right to them from the start building a 5-0 lead before the first period was over. The final score was 6-2 with Somma (2), Bishop, Stefishen, Picard and Boyd all getting on the board for the Bucks.

Ohio State improves to 17-8-3 on the year and 10-7-3-3 in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.

Ohio State is now ranked 15th in USCHO.com/CBS College Sports Division I Men's Poll and are 13th in the INCH power rankings.

They face off against #2 ranked Notre Dame at home this weekend (Fri @ 7 p.m. and Sun @ 2 p.m.). Those should be some great games and I'm going to try to make it to Friday's tilt.

Also don't forget the Jackets own Teddy Ruth plays for the Irish.

-LTL