Friday, March 6, 2015

Penn State 6 Michigan 4

1st period

PSU 1 UM 0 EV 03:13 Scheid from Richard and Conway

Penn State chips the puck in and chases. Zach Werenski loses a battle along the boards behind the net, leaving Scheid with the puck. As he takes off up the boards Kevin Lohan skates behind the net to cover.

Dylan Richard starts skating to the net while Scheid turns behind him. It isn’t quite a pick, but it (apparently) is enough of a diversion to wreak havoc.

Lohan makes an intelligent coverage switch to cover Richard. Scheid shoots, however, and beats Racine five-hole. This kind of goal (read: soft) is the reason no one has been able to win the starting role. It’s the goaltender problem in microcosm.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest]

PSU 2 UM 0 EV 07:48 Goodwin from Olcyzk and Jensen

Werenski gathers the puck in Michigan’s defensive zone and skates it out himself. He makes it just past center ice when he’s hacked at, losing control of the puck as it rolls behind him. Tommy Olcyzk picks it up and sends a cross-ice outlet pass to David Goodwin.

Uh…

PSU 3 UM 0 PPG 10:46 Bailey unassisted

Penn State again chips the puck in, and this time Michael Downing wins the race to the loose puck. He passes up the boards to JT Compher, who hacks at the puck in an attempt to clear. It doesn’t work. Casey Bailey picks it up near the blue line and has all the time and space he desires to shoot.

Racine can’t stop this one even though he has the extra layer of defense that the scoreboard provides. That’s not an obscure hockey saying. Look at the scoreboard in the last two screen caps. Michigan went with the ol’ RPG-style upgrade-your-defense-to-protect-your-assets approach and it failed. Bet they wish they had those coins back.

Awful jokes aside, that’s another soft goal Racine gives up five-hole.

2nd period

PSU 4 UM 0 PPG 03:48 Conway from Autio and Scheid

Andrew Copp tips the puck past a Penn State skater and then ties him up, subsequently drawing a number of players to the loose puck near the blue line. Compher charges up the middle of the ice in case there’s a short-handed breakaway opportunity; once he sees that the puck is instead in the middle of a skirmish with Mike Chiasson in the middle he peels off and circles back through the neutral zone. Chiasson has to gain possession and doesn’t.

Scott Conway passes to Erik Autio along the boards; Conway is now the trailer and the most dangerous guy on the ice. With Compher still in the neutral zone Michigan has doubly handicapped themselves.

Racine has his own defenseman back into him, so he’s exonerated for the first time tonight.

PSU 4 UM 1 PPG 08:38 Copp (14) from De Jong (7) and Compher (11)

Eamon McAdam gives up a long rebound that Compher tips back to De Jong at the point.

Tyler Motte does an excellent job screening McAdam, and Copp’s slapshot beats him. Sometimes all it takes to score is the goaltender being unable to see the puck. Novel.

PSU 4 UM 2 PPG 16:10 Selman (10) from Motte (19) and Downing (15)

I see what the official scoring report says, but it’s Copp who should get the second assist. He has the puck on the wing and makes a smart decision to pass to the back of the net instead of trying to thread it through traffic; this gives Motte an opportunity to retrieve it and create while the goaltender has to worry about tracking the puck while twisting to see and locking down one of the posts.

Motte centers it to Selman, who just has to shovel is past McAdam. Once McAdam realizes that the puck’s coming out front he has to push off the post, and that’s what opens up the space between his pads that Selman uses. Penn State really Michigan’d this one up by not covering the guy in front of the net.

PSU 5 UM 2 EV 19:28 Richard from Scheid and Varley

Michigan chips it out of their zone, then Penn State chips it out of theirs. Things get real when the puck rolls to center ice and PSU picks it up and has an immediate 3-on-2.

Scheid finds the trailer, who’s done a nice job of moving behind his teammate and obscuring himself from Racine’s vision.

Racine slides across late. That means a big portion of the top of the net’s open; Richard knows this and easily roofs it in.

3rd period

PSU 5 UM 3 EV 00:44 Larkin (13) from Hyman (29) and Selman (10)

The puck rolls to the opposite corner off of a face-off. Selman seals it away from a PSU defender and moves it down the boards to Hyman.

Hyman dishes to Larkin as he’s being hit. Larkin shoots immediately, and it’s McAdam takes his turn giving up a soft goal.

PSU 6 UM 3 PPG 05:00 Jensen from Glen and McAdam

Another 3-on-2 is developing here. Circled is Cutler Martin, who’s trying to turn to stay with his check.

He turns late and his guy skates on by. Now Penn State has two players open to Racine’s left and Michigan has one defender who could maybe sort of have an impact on where the pass goes.

Lohan doesn’t get his stick in the passing lane and David Glen has a Denard-like opportunity; all he has to do is throw it up and one of those guys to Racine’s left is going to come down with it. Racine was hung out to dry by his defense.

PSU 6 UM 4 EV 19:47 Martin (5) from Shuart (10) and Lynch (3)

Max Shuart digs the puck out along the boards and passes to Martin. He pushes the puck toward the net and it goes in. It looks like McAdam checked out mentally here, because he got scored on by a puck delivered via aggressive sweeping motion.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Penn State 4 Michigan 3

1st period

PSU 1 UM 0 EV 03:38 Goodwin from Koudys and Bailey

Let’s start with something positive. Werenski has #9 covered, and Hyman and De Jong do a nice job of cutting off Bailey and forcing a pass back to the blue line.

The pass to the blue line turns into a predictable slap shot that Racine stops. He can’t fully absorb the shot, however, and the puck falls next to him. Goodwin jams at the puck under Racine’s arm and knocks it in.

PSU 1 UM 1 EV 14:10 Compher (9) from Lynch (4) and De Jong (8)

Compher skates through all three zones, eventually ending in the jaws of PSU’s defense.

The puck doesn’t come off of his stick until he’s almost in front of the net. Lynch is there, however, and backhands the puck on net.

Compher puts his stick on the ice (wooo fundamentals) and redirects the puck past PJ Musico [note: Penn State started Musico over McAdam Saturday].

PSU 2 UM 1 EV 15:49 Conway from Goodwin and Scheid

Michigan’s in the middle of a line change, but there’s no odd-man rush; it’s 2-on-2.

Werenski doesn’t take away the passing lane and De Jong’s poor gap control allow Conway to shoot.

Racine again looks slow in tracking the puck laterally and can’t stop this one from going in on the far side.

PSU 2 UM 2 SH 18:42 Compher (10) from Copp (15) and De Jong (9)

De Jong picks the puck up behind the net off of a missed PSU slap shot and clears it. Copp and Compher take off, with Copp gathering the puck and skating in to the offensive zone. The lone PSU defender plays back too much to take away the pass to Compher, who’s trailing a bit to create a better angle for the pass.

Compher one-times it. Musico has to respect the threat of Copp as a shooter too long to square with Compher.

2nd period

PSU 3 UM 2 EV 13:19 Autio from Goodwin and Glen

Innocuous start. I circled the guy who’s going to be a problem.

The guy standing in front of the goaltender- you know, the one who’s blocking his line of sight- seems like a guy who should be covered. Is this a drawback of using the box on the PK? Am I wrong in thinking that Martin should take him instead of handing out between him and the guy in the corner?

PSU 4 UM 2 EV 17:21 Olcyzk from Bailey and Goodwin

Penn State wins the face off and Bailey picks up the puck. He skates the path I drew on the screen cap below. Olcyzk, the skater furthest to the right in the screen cap, slides through the net-front area simultaneously.

Lohan bumps Olcyzk, but Werenski fails to pick him up. Bailey threads a pass through the crease to a very open way too open Olcyzk.

3rd period 

PSU 4 UM 3 EX 18:26 Compher (11) from Downing (15) and Motte (20)

Werenski starts this by doing a nice job of holding the puck in the zone at the line. He passes down the boards to Motte, who puts a touch pass across for Downing.

Downing’s slap shot is stopped, but Musico allows a rebound to his left. Compher gets behind the defense and cleans up the loose puck.

Notes/Ramblings:

“Let me draw you like one of my French girls.”

“I just, uh… I’m not entirely comfortable with this.”

“WHY WON’T YOU HOLD STILL? I TOLD YOU TO HOLD STILL.”

• We now return you to your regularly-scheduled depressing content.
• PairWise Watch: On the outside looking in. According to USCHO, Michigan currently is tied for 19th. Oof. I used CHN’s customizable PairWise feature, and sweeping MSU next weekend puts UM 16th. That’s not good enough for an at-large bid, which means the BTT is going to feature some must-win games after all. One caveat: the customizable result holds everything else equal; I didn’t feel I could accurately predict the results of every game for every team ahead of M, so the 16 it came up with should be taken with a massive grain of salt. The big picture, however, doesn’t change: Michigan’s right back where they were last year, likely needing to win the Big Ten tournament to make it to the NCAAs.
• Special Teams weren’t very special: Michigan went 2-11 on the power play and 4-7 on the penalty kill, including 1-4 on Friday night. When you’re giving up three power play goals in a single night against a team that leads the nation in Shots For you’re in trouble. And yeah, I was surprised that PSU leads the nation in that category too. This makes the 43 shots they put on net Friday and the 31 on Saturday a little more understandable, though no less frustrating.
• I’m late to the party: CHN has a “Metrics” section that lists interesting stats not found in a typical box score. Naturally I found this right before the last weekend of the regular season. Still, additional information is always beneficial in hockey and helpful for this part of the post.
• Required reading: Brian wrote a great column about this series.
• I’m hesitant to call time of death on this thing only because I’m usually the last person to call time of death on anything. I try to be as impartial as I can when writing these posts (if anything I think I’ve gotten more negative toward Michigan because SOMEBODY CLEAR THE CREASE OR SMOTHER A REBOUND) but bear with me while I play a little feelingsball: I hate this. I hate that this may be the way Red’s career ends. I hate that I started doing GBGA as a diary during the season Brian mentioned in the column where Michigan lost to ND in the CCHA Tournament final and that, three years later, Michigan still hasn’t gotten to the NCAA tournament. I hate that what I thought was a blip on the radar has turned into a decline that’s plateaued into a frustrating treading of water. I’ve hated a lot of things lately, but I still love Michigan hockey. Best case scenario if Red’s career is truly coming to a close: Mel Pearson leaves MTU for Michigan and instead of it truly being the end of an era returns Michigan to the level of success the prior era engendered.