Previously: Part 1

Sunday, January 17, 2016

#6 Michigan 8, Ohio State 6

1st period

WARREN GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 1 OSU 0 EV 01:45 Assists: Calderone & Martin

The puck rolls back to Martin off of a faceoff, and he calmly moves it down the boards when he sees a defender screaming toward him.

Calderone’s touch pass is so quick that he doesn’t have it on his stick long enough for that alone to justify a screen cap. Tomkins’ reaction, however, makes it worth drawing up, as he’s still standing and looking at Calderone when Warren’s about to shoot.

Warren’s already extended, the puck is halfway to the net, and Tomkins has yet to drop into his butterfly. He whiffs on this one, getting his pads extended after the shot’s in the net.

Joshua goal, Ohio State

UM 1 OSU 1 EV 09:17 Assists: Greco & Moser

Greco drives wide and shoots, but Cecconi smothers the shot. The puck ends up falling behind them, and Greco somehow manages to flip it in the air. It hits the top of the net and eventually ends up behind it.

Joshua turns and (accidentally?) knocks Werenski’s stick out of his hands; Werenski bends to retrieve it, while Joshua skates ahead, grabs the puck, and brings it to the side of the net for a wraparound attempt.

Racine is able to paddle the puck away, but he does so directly in front of him. That’s…not ideal. I mean, I understand the poke check, but smothering it would be nice.

Joshua reaches back about as far as humanly possible to gather the puck, and a split second later Cecconi and Kile’s blades come together to create a mini-wall in front of Racine. Somehow Joshua flips is over that and inside the post to Racine’s right. Hard for him to stop a point blank attempt where the guy’s unchecked.

[After THE JUMP: we’re terrible we’re great we’re terrible we’re great we’re terr]

MOTTE GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 2 OSU 1 EV 09:53 Assists: Connor & Compher

Michigan’s breaking the puck out of their defensive zone off of a deflected puck. Compher gets crushed at center ice but manages to throw the puck across for Connor, who skates into the offensive zone.

Connor threads a pass under Weis’ stick (he’s aggressively backchecking, almost falling over at the blue line) to Motte.

Motte gets a clean shot away because Ohio State’s skaters are trying to get into position but then pull a dog-chasing-tennis-ball when they see Motte and just pursue.

There’s something captivating about it; three skaters synchronized, chasing the same, unattainable thing.

Motte’s first shot is stopped, but he flicks the rebound into the top corner. Tomkins has absolutely no chance at stopping a shot that close that’s lifted that high.

Lundey goal, Ohio State

UM 2 OSU 2 EV 13:26 Assists: Healey & Kearney

Healey gathers a pass on his backhand near the point, and it takes long enough that Warren is able to switch to him. The problem is that Warren puts his stick out to take away the pass back to the high point, but he doesn’t take away the pass to the slot. Healey throws it toward the net, and after the puck ricochets off a skate it settles in the slot.

Marody does a nice job tying up Kearne. The puck bounces further out, and now it’s…in that box…somewhere. I’ve watched this goal probably a dozen times, and I have no idea where the puck goes for about a second. I’ve watched three different angles and they don’t make it any more clear; I wish I could give you a better answer what happened, but for now CHAOS will have to do.

This is little consolation, but I do know that the puck ends up in the slot on Lundey’s stick, and Racine does that thing where you’re outside in public and you know there’s a horsefly buzzing around and you’re trying to act cool and then the buzzing turns to a roar and it’s right in your face and you’ve just got to swat at it ferociously. As with the elusive horsefly, Racine doesn’t get his hands on the puck.

2nd period

Gust goal, Ohio State

UM 2 OSU 3 PPG 01:17 Assists: Weis & Shilkey

The Buckeyes hold the puck in the zone and Greco carries it up the boards. Werenski knocks the puck away, but because his stick is wrapped around to Greco’s right Greco is able to chip it behind the net as Werenski tries to swing around.

Compher’s responsible for the middle of the crease because Cecconi has to cover the near-side net-front area that Shilkey occupies, but that leaves the weakside winger very, very open.

Shilkey’s pass gets through the crease to Weis. Racine has to butterfly and slide to try and stop the shot from the weak side, and this leaves him susceptible to a pass to Gust.

Cecconi’s too far away to use his body to move Gust, so all he can do is try and pin his stick down. He does a nice job of that, but the pass goes off of Gust’s skate and in.

Larocque goal, Ohio State

UM 2 OSU 4 EV 03:30 Assists: Jobst & Wiitala

Compher goes behind the net to try and strip the puck, trips, and falls, and though he kind of recovers this leaves Jobst a momentary passing lane to the point that he utilizes.

Larocque shoots, and why not? He’s got  wall of bodies in front of the net. Worst case scenario: the puck hits someone and falls, which still gives OSU a chance to retain possession; best case scenario: Racine can’t see through the three dudes in front of him and lets the puck in. Larocque gets the best case scenario. Hard to criticize Racine; being mad at someone for not having x-ray vision is a bad look.

CONNOR GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 3 OSU 4 EV 07:02 Assists: Motte

Motte carries in, drives wide, and cuts behind the net. He then throws a fantastic pass back for a trailing (like, really trailing) Connor, neatly placing it on the edge of the net.

OSU picks it off, but Connor has momentum while OSU’s d is flat footed. Connor’s able to smack the puck away and turn that into a shot on goal, albeit one that’s stopped by Tomkins.

The puck bounces to Tomkins’ right, where Connor picks it up, carries behind the net, emerges to Tomkins’ left, and unleashes an unholy snap shot that hits the top corner. Connor’s shot is incredible, but it’s set up by Compher, who set a pick that freed Connor to skate behind the net (and is marked with an X below), and Motte, who you can see if occupying two defenders. This top line, man.

Jobst goal, Ohio State

UM 3 OSU 5 PPG 18:46 Assists: Joshua & Weis

Tomkins passes from the side of his net to the blue line; I be like dang. Jobst passes to Weis, the puck hits his skates, and he ends up gliding to the net while trying to dig it out.

Weis does, and he centers it for Joshua. Martin does a nice job tying him up. Joshua can’t get a shot away, and the puck rolls to Racine’s left.

Jobst is unchecked, and though Racine makes an excellent pad save on the first shot attempt he can’t stop the tap in off the rebound.

3rd period

CONNOR GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 4 OSU 5 PPG 00:52 Assists: Compher & Motte

Compher passes to Motte, and Motte immediately passes back to Compher.

Tomkins is understandably concerned about the back-and-forth passing taking place to his right and locks down that post, but Compher’s pass across to Connor means he’s in trouble. Jobst (circled below) collapsed to the front of the net on the pass to Motte even though Kile’s already covered, and this leaves Connor alone. Connor snipes a one-timer from his knee.

MOTTE GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 5 OSU 5 PPG 01:42 Assists: Downing & Kile

Connor passes to Compher before cutting through the middle of the ice, and that draws the attention of the nearest defender. Compher passes to Kile just before the OSU skater arrives, and Kile moves it to Downing.

Downing rips a slap shot that Tomkins stops, ceding a rebound. Motte has skated down low because Connor has finished gliding to that side of the ice, and he’s unchecked thanks to one net-front defender who’s trying to block Downing’s shot and another who just notices Motte as Downing’s shot arrives.

Motte picks up the puck in the middle of the crease and tucks it around the already outstretched goaltender, who’s unable to push laterally in time.

MOTTE GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 6 OSU 5 EV 03:35 Assists: Connor

Wiitala tries to hold the puck in at the blue line, tossing it into the middle of the ice. Connor picks off the pass.

Connor turns and dishes to Motte…

…who shoots. Tomkins stops it, but the puck flies up in the air. Compher splits the d and charges the net.

Compher tracks the puck in the air and swats at it, just barely keeping his stick level with the crossbar. That doesn't matter except in the sense that it distracts Tomkins because his swat doesn't end up touching the puck. The refs reviewed it and upheld the goal, so you know it was good.

DANCS GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 7 OSU 5 EV 09:34 Assists: Shuart & Calderone

Dancs digs the puck out of the corner and throws it to Shuart in the slot, but Fidler gets his stick across Shuart and the puck slides away.

Shuart, though, is able to get the puck as both of OSU’s defenders turn inward for a second before realizing the puck is behind them. Shuart shoots as the two high defenders turn back, and there’s a bit of a shooting lane, albeit not one that extends to the net. The puck hits a stick and ends up to Tomkins’ left. Dancs, circled below, does what he’s supposed to and heads to the front of the net when he sees that Shuart’s shooting.

Tomkins is in good position to stop a shot from Shuart but not so much from Dancs, and Dancs brings the rebound from his backhand to his forehand and flips it over Tomkins’ glove.

COMPHER GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 8 OSU 5 EN 16:54 Assists: Werenski

Brevig takes a shot from the point and his stick explodes. Below is a completely unaltered screenshot to which I definitely did not add a crudely constructed explosion.

The puck rolls over to Greco, but a piece of the aforementioned shattered stick blocks his shot.

Werenski plays the puck off of the boards both to get around Greco and get it out of the zone and because he’s got Compher there to finish the task by carrying it ahead.

Compher pulls the puck across like it’s on a rope, narrowly avoiding a collision but opening up a free lob for himself.

There’s one OSU defender back, and he’s not in the correct lane to knock this away. Compher lifts it and scores.

Miller goal, Ohio State

UM 8 OSU 6 EX 19:41 Assists: Dalrymple & Jobst

Michigan loses the faceoff, and the puck is moved to the right and then back to the blue line. With this being a faceoff everyone’s still relatively clustered, so Dalrymple takes the shot that’s available, throwing it on net and hoping for a deflection.

The puck hits Werenski and falls to the ice, but Miller’s right behind him. Marody had him locked up off of the faceoff, but as they made their way to the front of the net another OSU skater (the arrow is going through these two) bumps him off his coverage. Miller quickly backhands the shot past Racine, who is already on the ice because of the shot from Dalrymple.