OXFORD, Ohio — Miami returned to home ice Friday night losers of three straight contests and looking to rebound against Western Michigan, winners of two straight after last weekend’s Halloween sweep of then-unbeaten No. 2 Nebraska-Omaha.
The game between longtime conference rivals featured physical play, strong goaltending, and a back-and-forth push down to the wire. When the dust settled, it was the RedHawks that came out on top, earning their first NCHC win of the season with a 2-1 win.
It might have had the first man-advantage of the evening, but Miami also surrendered the first goal on Western Michigan’s inaugural shot. Paul Stoykewych was credited with his first tally of the year on a slap shot from the top of the left circle, a shot that seemed to have eyes and found its way through the space under RedHawk goaltender Ryan McKay’s right arm. The man-down conversion gave the Broncos the initial lead at 4:46 of the first period.
Miami’s response came three minutes later from the stick of freshman forward Jack Roslovic, whose nine points this season have all been of the game-tying or game-winning variety, waited patiently on the left post of Broncos netminder Colin Olson. After Olson committed low, Roslovic wired a sneaky wrister into a tight space just under the crossbar.
With a 16-4 lead in shots heading into the second period, Miami continued to create scoring chances early and, at 8:39 of the frame, freshman forward Josh Melnick broke through. Linemate Anthony Louis forced a turnover in the neutral zone and carried into the Bronco territory. Pressured by Western’s Sheldon Dries, Louis spun inside and dished it to Andrew Schmitt, who in turn found Melnick on the back door for tap in.
As it turns out, Melnick’s tally was the last of the game.
For the remainder of the second period and throughout the third the goalies ran the show. The Broncos fired a game-high 12 shots of varying degrees of danger on McKay in the final frame – including several point-blank chances and a breakaway – but couldn’t find a way past.
At the other end of the ice, Olson dueled his netminding adversary valiantly and repelled high-caliber Miami shots from every angle. He turned aside all 12 of Miami’s chances the last 20 minutes of the contest, but it wasn’t enough as McKay stonewalled the Broncos’ final, six-skater push and secured the two points.
“I thought it was a good conference game,” Miami coach Enrico Blasi said. “We started the game off really well. Western did a nice job of pushing back and McKay made some huge saves. [Western Michigan] has really good talent and they play hard. They’re well coached and they’ve got good goaltending, so they’re going to give themselves a chance to be in the game every night. There’s no easy night in our conference.”
The road loss drops the Broncos to 4-3-1 and 2-1 in NCHC play. The game might have gone down to the wire, but that’s no comfort for Western Michigan coach Andy Murray.
“We didn’t come here to keep it close, we came here to win.” Murray said. “We came out back on our heels at the beginning and not skating. We’re disappointed here right now, but we’ve got three more games against Miami this year, including one tomorrow night. We’ve got to be better, so we can win.”
Junior forward Kyle Novac shared similar feelings as his bench boss after the game, lamenting the slow start and insisting Saturday’s contest requires a renewed commitment to playing whistle to whistle.
“We started off slow and didn’t play the game we wanted,” Novac said. “We got ourselves together in the first intermission and played our game. Unfortunately, you can’t take a period off in this league. [Saturday], we need to come out and play a complete game of hockey.”
The victory snaps a three-game skid for the RedHawks, who improve to 4-4-1 overall and 1-2 in NCHC play. According to Melnick, it was a relief following a series-sweep at the hands of St. Cloud State last weekend.
“We played a good team game tonight,” Melnick said. “We played a full 60 minutes tonight and there’s room to improve, but it’s a great rebound from last weekend.”
