andrew sinelli

1/13/2011 – Michigan 4, Ohio State 0 – 13-8-4, 7-6-4 CCHA Gongshow
1/15/2011 – Michigan 4, Ohio State 1 – 14-8-4, 8-6-4 CCHA Gongshow*

[sitebulletin: I'm going to be in a car driving for most of the day, unfortunately. I thought I would be able to avoid doing this during the posting day but it turns out I have to get back to town earlier than I thought I would. Apologies. Basketball game column can be ably summarized by searching for "temper tantrum" on youtube.]

*[This is not an endorsement of the CCHA's advertiser. But seriously folks, "CCHA Gongshow" is impossible to pass up now that I know they did it to themselves a year after they unsuccessfully attempted to keep their conference from imploding. We have a new leader in the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment-memorial most craven naming-rights sellout competition.]

head up. you are feeling totally copacetic, man

I'm not saying that Jon Merrill's suspension was a deviously ingenious experiment designed to turn a large group of people into connoisseurs of the little nuances of defensive play. The only reason I'm not is because I can't think of a motive.

Because even if that connoisseurship is a side effect, it is real. In the second period yesterday, Merrill made a clearing attempt, got it blocked, got bashed by a forechecker, and then whipped a hard pass to Alex Guptill's tape in a situation where 90% of college defensemen start breathing into a paper bag or bawling for their mom. Billy Jaffe, one of the the uncommonly useful color guys for Sunday's game, exclaimed "that's the move!" afterwards, and I was like "YES THAT IS THE MOVE." Later they put up a replay of a pass that never got out of the defensive zone.

The thing that Merrill gives Michigan is breathing room. Sure, he's piling up assists at a PPG pace and whipped a breathtaking breakaway pass to Phil Di Giuseppe on Sunday. These are nice things. They are intermittent, though. What's constant is how a game feels when Merrill's on the ice: calm, spacious, steady. Smooth like Billy Dee Williams with his Colt .45.

Jon Merrill is the Billy Dee Williams of hockey. Forecheck hard and Merrill will take the hit with his head up and make the move. Back off and Merrill is capable of going tape to tape in small windows over long distances. Instantly Michigan switches from reacting to a forecheck to forcing the opponent to react to it.

I'm not an expert on hockey. I came to the game when I was ten and haven't put in the UFRing required to get me to the extremely-informed-amateur level I am with football. In hockey, that feel is all I've got. It's done a 180 since Michigan picked itself up after the Alaska series thanks first to the emergence of the Guptill-Wohlberg-Brown line as a true #1 scoring unit and now Merrill's return turning the second (first?) pairing from a third unit trying to cope into a major strength.

On Sunday, Michigan felt elite for the first time this season. They outshot a 14-4-3 team significantly, dominated time on attack, and hardly gave up an even strength scoring chance, let alone a goal. Moffatt and Treais flashed dirty dangles and walked in on Cal Heeter. Heeter got chased halfway through the game.

It was a throwback to times when Michigan won hockey games without requiring nuanced views as to why this might have happened. (See: last year.) They won because they bruised every inch of two different goalies and, with limited exceptions, spent the whole game in the offensive end doing fun things.

This isn't all Merrill—half of Michigan's 6-0-2 run has come with Merrill observing or playing at the WJC—but with him around it seems more plausible that Michigan's recent run is a sustainable one. The GLI was a near thing. Michigan was dominated by BC but snuck a late goal against the run of play, then played dead in the third; they scraped the MSU game in overtime thanks to a goal with under a minute left.

That felt like finding a shiny penny on the street. This weekend Michigan gave up zero even-strength goals en route to sweeping the #2 team in the country. With Merrill around it's possible they've invested in a mint.

Highlights

Highlights.

Also, it's weird hearing Al Randall's voice actually come out of a person. Glendending postgame.

Calm, Easy Breathing Bullets

About that #1 line.  Yowza. I can't recall a big guy who's come in with a mid-round NHL draft pedigree who's performed at the level Guptill has. Max Pacioretty was a first-rounder, Aaron Palushaj a second-rounder, and both of those guys were only sort of big. Other mid-round power forward types seem drafted on the principle that they won't shrink even if they don't display any NHL level skills.

Not so Guptill. His goal in the first period Sunday was a pure snipe into the upper right corner of the net from a somewhat awkward angle, and his ability to dump and chase into the corner is actually effective because he's got the speed and board play to set up possession in the opponent's zone. Then the rest of the line cycles.

Meanwhile, Brown has suddenly leapt forward to consistent productivity after a couple years of flashes but not much else. This does not appear to be the line carrying him—remember that he spent big chunks of his first two years with Caporusso or Hagelin as his center. He's making nice passes and the availability of pucks in the area where his size matters gives him the opportunity to sweep in (admittedly soft) goals like he opened the scoring with last year.

Wohlberg remains Wohlberg: good shooter, fast guy, decent stickhandler. His goal Sunday was soft but showed off his assets pretty well. As a whole they seem to have an identity they lacked apart. They drive the net, dump unless it's obvious they shouldn't dump, cycle, and score.

Power play. It technically didn't score since Michigan's second on Friday was deposited a couple seconds after the penalty expired, but the spirit of the law declares it did. They have looked intermittently better since the holiday break gave them an opportunity to rejigger what they were doing. They were good against State in the GLI final, pretty awful against LSSU, and back to threatening against OSU.

Over the weekend they were moving the puck and getting shots on net that were not getting blocked above the faceoff circles. I'll take it. Eventually they'll get some puck luck.

Sinelli. Through the mist of hazy Sparks complaints I can see why Sinelli has taken a regular shift over not only Sparks but Rohrkemper, as he's a decently speedy guy who makes effort plays on the regular.

CCHA Gongshow. The league remains an incredibly tight sack of cats. By points Michigan surged into third with its weekend sweep; on winning percentage they are still fifth behind OSU, WMU, ND, and FSU. Notre Dame is third in winning percentage and sixth on points because they have two games in hand on everyone in front of them.

The 9th place team, Northern, is one game below .500 in conference and would easily make the tournament if the season ended today. It is a weird year.

BONUS: Michigan's goal differential is now the best in the league at +14. They've scored five more goals than their nearest competitor, OSU, and not even the relentlessly excellent defense of… wait for it… Western Michigan can get them past M. They're +13. Yes, I just said excellent defense and Western Michigan in the same sentence. No, I don't know why they held on to Jim Culhane for a decade. FWIW, OSU would still be tops in the league if they hadn't given up two empty-netters on Friday.

Pairwise. This is faintly ridiculous: after we spent most of the first half kissing our tourney streak goodbye, Michigan is now on the cusp of a one seed. They rank 5th. I can't give you the nitty gritty details because my favorite Pairwise site hasn't updated for yesterday's game yet. CHN's has and has Michigan fifth. This is not a fluke based on TUC or COP records that are liable to change with the win: Michigan's RPI is also fifth.

It's also not something liable to persist unless Michigan keeps winning. Michigan's flown up from out of the tourney to nearly a one seed in three weekends. They can drop back down just as fast.

There are still seven-ish CCHA teams in the tourney with MSU, Miami, and Denver tying for 15th. More realistically it would be six.

Have fun storming the castle. This looks less daunting what with the winning and all, but yeesh the final five weekends:

• @ Notre Dame
• Miami
• @ MSU, MSU @ JLA
• NMU
• @ BGSU

BGSU is not good; everyone else will be fighting tooth and nail for tourney positioning or a bid, period. ND is the toughest team statistically, FWIW. They have a +5 GD in conference; MSU is +4, Miami +1, and NMU –2. Sack of cats, I tell you.

Anything I can do you can do dumber. It's hard to see in this shot but lord, OSU's jerseys were goofy:

The zillion oversized Buckeye leaves were reminiscent of Ghost of Bo's legendary parody(?) football unis. Clean, simple lines are preferable. Even Michigan's jerseys could use a little cleaning up. OSU's were reminiscent of…

…yeah, you know it.

Elsewhere

Official site recap has pictures and whatnot. Michigan Hockey Net describes the game as a "clinic." A few AP photos. Daily article quotes Wohlberg sounding somewhat badly translated from the Japanese:

“You saw after they scored their first goal, it was a big uprising for them. Then when we go out and we score two real quick, it’s a big push for us, and I think it emptied their spirits.”

Vindicator

This is kind of a duplicate of Yost Built's post, but you know me and Questing For Information on hockey recruits. Also tight ends have commenced raining from the sky; Tim will be along shortly to let you know about MI TE Devin Funchess and OH TE AJ Williams, who both just committed.

Michigan's added another member to its 2011 class, one Andrew Sinelli of the USHL's Youngstown Phantoms. Sinelli's current stats (6-3-9 in 45 games) imply he's going to be an end-of-the-roster type but a couple years ago he was a more notable prospect. After leading the Select 14 camp in scoring he was invited to the subsequent Select camps and the NTDP selection camp; along the way he ended up committing to Michigan State.

USHR's available notes on Sinelli follow. His NTDP camp performance:

Andrew Sinelli, Honeybaked Under-16 – Just OK. Blended in, didn’t stand out in any way.

A later appearance at the Select 17s:

28 -- 5’11”, 170 lb. Andrew Sinelli (#16 Grey) – Honeybaked kid moving on to USHL. Nice skills. Michigan State recruit.

He put up 17 points in his first year in the USHL and was then exposed in the expansion draft; his new team flipped him to Youngstown after a few games at the beginning of the season. That's a precipitous decline and now even Sinelli describes himself like he's JJ Swistak:

"I am a high energy forward,” said Sinelli. “I like to play physical and I am not afraid to block some shots. I will have to compete for my playing time and my work in Youngstown on the penalty kill will allow me to succeed on the college level.”

He's a '92—a year older than someone right out of high school—so it's not likely he busts out or anything, but he might have a little more pop than his grim USHL numbers imply.

If there aren't any unexpected departures from the forward corps that brings Michigan to 14 for next year, a fairly comfortable number. At this instant that's projected to rise to 15 in 2012 and a crowded 16 in 2013 but the chances there's no attrition between now and then are zero, so Michigan will should be able to squeeze in everyone they've currently got in the boat if they, you know, want to come.

That should just about do it for Michigan's recruiting for the next three(!) years with the exception of a couple more defensemen and a backup goalie in 2012. I did this in excel:

[Should I have gotten rid of the red squiggles, you ask? Haters. ]

Shuart is listed as a 2012 or 2013 player but he is the same age as the 2013 kids so I put him there for now; it seems clear Michigan is not banking on all of these 2013 kids showing up.

Bonus Max Domi: Domi showed at an NCAA prospect camp in Toronto and said this:

Max is super-skilled and opened the scoring for Team Navy Blue with a laser to the top corner off the rush. Tenacious on the puck, Domi battles through traffic and is a stout 5-foot-9, 184 pounds. Selected by Indiana in the United States League futures draft, Domi is leaning towards the University of Michigan right now, but is waiting until after the OHL draft to make his final decision. … A top-five talent for the OHL draft, don’t be surprised if his stock falls because of the Michigan factor. “I’m pretty confident most OHL teams know I’m leaning towards Michigan,” he said.

FWIW.