zach nagelvoort

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All you have to do to eke a smile out of him is pitch a 46-shot shutout and stay four years it’s really not that hard [James Coller]

Friday, March 10, 2017

Michigan 3, #11 Penn State 2

1st period

Myllari Goal

UM 0 PSU 1 EV 19:59 Assists: Sucese & Biro

Lockwood carries the puck into the offensive zone with 15 seconds to go in the period and I distinctly remember looking at the clock and thinking that the period was as good as done. Something in the darker, loathing, confrontational part of my brain perked up at this sunny optimism and immediately reminded me that you’d think so but, like, this season…

Stupid accurate darker, loathing, confrontational part of my brain.

Sucese gets the puck deep and shoots from a bad angle, and with no one in front of the net to deflect it the puck goes through the slot and hits the boards on the opposite side of the rink.

mich psu fri 1-1

Myllari sees the puck bounce off the boards, does a nice job reading the angle of the bounce, and gets himself all wound up for a one-timer. It’s worth noting that Lavigne sees where the puck is headed and gets across the crease in time to do something; at this point he’s still standing.

mich psu fri 1-2

Sanchez gets in position to block the shot, sliding out of the way just as the puck passes him. Proof positive that luck plays a bigger part in hockey than most of us would like to admit. It seems like Lavigne had a hard time tracking the flight of the puck as Sanchez passed in front of him. Otherwise he would have eschewed the butterfly in favor of standing, as you don’t have to worry about a rebound off the chest protector when the puck’s released with one second left.

mich psu fri 1-3

[After THE JUMP: more weird goals, Nagelvoort’s unreal, bork bork bork]

Friday, March 13, 2015

Michigan State 3, Michigan 5

1st period

MSU 0 UM 1 EV 03:54 Dancs (3) from Compher (12) and Nieves (18)

Michael Downing starts the break with a nice outlet pass through the defensive zone and into the neutral zone that ends up on Boo Nieves’ stick. Nieves taps it ahead to Dexter Dancs, who dumps the puck behind the net.

mist 1-1

JT Compher, in the middle of the ice in the above screen cap, skates to the goaltenders left to get the puck. He turns sharply as a defenseman closes on him. Meanwhile, Dancs has cut across the ice and is now in the net-front area. Compher backhands a pass to him.

mist 1-2

You can see from the above screen cap that MSU goalie Jake Hildebrand has eliminated the success of a wraparound by locking down both posts. The downside to this, from his perspective, is that the top of the net is exposed over both shoulders. This is a low-stakes gamble unless the puck comes out from behind the net quicker than he can react to, which is what happens. Dancs has to lift his shot and he does, placing it over Hildbrand’s shoulder on the far side.

mist 1-3

 [Hit THE JUMP for the rest]

RIP, Bobby Womack. The man who provided the Michigan Replay theme, and eventually our podcast's, has died.

via

The whole thing is here; Womack was far more famous for doing a bunch of other things, but around here he's my ringtone. May the program once again live up to the awesomeness of the horns.

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NHL draft stuff. Incoming F Dylan Larkin may have even gone a little higher than expected when he was drafted by (possibly) YOUR Detroit Red Wings at 15th overall. That's good for Michigan, as Detroit is generally patient with their prospects—so patient that it drives their fans nuts—and the friendship between Red and Mike Babcock should prevent Larkin from departing until he's good and ready.

The only other Michigan player to get drafted was Zach Nagelvoort, who went to the Oilers in the middle rounds. Quite a rise for him to go from "guy who had to leave his NAHL team to get playing time" to draft pick.

With the rest of Michigan's class kind of a patchwork of overagers, it's not a huge surprise that the rest of the guys got passed over. Dexter Dancs had a shot, but no one else was even first-time eligible IIRC.

Michigan could have a big 2015, with three incoming players under consideration for first-round picks. Kyle Connor was the second-leading scorer in the USHL; U17 D Zach Werenski is good enough that Michigan is trying to bring him in right now; NTDP defenseman Nick Boka was one of the first invites to that program in his year. Chris Dilks has all three on his "A" list of guys he's seen who have a shot at the first round.

With Cooper Marody and Brendan Warren also coming off good years, Michigan should have five current and future players called around this time next year.

That explains that. I'm pretty sure we are all already aware that the reason Michigan backed off of top 100 MN RB Jeff Jones was questions about his eligibility, but if there were any questions about those questions they should no longer be in question:

The highest-rated recruit to commit to Minnesota during the Internet recruiting era has reportedly failed to register an ACT score high enough for enrollment this fall, according to a report from the Star Tribune.

Running back Jeff Jones needed to improve his ACT score in order to offset a rough year academically as a sophomore at Minneapolis Washburn; the NCAA determines eligibility through a process that combines report card grade-point averages as well as standardized test scores. As the Star Tribune's Joe Christensen previously reported, Jones improved his ACT score with an April test, but needed to do so again on June 14.

He's trying some late hijinks with online classes and such that Michigan's admissions would almost certainly reject, so… yeah. Michigan accurately projected that he had very little chance of suiting up this fall.

O'Bannon's over. The trial is over after three weeks, and despite the presence of Mary Sue Coleman and Dave Brandon on the NCAA's witness list neither appeared. No doubt whatever testimony they had would have been redundant with various other president/AD types who took the stand to explain that the NCAA was good and college was good, but I was looking forward to this Claudia Wilken person giving Brandon the stink-eye for assertions that, to be fair, would have been no less ridiculous than a bunch of things we already heard.

To me, nothing sums up the NCAA's argument better than Mark Emmert responding to a question about his 1.6 million dollar salary:

You can justify anything if you hire a consultant to do so, and will try to if you are the kind of person who can thrive in an organization as orthogonal to reality as the NCAA. I have no doubt the parade of ludicrously-compensated suits the NCAA paraded in front of the court genuinely believes themselves to be agents for good in a corrupt world. You cannot get a man to understand something his job prohibits him from understanding, after all.

I have real problems with the executive class of the NCAA acting like they're running a hedge fund in everything they do and then expecting us to believe the things that come out of their mouths, and eagerly await whatever comeuppance the legal system can contrive. It won't be enough, but whatever.

Speaking of that. Delany is "driven" to have the Big Ten Basketball championship in MSG despite the fact that it is booked during championship week.

Greatest comment ever. Great satire can be mistaken for genuine sentiment… and I think this comment left on an O'Bannon wrap-up post on CBS is satire.

ONLY one man can save colleges..  save sports and  save the country

and that man is NICK SABAN

jealous sports nuts as host of sports talk in knoxville... saying that nick saban hated women and is a bully

usually GREED MONSTER  guys  after they get rich and  popular dumps their wives for a younger

and more pretty woman.. NOT saban  still married to the same one  since 21 ...  and  not only  rich and popular  but also good looking for women...... THAT is  proof that saban is not  what  these insane jealous;nuts try to make him out to be..

the best thing for america is  to make saban the dictator of the country  just like he has done with  bama  football and the same great success  for the country will  come .... all people  ,must obey saban  for  all  peoples  success... just like all bama players obeys and they get the  greatest success

saban as dictator  sets up  the  best system  and places everyone himself in the right position... like he does with football

lets hear it...... HIP HIP  HOORAY.......  HIP HIP  HOORAY .NICK SABAN FOR DICTATOR of AMERICA!

But I'm not entirely sure.

Hello. The USA is playing a knockout-round game in the World Cup today, so nothing is going to knock off my shine. But I should mention that Rutgers and Maryland are now officially part of the Big Ten. The Big Ten has celebrated this by taking pictures of their mascots in Washington DC. That is all.

Etc.: Stop reading about my early opinion of Tate Forcier and read my early opinion on Nik Stauskas.