Candace Riley // The Sooners celebrate Isaac Bosse’s game-winning goal over #3 Lindenwood on Friday, January 31, ‘20

This column is going to be a Jared Mara appreciation piece. Or Luc Whyte. Or Phil Babb. Or Coach Berge, who earned his first top-5 win as Sooners bench boss.

Or, perhaps #71 whose seeing-eye rocket beat Lindenwood’s Cooper Seedott at 18:57 of the 3rd period on Friday to grant #13 Oklahoma a lead that went final at 3-1.

The Lions tied it in the first period on a shorty, and not too long after put together an offensive zone cycle that lasted around 2-3 real minutes. After the 1-1 goal, it really did look like the Sooners were not chasing but seeing the Lions go to work. The first intermission ended 1-1.

Phil Babb had to be sharp in the middle frame. He denied a backdoor jam play, a partial breakaway and a second partial break that he gloved with no rebound.

A 3rd period faceoff with 9:20 remaining in the game saw a Lions player throw one on net; it was saved by Babb but their Alex Kalau picked up the puck with a yawning cage to shoot at, and he shoveled it through the goal mouth. Lindenwood just missed out on their 56th shot(!) on the night. As play resumed, Babb shut down another point-blank shot and a blast from Aapo Nurminen.

Fast forward a couple minutes and Oklahoma found themselves on the PK (a situation in which they went 3/3 on the night) with under 7:00 to play. The Sooners promptly killed that off and found themselves with the biscuit late in the game. After they bought an offensive zone face-off, the line of Mara-Whyte-Finch hopped over the boards. Whyte won it to Bosse, who immediately cycled it down low. A pass to the slot-wide area went off of Finch’s stick and the rebound was found by Bosse. He got all of it, no doubt. Oklahoma’s resume is starting to come together.

On Saturday afternoon, I didn’t get the same feel in terms of pace as Friday night. There were two fewer penalties and it went final with the same score; of course, the Lions took it. Jared Mara cut the lead in half at 17:02 of the 2nd, but their Cooper Seedott turned in two scoreless frames to earn the split.

Counting both Lions games, our Phil Babb saw a mere 4 pucks get behind him on over 100 shots faced. Not bad when facing a team who has put a pair of 8-spots on the likes of #6 Ohio and #17 Illinois.

As I have before, I’m going to try and be as fair as possible when discussing the 1.5 periods-long game between Oklahoma and Maryville. Let’s talk about the first period, though.

Mike Walsh picked up the opening goal on a sort of floater knuckle-puck on net. Charles Joly and Jeff O’Dea had the Sooners up 3-0 going into intermission.

About midway through the 2nd, two Maryville players enter the zone attacking Cameron Bickford. They play catch and Bickford breaks up the play. In the clip below, pause it at the :05 second mark. Their #18 is already imposing his will on Bickford. Then, their #15 comes in as well, and Bickford is boarded by both Saints. This was obviously penalty worthy; Bickford did not only get to his feet a bit later but he continued playing.

(For video clip, click here.)

I’m not going to fault anybody for coming to a fallen player’s aid. Not to mention the 2-on-1 boarding was highly illegal. However…

It is unknown if a Maryville player said something to Babb because the goalie swung his stick at the Saint. In my 100% honest opinion, I have no idea if it’s suspendable – the action of doing so alone. I would also wonder for how many games he would get the book, if any. Babb was tossed and Richard Albrecht entered the game. That’s where I’m leaving it. Obviously, there were multiple plays that were unpopular there.

Things unfortunately got dicey from said moment.

Included in the clip is a hit from our Isaac Bosse. The Saints reverse the puck and Bosse steps up to pinch. The Sooners didn’t exactly have a huge lead at this point in the game, so it may have been expected that they are still playing at 100% game speed. My point here isn’t to say “game speed” is a means of injuring somebody, but rather that the foot stays on the gas.

I’m going to say this: the hit was clean, and I mean it in this way: it wasn’t predatory. Bosse first pokes at the puck with his stick. He sends the Saints player flying as a result of his body’s size; it does look like the two shove each other away on contact (obviously with hands) but the Saints forward appears to hit his head on the ice surface on landing. The game would be canceled, or “washed.”

I want to make this clear, however: just because something appears to be in the realm of being clean does not mean we can’t extend our well wishes to the Saints and the player in question.

The Sooners had the 2 Midland games postponed and now a game that spanned 1.5 periods got “washed.” None of the three are WCHL conference games, so it remains to be seen if any ‘make-up’ games will cycle to the latter parts of the season.

The Sooners are scheduled to visit Missouri State this Friday and Saturday to pick it back up in conference play.

The cover photo is credited to Candace Riley. You can follow her work here.

Thanks for reading.