2021-22 hockey preview
kent johnson
eric ciccolini
brendan brisson
nolan moyle
philippe lapointe
mark estapa
michael pastujov
nick granowicz
The headliner of today's article [JD Scott]

2021-22 Michigan Hockey Season Preview Part 2: Wingers Comment Count

Alex.Drain September 29th, 2021 at 9:00 AM

Previously: Part 1 (Centers and Maybe Centers) 

Yesterday we kicked off our 2021-22 Michigan Hockey Season Preview by starting with players who are definitely centers, as well as wingers who could be centers on this year's team if necessary. Today we move into the rest of the forward crop, players who are going to be wingers on this year's team, barring something strange occurring, and again it starts with some high impact names at the top: 

 

Kent Johnson

Year: Sophomore

Height/Weight: 6-1, 165 

NHL Draft Position: #5 overall in 2021, Columbus 

Stats: 9-18-27 in 26 games, 17.0% shooting, +16 

I should note that I have some clarifying to do: some people were wondering why Kent Johnson wasn't classified under the "could be centers" group in the last article. It is true that Johnson definitely could be a center if needed, as there is the chance he could grow into that position at the NHL-level. However, I classified him here because unlike the players in that group in the last piece, the chance that Johnson plays center at any point this season seems extremely low since he is widely expected to be sewn to Beniers' hip. Last season he only played center when Beniers was at the WJC and Johnson wasn't, but this year, both players should expect to play for their respective countries, so I struggle to see a scenario where Johnson is at center (unless we enter the Twilight Zone and Beecher is on a wing and Johnson is the 3C), which is why he's here. 

Kent Johnson came into Michigan after torching the BCHL with the Trail Smoke Eaters in 2019-20 and the expectations were high. It took a bit of time for him to adjust the NCAA (even though the points were always there statistically), but Johnson started to find his groove as the year went along, something noted by his coach, as Mel told The Hockey News that Johnson was Michigan's most improved player during the season. For Michigan, it was about getting Kent Johnson to grow more as a playmaker, learning to stitch longer offensive sequences together and produce ones that result in high-danger chances. 

Indeed, too often it seemed as if the Port Moody, BC, native was trying to make a highlight-reel play whenever he touched the puck, which might seem like a decent idea to the layman reading this post, but in actuality is not a good proposition. Johnson had a tendency to make life tougher on himself than it needed to be, opting for a black diamond-level difficulty trick when an easier, and more effective play was readily available. Teaching KJ that he doesn't always need to try and shoot the moon every time he's dealt a hand of cards is the job of Mel this season. And to Johnson's credit, he was improving on that as the season went forward. 

By the end of the campaign, Johnson was playing more free and dangerous, and integrating the skill that has always been there productively. Which is good, because his hands, and his ability to make a mind-bending deke or pass, is the best single skill on the team. It's why he was picked fifth overall: 

And another example: 

Getting more of that Johnson to show up is what the coaching staff was working on last season, and certainly has a plan for this year. 

The other factor regarding Kent Johnson is his size and the way he plays. Johnson defined the term "perimeter player" this season, hovering around the boards and staying away from the high-danger areas. Most of that was due to size, with his wiry frame preventing him from getting dirty, and he was not someone who could shoulder contact. Beniers did much of the dirty work for the line and while that may always be the case, if Johnson wants to move from cool gadget to lethal all-around offensive player, someone who produces his own points regularly rather than siphoning off secondary assists, he needs to bulk up. Much of that work should've been done this offseason, so we'll see if he can improve in that manner when the season gets underway. 

Season Expectations: Johnson is easily Michigan's biggest breakout candidate. If he moves from "very enticing player with flash" to "Bordeleau But More Skilled and Creative", Michigan's offense will become almost unstoppable. Johnson will play a lot of minutes, he'll play next to Beniers, get a ton of OZ starts, and a ton of PP time. The conditions for him to create offense are already there. Last season he was just at a PPG even (27 in 26), but as noted, that was slightly inflated by an inordinate volume of secondary assists, which generally are random and not predictive of anything. So, I will keep his points projection at a PPG, (~35 in a full season), but if he makes that leap, >50 is possible. He is also a Hobey candidate. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Morrrrrrrrre Wingers!]

 

 Brisson is another breakout candidate [JD Scott]

Brendan Brisson

Year: Sophomore

Height/Weight: 6-0, 185

NHL Draft Position: #29 overall in 2020, Vegas

Stats: 10-11-21 in 24 games, 17.5% shooting, +9

Michigan has several potential breakout candidates and since we just got done talking about Kent Johnson, let’s move to another one in Brendan Brisson. If Mel said that KJ was Michigan’s most improved player last season, then I have to think that Brisson was #2 on that list. Much like Johnson, Brisson also spent a season affixed to one of Michigan’s dynamic centermen, in Brisson’s case, Thomas Bordeleau. Brisson started the season next to Johnny Beecher, but a switch to playing with Bordeleau came rather early and it made perfect sense: you want to have a passer with a shooter, whether that’s Gretzky and Kurri, Backstrom and Ovechkin, or Marner and Matthews. Bordeleau, as we know, is a passer. Brisson is the shooter.

Drafted in the late first by Vegas in 2020, Brisson is marketed as a high-level goalscorer with a great shot. His 17.5% shooting clip is probably sustainable at the NCAA level even if Brisson shoots a lot more, which he should. The guy has an NHL-caliber shot and he showcased it on his first collegiate goal:

Notice the great pass from Bordeleau as well. Once they got paired together, the chemistry was quickly formed, and it started to blossom.

For much of the season, the plays involving Brisson looked a lot like that, with Brisson waiting on the half-wall to receive the dagger pass for Bordeleau. In some ways, Brisson’s issues looked like Johnson. Both were perimeter players, but where Johnson was dancing along the edges, probing for a high-danger passing lane or scanning the ice for a poor defender to undress, Brisson was stationary on the perimeter, waiting to uncork his howitzer of a slapshot off a Bordeleau pass. Michigan wanted to see Brisson get more involved in the play, because while his shot may be his calling card, Brisson is a talented offensive player. He showed on occasion that the Bordeleau -> Brisson connection could also go the other way:

Sometimes, the passing between the two B’s was damn near poetic:

Brisson’s all-around offensive abilities got him onto the Team USA WJC roster and those clips show what he can do. He’ll never be a top tier defensive player at this level (or the NHL level), but there is more that he can give Michigan. Being an active participant in team offense and moving around the zone is the main objective of learning for Brisson this year, because Michigan is a better team— and Brisson a better player— when he’s active and engaged, and not tied like a hostage to the offensive zone boards.

Brisson started to show more of that as the year went along, much like Johnson, and you got the sense at the conclusion of last year that the breakthrough was near. He was playing more confident hockey and showcasing how dangerous he can be as an unleashed player and not Just A Shooter. For Brisson, it’s less physical than Johnson (he’s already at a fine playing size). Rather, it’s more mental, as he needs to play a more attacking style, and be more willing to get to the dangerous areas than he was last season. The strength has always been there.

Season Expectations: Brisson should be getting top six minutes on either Michigan’s 1A or 1B line, whichever one Thomas Bordeleau is centering. He also should be a key feature on either of Michigan’s two power play units (if there are two… more on that in a later piece), and that’s the one component of the game where we should be totally fine with Brisson being stationary. Set him up on the half-wall and use his shot. It shouldn’t be the only weapon of the PP unit (which it was at times last year), but as we talked about in my offseason hockey strategy posts, the 1-3-1 PP works when you have players to man the half-walls who are great shooters and great passers, and Brisson can fit that. If Michigan is trying to reconstruct Tampa’s PP at the NCAA level, Brisson can be our Steven Stamkos. A healthy chunk of Brisson’s points should come from the PP, just as they did last year (10 of 21). He was close to a point per game a year ago, and should a breakout come, he could well blow past that mark. If nothing else, let’s set an expected pace at 1.0 PPG, so ~35 points over a full season, with hopefully 15-20 goals.

 

Ciccolini ends up like this a decent bit, which is why he could be on a top line [JD Scott]

Eric Ciccolini

Year: Junior

Height/Weight: 6-0, 170

NHL Draft Position: #205 overall in 2019, New York Rangers

Stats: 7-5-12 in 24 games, 18.9% shooting, +11

Third on our list of potential breakout players is the one you probably haven’t thought about much, because unlike most players on Michigan’s team, he isn’t a lock to be a future NHLer (isn’t that a great sentence to say). Ciccolini was a 7th round pick, which isn’t nothing, especially for NHL hockey. Peasant hockey programs like Bowling Green (that's right, it's #HateWeek) would kill to have a 7th round pick on their roster, because that still speaks to real talent. It’s just in Ciccolini’s case, he’s lost in the shuffle because he’s not a top 100 pick, which is the new standard now, apparently.

When he entered the program, Ciccolini was decent news, though, because Michigan wasn’t nearly the talented team that they are now. He put together a promising freshman season, scoring 11 points in 26 games, and I hoped he would make a leap forward as a sophomore with the better talent joining the roster. That didn’t really happen. He scored a nearly identical 12 points in 24 games, down in the assists column, though his goals perked up from 1 to 7 (mostly the result of his shooting regressing to the mean, from 3.6% in 2020 to 18.9% last year).

But just because Ciccolini didn’t make the leap didn’t signal that he was a bad player. He was a very solid top nine winger, and every NCAA team could use players like that on their roster. It’s just a question of whether Ciccolini can get to the next level and move beyond “decent”. Right now, Ciccolini is a forward with a decent shot who works hard, and can generally be trusted to chip in here and there. But he’s not a player who drives a line, and he’s not someone who jumps off the screen.

Part of the reason the Vaughan, ON, native is merely “decent” may be that he played a lot with Johnny Beecher last season, and as you read in the centers section, Beecher has also struggled to drive a line and create offensive opportunities. I think Ciccolini would be better served as the third wheel with Bordeleau/Brisson or Beniers/KJ than he would be trying to make something happen with Beecher on the third line. Michigan tried that last season, and it didn’t really pop. Though it’s reasonable to expect improvement from Ciccolini as he ages into an upperclassman at the NCAA level, Mel also needs to put him in positions to succeed. The Bordeleau line in particular could use a player to bang around down low and score goals around the net. Goals like these:

If Ciccolini can commit himself to playing the netfront, he could fit on either of Michigan’s top two lines. And if that happens, a big uptick in production is likely.

Season Expectations: Ciccolini was always going to be a 3- or 4-year player, and now we’re starting to approach the conclusion of that age range, where the fruits of maturation should come for the Wolverines. I’ve already made my case for Ciccolini to play in the top six, and if it happens, I’d hope to see Ciccolini in the 25-point range over a full season. If he’s back with Beecher on a third line, a reasonable hope would be 15 or 20 points, assuming some improvement with age.

 

A wild Nolan Moyle appears in his usual habitat [JD Scott]

Nolan Moyle

Year: Senior

Height/Weight: 6’2”, 185

NHL Draft Position: -----

Stats: 4-3-7 in 25 games, 9.1% shooting, +1

This write-up is very similar to Van Wyhe’s yesterday, and you may remember Moyle being quoted often in that one, so I’ll keep it short. Moyle is GVW But A Winger. He’s a scrappy winger who plays with an edge and makes Michigan harder to play against. His hustle, heart, and determination is what we mean when James Earl Jones says “Midwestern values” on the Jumbotron before football games.

Moyle plays good defense, he bangs around in the corners, he retrieves pucks, and he can kill penalties. The offense isn’t there outside of greasy goals, and he’s mostly been the same player since he arrived in Ann Arbor three years ago (same can be said for GVW). Those greasy goals can be fun though:

This is from a couple years back, but it’s still my favorite Moyle memory, and it epitomizes the Moyle-GVW-Raabe (RIP) line: you’ve got tight checking along the boards that leads to an OSU turnover, then Van Wyhe gets it to the crease, and a sprawling Moyle chips it in. If he didn’t get a little ice on his sweater and didn’t hit an opponent, it wasn’t a proper shift from Moyle. I don’t expect him to be any different than the same guy he’s been since 2018-19, but that sort of player is a nice piece to have on a roster otherwise lacking in grit and physicality.

Season Expectations: Plays on a fourth line with GVW, drawing tough defensive assignments and almost exclusively DZ starts. Plays on the second penalty kill and logs plenty of time there. Doesn’t get much of a chance to score many goals due to ice time and assignment, but still chips in a few. Let’s peg him for 10-15 points over a 35-game season.

 

Nick Granowicz is charging at you [Patrick Barron]

Nick Granowicz

Year: Junior

Height/Weight: 6’1”, 174

NHL Draft Position: ------

Stats: 5-6-11 in 25 games, 15.2% shooting, +17

Granowicz was not a heralded recruit when he arrived in the fall of 2019. When your author was writing a more abridged hockey season preview in his previous life as a small-time undergraduate blogger back during the fall of 2019, he wrote that “I don’t expect to see much of Granowicz this coming season”. For half of the season, that was correct, as Granowicz played sparingly in the fall of 2019. But shortly after New Year’s Day 2020, Granowicz emerged as a surprising goalscoring option on a team starved for finishing. He scored his first career goal in South Bend, scored again the next day, and then notched two more goals in a game against Penn State the following weekend. Then, three weeks after that, this happened:

Though lighting up the scoreboard against the 2019-20 Wisconsin Badgers was not necessarily the most difficult of tasks, it was still stunning to see a player who was a back-bencher just a month earlier suddenly shoveling in the goals like a snowplow shovels snow after a blizzard. Granowicz scored the game-winner against Minnesota in another hugely important game at the end of February and finished that season with 7 goals, the vast majority coming during that one-month rampage.

Last season didn’t see Granowicz erupt for another monster period, but he did finish with five more goals and eleven points, proving he wasn’t just a one hit wonder. Now the question for Grano becomes what his role on this team is. The vacant spots held only by a label saying [PLEASE SCORE SOME GOALS] that were plentiful when Granowicz arrived at Michigan have vanished, and Granowicz now will have to compete with both more talented youngsters and other more veteran statesmen to nail down a spot. If you assume Beecher, Ciccolini, Brisson, Beniers, Bordeleau, Johnson, Samoskevich, Duke, GVW, and Moyle all have spots nailed down, then there are 2-3 spots for Granowicz, LaPointe, Estapa, Pastujov, Morgan, and Lambert. Someone’s going to be the odd one out and that’s the big question looming over Granowicz’s season.

If he’s in the lineup, he will probably be the same player he’s been, given that he’s already 23 and likely doesn’t have much room for further growth. He’ll chip in 5-10 goals because he knows where to be on the ice, he’ll play hard, and he’ll compete. That presence may be appealing to Mel, and for the record, I like Granowicz’s chances of playing regularly, because he’s shown he can play a bottom six style while still producing in a middle six capacity. Michigan needs a couple of those guys to play down in the lineup and Granowicz can be one.

Season Expectations: If you were picking up what I was laying down, I would like to see Granowicz play on the fourth line with GVW and Moyle, replacing the now-departed Raabe. LaPointe is the other option for that slot in my mind, because Lambert, Pastujov, and Morgan don’t really play that physical, crash-and-bang style. Granowicz can, as you see how greasy the goals constituting his Wisconsin hat trick were in the embedded tweet above. If he is able to snare a role in the lineup, then 5-10 goals and 10-15 points over a full 35 game season is a pretty fair expectation for Grano. If he isn’t in the lineup regularly, he’ll be useful when he’s called upon.

 

Mike Pasta is one of Michigan's veteran leaders [James Coller]

Michael Pastujov

Year: 5th year

Height/Weight: 6’0”, 190

NHL Draft Position: -----

Stats: 7-2-9 in 24 games, 10.6% shooting, +8

One of the more surprising developments of the offseason was Mike Pastujov returning to Michigan for a 5th year using his COVIDshirt. Pastujov isn’t a nobody, but Michigan already has a lot of bodies for few spots, and Pasta has never had a good enough season to really make you think “we have to keep that guy on the roster if we can”. Pastujov came to Michigan a year behind his brother Nick, and in the Maize & Blue he’s been remarkably consistent, scoring exactly nine points in three of his four seasons. The other was his best season, a 19-point campaign as a sophomore. It certainly seemed like he was rounding into a top six player at that point, but his development just sort of stalled. Last season, Pastujov was a decent middle six forward who managed to score goals at a decent pace but offered little else in the way of playmaking or defense.

That goal-scoring, which netted him seven tallies last year, is probably why Pastujov is back. Indeed, his best moments at Michigan have been scoring goals, since he does have a pretty competent shot and he is willing to go to the areas of the ice you need to score. Most memorably:

That was as a freshman, but it is still the highlight of Pasta’s career, and it is representative of Pastujov’s best moments as a Wolverine. At this point, Pastujov is a solid veteran presence and a valued leader, having been voted an Assistant Captain by his teammates recently. I don’t think he will be in the lineup everyday with even more talent on the roster, but when he plays, you can expect him to get a few shots off and score goals here or there. He’s got enough skill to play in a middle six capacity, and as we saw last season, if you put him with a KJ/Beniers, he can pot 5-10 goals. Pastujov won’t give you a ton else besides that, but if Michigan is in need of finishing, or wants some older bodies in the lineup to accent its uber-talented youth, Pasta is a passable option to call upon. And that’s probably why he’s back.

Season Expectations: I’d wager that Pastujov only plays around half of the team’s games, slotting in on either 1A/1B line or the third line. He’ll probably score a few goals unless his shooting percentage craters, and he probably won’t do much else. We’ll set his expectation at ~7 points. His value to the team is likely most profound in the stuff we can't see and quantify, his leadership in the locker room and the insight he can bestow on the fresh faces.

 

We didn't get many pictures of Philippe LaPointe last year, but this is one of them [Barron]

Philippe LaPointe

Year: Sophomore

Height/Weight: 5’11”, 185

NHL Draft Position: ----

Stats: 1-1-2 in 14 games, 6.7% shooting, -3

LaPointe is the son of that Martin LaPointe, returning to the state of Michigan for his NCAA career, the state where his father captured two Stanley Cups in the late 90s. LaPointe came in as an afterthought at the back of Michigan’s mega-recruiting class, not the caliber of prospect of a Beniers or a Power, but LaPointe’s profile was interesting. He’d been a highly productive BCHL player for the Trail Smoke Eaters, the same team with which Kent Johnson had played. LaPointe piled up the points, which was partially his own doing, but also may have been residual from the fact that his linemate Johnson had transformed into a three-headed dragon terrorizing the other players in that league. There was reason for optimism.

That optimism didn’t really translate into LaPointe’s freshman season, but part of that was because LaPointe wasn’t given many chances. He got into just 14 games, often as either the 13th forward or buried on the bottom line with Van Wyhe and Moyle, which, while decent experience, isn’t really the place for someone like LaPointe to shine. He didn’t look out of place with those two, but you got the sense that he has more offensive ability to tap into if he were playing with a different group of teammates. His junior stats back that up.

Mel seemed to recognize that, placing LaPointe on the PP as a netfront guy at one juncture, and LaPointe did get more time in the December Minnesota series, when Michigan’s roster was devastated by the WJC development camps. LaPointe didn’t do much in that series, but then again, Michigan’s entire team was a lifeless husk in both games (tends to happen when you lose almost all your good players).

In totality, this is the one highlight we have from LaPointe’s freshman campaign:

That gives you a hint for a potential role for LaPointe: if Ciccolini doesn’t stick on those top two lines, LaPointe could be an option, particularly for that Bordeleau/Brisson line, which may need a player who can play around the net. Michigan used LaPointe around the net in any situation where he wasn’t playing on a checking line, so that’s an indication of what they see his utility to the team to be. It’s just a matter of whether he can seize a regular role.

Season Expectations: LaPointe is in that bucket of guys who are all fighting for the same few spots. Granowicz has shown more than LaPointe up to this point (pun intended), and Pastujov, Morgan, and Lambert are more of known quantities (not necessarily a good thing, but it might be for Mel), so I don’t love LaPointe’s odds, but also the team knows more about what he can be than we do. They’ve seen him in practice and know how close he is to breaking through. The talent is there. Not NHL talent, but he was a highly productive junior player to suggest he can be more than a grinder at the NCAA level. Is this the season we see it? Hard to say, and because of that, it’s hard to set an expectation for him at this time.

 

There were few suitably-sized photos of Estapa in the USHL on Google, so here's an AMA pic from the team's FB page

Mark Estapa

Year: Freshman

Height/Weight: 6’2”, 197

NHL Draft Position: ------

Stats: -------

Estapa enters Michigan as the least-heralded member of this freshman class, one of the few rather pedestrian recruits who survived being processed as Michigan just kept adding blue-chip talent to the class and started running out of spots for their previous commits. In that way, he was kind of this season’s Josh Groll, just barely making the cut and ending up on the roster. Given how little Groll played on last year’s team, it’s probably not a great sign, and yeah, it’s hard to see how Estapa snags a regular spot on this year’s team. But what about his long-term upside?

Well, Estapa played in the USHL with the Tri-City Storm and was decent. After a pedestrian first season there in 2019-20 (his draft-eligible season), Estapa was deferred by Michigan and returned to score 31 points in 45 games last year. That was good for fourth best in scoring among forwards on the team, trailing Hunter Strand (who’s now with Notre Dame), and a pair of NHL draft picks in Matthew Knies (Toronto, playing with the Minnesota Gophers) and Carter Mazur (Detroit, playing with UDenver). It was a pretty talented team, and they finished with the best record in the Western Conference. Estapa wasn’t quite the caliber of player as the three players who finished ahead of him, but he was a very solid top six forward on a good USHL team. That’s not bad at all. The peak of his USHL career was this highlight reel goal that made SportsCenter:

Overall, Estapa seems like he could grow into a good complementary piece for Michigan who plays more in the middle six due to the talent on the team, but that progression will begin mostly in practice this season. The story of Estapa’s career in Ann Arbor will be whether he can grow while on the roster and not bail because of a lack of playing time like Groll did. If Estapa agreed to join the roster, knowing the insane level of talent around him, he’s probably prepared to sit for a year or two, but sometimes riding the pine in reality is much less acceptable than how it may have sounded in your head. We’ll see.

Season Expectations: Don’t expect to see much of Estapa. He’ll probably get into a game here or there, probably during the series where Michigan loses lots of pieces to the WJC, but for now he’s a bench piece, lacking the experience of a Pastujov or a Luke Morgan, and the junior profile/talent of a Samoskevich or a Duke.

Comments

Scottwood88

September 29th, 2021 at 2:35 PM ^

I think Pasta is going to play on the 3rd line quite a bit. There's 8 drafted forwards and he's the next most skilled guy to slot into the top 9.

Van Whye, Moyle and Grano on the 4th line and Morgan as the extra skater.

We'll see though. It is crazy how much depth there is.

Joined: 11/29/2015

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