** Editor’s Note: Since the writing of this story, Cincinnati has played two more games than Kentucky and thus has more penalty minutes. Due to UC having more games played and the information being correct at the time it was written, the Kentucky Kernel has made the decision to leave the story as is with this note. **
After a hot start to the season, Kentucky hockey has cooled off a bit with a record of 4-4, losing its last three games in a row.
With 10 points, the team is tied with Cincinnati for third place in the division and is well within striking distance, but with two away games against 6-1 Liberty coming up, things could start to get dicey.
Kentucky has a very respectable offense that has scored 3.5 goals a game and a stout physical defense that has held opponents to only two goals a game with a save percentage of 93%. On top of that, so far this season, the team’s penalty kill rate sits at an astonishing 88.1%.
To have those sorts of numbers, a team needs multiple key contributors.
“We have a deep roster, so we have a lot of guys who are ready to play and ready to go.” sophomore forward Gabe Rodriguez said.
A deep roster and stats like these are great to have and a surefire recipe for success. One would expect the different ingredients to mix together and create a winning formula, but the Cats have an Achilles’ heel that is being exploited by their opponents: penalties.
Kentucky currently has 178 penalties in minutes, which is 22 per game, the most in the division. Currently, the team is on pace to finish with 623 PIM, which would shatter the previous season total of 510.
Within those minutes, the Cats have been shorthanded a division-leading total of 42 times this season.
With the impressive penalty kill numbers starting to regress, the sheer volume of shorthanded situations is becoming hard for this aggressive forechecking defense to overcome.
It’s not all doom and gloom for the Cats, however. The team has lost its last three games by a total of only four combined goals, with two of those losses coming in overtime, meaning the team has been right on the cusp of victory in nearly every loss it has had.
Simply put, Kentucky is far better than a 4-4 record dictates at this point in the season.
If the Wildcats reign in some of the physicality that defines their defense, or at least find some more disciplined applications of that physicality, they very quickly could end up on top of the division again and perhaps even back in the national conversation.
On the other side of that coin, the team is very aware of how quickly winnable games can become losable with one or two errors not going its way.
Kentucky hockey is firmly in control of its own destiny this season, but it will need to tidy up a few areas to reach the apex it had years ago.
Luckily for UK, there is as good of a chance as one could hope for in a two-game road stretch against a strong Liberty squad.
UK is set to face Liberty at the LaHaye Ice Center in Lynchburg, Virginia, on Oct. 18 and again on Oct. 19. Both games are set to drop puck at 10:30 p.m. ET.
