Candace Riley // Jared Mara and Josh Pusar skate to celebrate with #23 Scott Joy after his GWG on 12/5/19

Lindenwood put up a very on-brand showing in the Sooners’ last series, but the team from OKC/Norman must look quickly to the upcoming one.

22-9-0 is the best the #19 Oklahoma (18-9-0), (11-6-0 WCHL) Sooners can finish in 19-20 (lost games have not been re-announced) and their resume already features a pair of top-10 wins. Reaching the 21+ win club starts on Friday with #12 UCO (24-9-0), (10-5-2 WCHL) coming to town for the first of the home/home.

The season series is 1-1-0, with Scott Joy re-writing the books on 12/5/19 and UCO answering the day after. Despite the Sooners’ current #19 ranking, most baseline stats seem to jump out of the window when rivals get together – and especially in hockey.

The Bronchos have been handling their business in the new year, taking down Midland three times, Alabama twice, sweeping the Colorado teams and blanking #23 Iowa State 5-0. They did fall 4-2 to Midland on Jan. 10, but you can chalk that one up to the Christmas break – it means nothing as far as Bedlam goes. Their Nial Mills remains a headliner with 39P in 34GP, good for 1.14 points/game. Their trio of Grayden Hohl, Dom Kolbeins and Vitali Mikhailov round out the top of the scorers list. Alex Henry is still himself sporting a .928, but per the ACHA website, he has 771 saves. This is obviously impressive as 771/25 = ~30.84 saves/game. For reference, Oklahoma just got done facing a team that’s averaging ~21.1 saves/game on their starter (Seedott, LU). Can Oklahoma break through?

In the first Bedlam meeting, Henry was more than willing to nullify Oklahoma’s dump-ins by playing the puck out of danger. The Sooners’ goals were a transition wrister from Jared Mara, a high-danger rebound from Josh Pusar and yet another transition wrister, this time from Scott Joy. Without the craftiness and speed that the Joy/Pusar/Lane line presents, I’m very interested to see how the Sooners are planning on approaching the whole offensive zone thing, because even Henry makes it difficult to either retrieve a loose puck, get set up or both.

PROJECTED STARTERS:

Phil vs. Henry both nights.

Cover photo is credited to Candace Riley.