Oregon Hockey: Utah Recaps – Addicted To Quack

The Oregon Ducks hockey team was in Utah this past weekend for their final games against D1 competition this season. The Utes hockey team is a top 10 team in ACHA division 1 and watching the games this weekend they showed why they deserve such a high ranking.

The Ducks lost Friday nights game 9-0 and Saturday nights game 10-2 and the team stats that I track back up these lop sided margins.

Sometimes you watch Hockey games and you are reminded that there is only one puck in play that needs to be shared between 2 teams and 10 skaters. I found there were long stretches were I was saying to myself “jeez its been a while since the Ducks had the puck in the offensive zone”

Earlier this year when the Ducks were outclassed by number 2 UNLV it was a reminder that the Oregon hockey program is still completing the slow build to be a competitive D1 team and this weekend was another reminder of that.

Here are the stats that I track for Friday nights game:

Shots:

Oregon – 12

Utah – 26

High Danger Chances All Situations:

Oregon – 5

Utah – 11

High Danger Chances 5 on 5:

Oregon – 4

Utah – 10

Powerplay 0% (0/3)

Penalty Kill 75% (3/4)

While allowing 9 goals on 26 shots is a tough line for the Ducks goalies (both played in this game) 2 of those 9 goals came early when pucks directed at the Ducks goal for what should have been an easy save went off a Duck defender unnecessarily crowding his own net and basically only making his own goalies life more difficult.

This contributed to Utah building a big lead early (3-0 after 7 minutes, 5-0 after the first period) and the rest of the game felt like a game of keep away.

Saturday nights game was missing the first 3 minutes of the game on the live stream. Once it was available Utah was already up 1-0. The Ducks just could not generate any chances to keep this game competitive as over the final 57 minutes of the game I only had them at 8 shots on goal, 4 of which were from a high danger area. Here are the full team stats from Friday:

Shots:

Oregon – 8

Utah – 35

High Danger Chances All Situations:

Oregon – 4

Utah – 12

High Danger Chances 5 on 5

Oregon – 3

Utah – 9

Utah’s high danger chances of 12 is a little misleading. In addition to those 12 chances Utah was also able to generate a lot of chances in the middle of the ice just outside of the trapezoid that I use for the high danger area.

The Ducks finished division 1 play this season with a 7-14-3 record good for a .354 point percentage and a slight improvement on last years 8-17 record and .320 point percentage.

The Ducks are back in action one last time this year when they take on Division 2 Boise State at the Rink Exchange this Friday and Saturday night.