[James Coller/MGoBlog]

Friday, November 25, 2016

#16 Michigan 1, Lake Superior State University 3

1st period

No scoring

2nd period

CALDERONE GOAL

UM 1 LSSU 0 PPG 11:51 Assists: Dancs & Martin

Pastujov is carrying the puck in while being hounded by a defender to his right. He’s far enough from the boards that he can spin and bank the puck back to Martin, who’s hovering near the blue line. This also causes the defender to come off of Pastujov and chase Martin. There’s plenty of space for Martin to survey, and with no high defender he passes to the opposite side of the offensive zone.

Dancs gets the pass from Martin cleanly. He doesn’t have to look far for his next move, as Calderone sees the pass coming across and starts to skate across the slot and almost out in order to get himself into position for a pass from Dancs.

The defender nearest Calderone makes a mistake, jutting his stick out to take away a passing lane to the front of the net when the puck’s far more likely to go to the guy who’s wearing white and right next to him. Dancs passes, and Calderone gathers it on the forehand. The defender who was on Pastujov and then was chasing Martin at the point is now doing his best to get his stick out and break up the pass (to no avail).

Calderone settles the puck and fires relatively quickly, and I don’t think the goaltender was expecting this. Calderone’s able to get the puck from almost behind him to right in front really quickly, and though the goalie’s attempting to butterfly it appears as though he’s a half second off; in the screen cap below you can see the puck’s more than halfway there and his five-hole is still open.

[After THE JUMP: winning Corsi, more goals, and looking ahead to Penn State]

Nenadal Goal

UM 1 LSSU 1 EV 12:14 Assists: Correale & Cuglietta

This is fine. Not in the comic-turned-meme sense, but in the actual there-is-nothing-wrong-here sense.  Everyone’s covered closely except for one guy who’s just now entering the faceoff circle, and he’s entering an area where there are two Michigan defenders who could pick him up. This is fine.

Cuglietta spins about a half second after the above screen cap was taken and all hell breaks loose. Warren sees the spin and decides to chase to the corner. I guess he thinks he’ll get there fast enough to lay a hit or strip the puck, but he’s really trusting his speed over De Jong’s recovery time. Sanchez sees this and cuts behind #26 and starts heading up the boards; I assume this is for an outlet pass should the two defenders in the corner force a turnover.

Warren overskates Cuglietta, who threads a pass through De Jong’s skates to Correale. Correale has been defended by Cecconi throughout the play, but he’s open and seemingly undefended in the screen cap below because he was just the recipient of an ill-timed shove that moved him away from Cecconi and into great position and to take a pass and drop the puck to Nenadal.

LaFontaine can’t unlock himself from the post and take away the shot to the far-side of the net before a very open Nenadal snipes one.

3rd period

Morgan Goal

UM 1 LSSU 2 EV 17:03 Assists: Henke & Hultz

Hultz starts things with an excellent stretch pass to Henke, who has skated deep into the neutral zone by the time he receives the puck. He’s into the LSSU offensive zone about the time he receives the puck; this was one heck of a long, accurate pass.

Piazza does a really nice job taking away the passing lane here. Though it’s true that the next LSSU skater to enter the zone is trailing fairly far behind, look at Piazza’s stick positioning. He realizes that Henke has to start backing in and reads the passing angle well enough that I watched this a couple times in slow motion and barely believe the puck got off the blade of Henke’s stick.

Henke hits Morgan, who’s a stride or two ahead of the chasing Michigan defenders. He’s basically got the time and space to do whatever he desires.

Morgan decides within a stride that what he desires to do is shoot. You can see in the screen cap below that the puck has been release from Morgran’s stick while LaFontaine’s almost completely in his upright crouch. I can’t tell from the replay whether this went five- or six-hole, but it found a gap as LaFontaine was getting into his butterfly; he reacted a hair too slow here.

Correale Goal

UM 1 LSSU 3 EN 18:57 Assists: Cuglietta

Slaker gets tied up on the faceoff and Winborg, who’s skated in from the right edge of the faceoff circle, gets folded into the mess. This leaves a loose puck skittering toward the back of the faceoff circle, and Correale sees it immediately. He gets to the puck before Kile decides to pinch down, allowing him to tap it to the boards. You’d like to see Kile close on this puck faster than he does.

Correale gets around the sprawled out Kile and carries it out of the zone. He quickly decides to move it to the middle of the ice once he sees Piazza take a step toward him.

Piazza tries to close the gap on Cuglietta quickly, but he overskates him a bit. Give Cuglietta credit for slamming on the brakes extraordinarily quickly. He’s able to pull the puck out wide and pass it ahead to Correale just as Piazza slides past.

Once Correale gets the pass there’s nothing for him to do but flip it into the net, and there’s no defender close enough to do anything about it.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

#16 Michigan 4, Lake Superior State 1

1st period

CALDERONE GOAL

UM 1 LSSU 0 EV 04:10 Assists: Dancs

Calderone’s exerting some pressure on the forecheck here, gapping up and taking a good enough angle to force the puck back behind the net. The LSSU player sees that he’s got a teammate there and no one else in sight, so this appears to be a low risk pass.

“Appears,” of course, being the operative part of that sentence. Dancs reads what’s happening and flies behind the net, picking off the pass. He’s got forward momentum, so he’s around the back of the net and out in front in an instant.

Dancs puckhandles for a second as he reaches the front of the net; the goaltender has the post locked down, and as his five-hole opens momentarily as he pushes off the post and brings his leg pads to a point. Dancs lifts the puck, though, and it hits the goalie’s chest protector.

You can see in the screen cap above that Calderone’s unchecked and moving toward the netfront area, and he’s on the puck immediately. LSSU’s Matt McArdle (#25) doesn’t notice Calderone sneaking in behind, so he thinks he’ll be able to grab the rebound and turn with it. Calderone wins that battle, hacking a shot up and off the goaltender’s arm.

McArdle is out of position to help at this point. There’s another LSSU defender who’s doing his best to shove Calderone back (even going so far as to shove his head down), but Calderone’s rebound falls right in front of him. He hacks at the puck and this time it goes in.

Hayes Goal

UM 1 LSSU 1 EV 15:17 Assists: Cuglietta

Sanchez flat-out makes a mistake here, assuming that he can stickhandle his way around a defender instead of getting the puck out of the zone via a pass. He may not know that he has a teammate trailing whom he could have left a drop pass for, but there’s a second before that where Pastujov is leaving the zone ahead of him and in position to take a pass.

I circled Hayes, who’s almost off camera and is being defended by De Jong. Also worth noting that Nagelvoort has come out pretty far to challenge Cuglietta.

De Jong’s trailing enough that he isn’t able to get his stick into the passing lane. Realizing this, he’s swinging it through as the pass is released in hopes that he’ll be able to get his over the top of Hayes’s stick and prevent him from firing.

It doesn’t work. Nagelvoort pushes off and gets got on the slide across, as his five-hole’s open for a moment and Hayes gets the puck in position to fire a low, heavy shot. Hard to blame Nagelvoort here; the puck is turned in Michigan’s defensive zone, there’s one defender back who’s responsible for taking away the pass, Nagelvoort comes out to challenge the shooter, the pass is timed perfectly, and De Jong isn’t able to interrupt the pass reception/shot.

2nd period

DE JONG GOAL

UM 2 LSSU 1 EV 09:16 Assists: Warren & Shuart

Michigan takes their turn forcing a turnover at the blue line as Cutler Martin closes quickly and knocks the puck away just as the LSSU skater is about to backhand a pass to the middle of the ice, a pass that would have gotten LSSU at least to center ice before a Michigan defender could have done anything considering the direction Brendan Warren (who’s between the blue line and the blue square in the screen cap below) is flowing.

Shuart was already in the offensive zone, so all he had to was turn and chase. He’s about to gain possession of the puck here, and he pulls away from the lone defender near him.

Shuart holds the puck on his backhand long enough to make the goaltender anxious, and as the goalie starts tipping ever-so-slightly forward he shoots. It looks like the puck is just wide and hits the boards behind the net. Shuart recovers and carries to the corner.

Shuart tries to center the puck to Martin by threading a pass through two defenders, but the puck is deflected off a skate. It just sort of dies, and Warren’s able to pick it up on his backhand. He then passes to De Jong, who’s pinching down.

De Jong is gliding to his left and fires after the goaltender hits the ice. He gets under it enough to send a slow-rising shot to the near side of the net, just over the shuffling goalie’s leg pad and blocker.

3rd period

SANCHEZ GOAL

UM 3 LSSU 1 EV 06:59 Assists: Unassisted

LSSU tries to get the puck out from behind their net under heavy forechecking pressure from Evan Allen. The pass just barely gets through to the faceoff dot. The LSSU skater there thinks that he has #21 to his right, which he did for a second until #21 decides to take off for the blue line.

The player who received the pass in the faceoff circle never picks up on this, and he passes into the slot for a guy who’s now almost out of the zone. (He’s circled in the screen cap below.) Sanchez pinches down and corrals the loose puck.

Pastujov does a nice job of quickly getting in position to screen. To their credit, the two LSSU defenders in the slot do a really nice job of trying to take away the shooting lane; with the quick change in possession, they’re doing about the most they can to disrupt Sanchez. Pastujov turns out of the way of the puck just in time, and Sanchez’s shot is perfectly placed inside the top corner of the net.

BOKA GOAL

UM 4 LSSU 1 EN 19:10 Assists: Sanchez

This is where making GIFs of each goal is really useful because there’s a ton going on here; this might be the goofiest, longest-developing empty netter I’ve seen. Nagelvoort stops a shot and the rebound goes into the slot, where Sanchez picks up the puck and passes a few feet ahead to Shuart. Shuart sees Boka leaving the zone with speed and tries to pass ahead to him, but it’s smothered by an LSSU skater.

The puck doesn’t end up under the defender, however, and it’s still available for, say, a trailing Michigan skater. Sanchez is behind the B1G logo in the screen cap above; he jumps up and fires a quick pass ahead to Boka, who spins so that he can catch the pass on his forehand.

Boka finishes the 360-degree spin as he enters the offensive zone, firing a shot off his backhand before the defender, who tried to poke-check the puck away when Boka was facing him near the edge of the neutral zone, can get his stick over Boka’s back from left to right.

Notes and ramblings:

• I think this was Michigan’s first series Corsi win. David tracked things from Yost on Friday and tallied 51 Michigan shots/blocked shots/misses/goals to LSSU’s 34. College Hockey News has Michigan with a 62-58 edge Saturday night.
• Michigan’s season totals are on the rise as well. Their total Corsi For % is up to 42.9%, while their even strength Corsi For % is now 43.3%.
• Orion Sang wrote last week that Michigan has to embrace ugly hockey. Top-line scoring isn’t walking through that door. If Michigan’s going to be successful this season it’s going to be because they continue their excellent play on the penalty kill (they’re killing 92.2% of chances, tops in the nation), forecheck like a pack of rabid hyenas, and start passing their way into the offensive zone (i.e. don’t just dump the puck in).
• On paper, the first real litmus test of the season comes on Thursday and Friday when Michigan travels to Penn State to open Big Ten play. After digging in a bit, though, the matchup probably isn’t as uneven as it appears. Penn State’s only played two teams who are even remotely close to the PairWise top 16. They split against #17 (per USCHO’s PairWise rankings) St. Lawrence, winning the first game 4-2 and dropping the second game 6-3. Later in October they tied #13 Notre Dame 3-3 and won the second game, 3-2; both of those games went to overtime. Yes, Penn State is 11-1-1. Yes, they have the second most goals in the country and lead the nation in shot attempts. They’ve also beaten up on teams like Alaska-Anchorage (ranked #60 of 60 teams per USCHO’s PairWise rankings), Arizona State (#54), and Mercyhurst (#52).
• The series should be very interesting on special teams. Michigan and Penn State have the top two PKs in the nation, with Michigan squelching 92.2% of opponents’ opportunities while Penn State is stopping 91.8%. Michigan’s power play is actually outperforming Penn State’s 22.6% to 20.0%; Michigan’s power play ranks 10th overall and Penn State’s 16th.