evan allen

[JD Scott]

Friday, March 3, 2017

Michigan 5, #5 Minnesota 3

1st period

Cammarata Goal

Mich 0 Minn 1 PPG 13:21 Assists: Bristedt & Gates

A deflected pass turns into a loose puck and that in turn becomes an opportunity for Minnesota to cycle the puck in the corner. Warren gets his stick into the passing lane and is a fraction of a second from knocking the pass away. The 2016-17 season is, however, a cruel mistress, so the pass gets through and the Minnesota skaters switch spots.

Gates skates into the circle and turns to open up for a pass as Bristedt loops around at the wall. Luce is watching this and understandably becomes preoccupied with saddling up next to Gates.

Cammarata sees the cycling along the wall and steps away from the crease. Boka had just dumped him to that side of the net two frames earlier and has since watching the cycling along the wall and quickly checked behind him to see if a skater was in position for a cross-ice one-timer.  A good check, but one that sees him lose sight of Cammarata.

Bristedt doesn’t lose sight of him; he sees Luce take away Gates while the easier pass to Cammarata at the side of the net simultaneously opens up.

Cammarata reaches as far across as possible upon receipt and flings a shot in before Nagelvoort can get his leg extended.

As Sean Ritchlin said on the broadcast, you’re either going to tuck the puck in far-side before the goalie can push off the post or you’re going to get the goalie to kick it and create a rebound for that backside skater who’s been handing out in the faceoff circle (or the one in the slot).

[Much more after THE JUMP]

[James Coller]

[Note: Yeah, the picture above is from the first time these teams played this season. It’s a good picture, man. It’s also a picture of Evan Allen, who had a great series. Also, the screenshots from the first game are really grainy because the stream was OSU’s scoreboard and the quality was middling.]

Friday, February 24, 2017

#12 Ohio State 4, Michigan 2

1st period

ALLEN GOAL

OSU 0 UM 1 EV 12:12 Assists: De Jong

De Jong crosses the line just a fraction of a blade’s length ahead of his teammates, just enough to keep the play onside. As they cross, Allen starts to drop back to provide a passing option as the trailer while the other skater goes hard to the front of the net.

The defenders have to play this with a fairly large gap between themselves and the Michigan skaters due to it being an odd-man rush. Allen gets a ton of cushion when he drops back. Even though only one defender is going to carry the netfront skater, they both have to check where he’s going long enough to make passing pack to Allen the best choice for De Jong.

Allen makes the smart play here and pulls it around the defender, which creates the time needed for a screen to begin to take shape in front of the net. Allen shoots at this point and beats Frey…high? Low? Can anyone tell with this jumbotron feed? The puck went in, I know that much.

[After THE JUMP: I understand this season despite not understanding it at all]

[Ryan McLoughlin]

Friday, February 3, 2017

Michigan 5, #11 Ohio State 4

1st period

ALLEN GOAL

UM 1 0SU 0 EV 08:21 Assists: Shuart & Winborg

Winborg wins the faceoff and knocks the puck to Shuart on his right. Shuart sort of accidentally shovels it forward to Winborg, but Winborg again scoops it up and back to Shuart.

With the puck now solidly on his stick, Shuart’s determined to do something purposeful with the puck. He shoots, and the shot is blocked by the OSU defender in front of him. The puck bounces off the defender and ends up to his left.

This next bit happens so quickly that I’m not sure whether Shuart passes to Allen or whether Allen picks up the loose puck himself. Either way, Allen has the puck. He splits two defenders and finds himself with a wide-open net, as Frey is still sliding across after squaring to Shuart’s shot.

[After THE JUMP: 2015-16 redux (for 40 minutes at a time)]

[Patrick Barron]

Friday, January 13, 2017

#9 Minnesota 5, Michigan 2

1st period

SHUART GOAL

Minn 0 Mich 1 EV 08:57 Assists: Allen & Winborg

The puck’s dumped in, and though that’s usually not a great way to generate offense it works here because Allen’s essentially dumping it to the corner to himself. Getting rid of the puck allows him to use his forward momentum against the back-skating, mid-turn defender without worrying about the puck being knocked away.

Winborg, who’s in the faceoff circle in the screencap above, gets into excellent position behind the net. He’s there to set a pick as Minnesota switches defenders, with the one in the bottom of the faceoff circle in the above screencap the man who’s picked off. Allen has the space behind the two to poke the puck ahead, skate through, and retrieve it.

Allen gets the puck and has a huge passing lane with which to work. Schierhorn’s got to whip his head from tracking behind the net to the side of the net to the high slot too quickly for him to do much about a shot attempt.

Minnesota’s forwards all collapse on net and watch behind the net, which allows Shuart a perfect and completely undefended chance. He puts the puck high on Schierhorn, who can do no more than flinch.

MICHIGAN DROPS THE PUCK on Sunday in an exhibition against Waterloo to kick off their 2013-2014 hockey campaign; things get real serious real fast after that as BC comes in for the season opener proper on Thursday the 10th. While I can't go into as much detail as I do with football, a conveniently-timed bye week provides a window in which to properly preview hockey, something I'm not sure I've ever done.

say hello to your next two-year captain, Andrew Copp

FORWARDS

The following is a fanciful line chart that will be wrong from day one in many respects, and even more wrong when Red runs his line through a blender four times. But you've got to try:

ALSO: Andrew Sinelli (Jr), Alex Kile (Fr), Max Shuart (Fr)

I call him mini-Copp

CENTER. The theory here is that a year after Michigan struggled with leadership everywhere they will prioritize guys who give maximum effort on every shift and build the team around a core of hard-ass centers. Andrew Copp is obvious. Copp was handed the reins of the top line halfway through the season and almost singlehandedly turned the attitude of the team around. Copp worked his ass off, inspired Alex Guptill to great heights, and finished the year with something of a scoring flourish. He's still developing after a career as a high school quarterback made hockey a part-time pastime, and his freshman year was good enough to draw the attention of the NHL after being passed over a year ago. If Michigan can make good on the promise of their late season run this year and for the next few, Copp will go down like Ortmeyer or Hagelin.

Meanwhile, every scouting report on incoming freshman JT Compher goes out of its way to praise Compher's compete level and two-way play:

Compher's NTDP coach Don Granato summed it up pretty well in Compher's hometown newspaper: ""Anything intangible, as far as an attribute, that I’ve mentioned, he’s a 10."

The phrase "two-way forward" is often the polite cliche for a player with not a lot of offensive talent, but in Compher's case, it's not used in a derogatory fashion. Compher is one of the rare skilled players that exhibits the same effort and enthusiasm without the puck that he does with the puck. He's a tenacious, sometimes nasty, defender that makes life difficult for opponents. His compete level all over the ice is among the best in the draft.

Despite not having awesome size or speed, Compher led the NTDP in PPG last year. He is ready for a lot of responsibility, probably right now. Billy Powers isn't even being coy about it:

J.T. is a guy who really has a lot of tools. He’s being talked about a lot as a defensive, third-line forward type but there’s some offensive potential there as well, and we think that will flourish in college. We see him as a power play, penalty kill player right from the start, and he’ll manage a line as a center in our top six.

If you thought one Copp was rather nice, two Copps will be like heaven after suffering through last year.

[After THE JUMP: actual rather a lot of depth.]

As expected, John Merrill has signed with the Devils:

Junior defenseman Jon Merrill has signed with the New Jersey Devils, voiding his final year of eligibility, TSN.com's Bob McKenzie is reporting this morning, and rookie blue liner Jacob Trouba might be next, though there is reason to believe he could return to Ann Arbor.

After a Lidstrom-like freshman year, Merrill was beset by personal issues and a broken vertebra this year. He never really recaptured the thrilling—subtly, anyway—puck possession game he displayed in year one, but after shaking off the rust this year he was a major part of Michigan's turnaround. His loss is pretty bad. Not that Michigan expected to get four years out of him anyway. If my apartment was on an Indian burial ground I'd probably be out, too.

Meanwhile, some guy on twitter hears Trouba will follow him. Spath is holding to his 60-40 stay prediction. Red's departure rage level remains at zero; he seems to think either guy is capable of playing in the big leagues next year.

Evan Allen update. Allen is regarded as something of an OHL flight risk after telling some guy on the internet he was keeping his options open earlier in the year. Some twitter chatter suggests he will indeed find his way to Yost:

Wearing #15 at Michigan next year, so excited to start a new chapter in my life in the fall with the maize and blue #GoBlue

Take it FWIW.

If the inevitable WTF departure is not Allen, something comical will befall someone else over the offseason. We should have a pool. I'm taking Zach Hyman, June 18th, vision quest ends with Hyman learning to fly and leaving for Tibet. I'm not good at pools.