BOWLING GREEN — Rest assured, the Bowling Green State University hockey team was not happy with its 1-2 start to this season.
Coach Chris Bergeron said he and the rest of the Falcons saw glimpses of the type of play that can lead this team to success this season.
“I thought the way we played in the [exhibition] game against the U.S. team and basically the whole game against Western Michigan was pretty good,” he said Tuesday. “And when we don’t play at that level, we leave things to chance.”
The Falcons opened the week with a 3-1 loss Oct. 10 at Western Michigan. In that game, BG outshot the host Broncos 34-23, only to see WMU connect on two early chances and add an empty-net goal late.
Bowling Green came out with the same intensity early and blindsided Michigan State in the first period of Friday’s home opener, scoring three times in the first 10 minutes. But after a switch in goal by the Spartans, BG managed only an empty-net goal in a 4-1 victory at the Slater Family Ice Arena.
“You’d rather the group would look at that [situation] and say, ‘Forget that it’s 3-0. I want those three goals to be five or six,’” Bergeron said. “I would say Michigan State went up a level, and we either stayed the same or went down a level.
“And, at times, we couldn’t handle that level.”
That intensity carried over to Saturday, when the teams met in a rematch in East Lansing, Mich. The Spartans, a Big Ten team playing in its home opener, continued to press the advantage and eventually scored with just 40 seconds left to hand the Falcons a 3-2 loss.
“If it wasn’t for [goalie] Ryan Bednard, that game would have been lost for us well before the final minute,” Bergeron said. “With that being said, their second goal was on a shot from the goal line in the corner that shouldn’t have gone in, so we should have gone into the third period with a lead.
“We gave ourselves a chance on the road, and that’s all we can ask for.”
The two road losses saw the Falcons score a combined three goals, but Bergeron said he is not worried about his team’s offense at this early juncture.
“Our power play is at 25 percent, and that’s one way to create offense,” he said. “We’ve showed what we have to do to create offense, so the focus is on doing those things every day.”
Meanwhile, the Falcons have allowed as many goals as they have scored with seven. But the defense will face a difficult challenge this weekend when BG hosts Minnesota State in its first Western Collegiate Hockey Association series this season.
The Mavericks jumped to No. 14 in this week’s Division I national poll after sweeping Boston University, the second-ranked team in the country last week, in two road games during the weekend.
Contact John Wagner at jwagner@theblade.com, 419-724-6481, or on Twitter @jwagnerblade.
First Published October 18, 2017, 12:02 p.m.
