The Kent State hockey club is looking to rebound from their second loss of the season and get back to their winning ways.

What the team has worked on to improve this past week will correct the errors from the Buffalo game, according to assistant coach Zack Nowak.

“Monday, we worked on a lot of screens, tips and getting traffic in front of the net,” Nowak said. “We worked on a lot of transitions and breaking out (on Tuesday) because we had some trouble with that against Buffalo.”

With the team dropping out of the top 25 in the national college hockey rankings, they are looking for a good contest with the University of Pittsburgh this weekend. Senior forward Miles Radosevic knows what the Flashes can do to be successful.

“We are looking to come out hard. We really can’t control what they do (and) what they bring to the table,” Radosevic said. “We are just going to come out and play our hardest and see where the cards fall.”

Some of the key techniques in need of improvement before this weekend stem from the thoughts of the players themselves.

Junior forward Casey Barile said zone play is one aspect where some work is needed.

“We know we can bury the puck. We have no problem with that,” Barile said. “(But) our defensive zone has been lacking recently and our neutral zone is just awful, so we have to pick that up.” 

The Flashes will face University of Pittsburgh at the Kent State University Ice Arena on Friday at 7:30 p.m.

“We were really happy with winning, and this loss kind of fueled the fire. I think they are…ready to go this weekend,” Nowak said. “We were rolling (before), then the bus kind of stopped, and now we are ready to get rolling again.” 

Chris Yamnitsky is a sports reporter for The Kent Stater. Contact her at [email protected].