[Bill Rapai]

Friday, December 9, 2016

Michigan 4, Wisconsin 7

1st period

PIAZZA GOAL

UM 1 UW 0 PPG 09:49 Assists: Lockwood & Allen

Michigan goes away from the 1-3-1 they’ve been using most of the season and aligns in the umbrella with Kile working the point. Kile happens to have the puck, swinging it to Lockwood in the right faceoff circle.

Lockwood takes his sweet time with the puck, as well he should. He’s looking for something to develop, and that something ends up being the defender taking a knee when he thinks Lockwood’s about to shoot. This opens up a pass at the red line for Allen, and the pass can be made with confidence because 1.) the nearest defender is on his knee and 2.) the rest of the defense is occupied with other Michigan skaters and won’t be able to challenge the pass aggressively.

Allen sees the seam between defenders, and with said defenders collapsing on net Piazza is left unchecked to the goaltender’s left. Allen threads a nice pass through the lane.

Piazza one-times it, leaving Berry with no chance of stopping a shot for which he has to get all the way across the crease. Michigan does a nice job here of moving the puck; once it’s on Lockwood’s stick and then moved behind the net, the goaltender has to lock the post and the defense shifts away from Piazza.

[Hit THE JUMP for some weird bounces]

MARTIN GOAL

UM 2 UW 0 PPG 10:34 Assists: Dancs & De Jong

The beauty of this goal is in the beginning, where De Jong passes as soon as he sees a defender charging toward him to challenge at the point. With the puck swung away as quickly as it is, you’re essentially removing one defender from the equation temporarily. There are some big benefits to having someone aggressively challenge the point, but it’s problematic for Wisconsin because that skater is coming out of the box formation; there’s now a guy rotating to cover the middle, and by virtue of him having to move over the pass to the slot is an option from the wing.

Or, in this case, through the slot. Dancs fires a hell of a pass that Calderone hops over, and the puck finds its way to Cutler Martin.

Martin settles the puck and unleashes a nice snapshot before the defense can rotate. Berry accidentally thinks the puck went to the slot (understandable, as Calderone’s movement made it look like he had it for a split second), and though he does get across the crease, the delay is enough to cause him to miss the puck.

Frederic Goal

UM 2 UW 1 PPG 17:18 Assists: Malone & Davison

There’s a fairly lengthy period where the puck’s been passed to the wall and Malone is just assessing what his next move should be. I included this screen cap so you can see the spacing and alignment of the defenders.

As Malone starts to skate toward the net, Martin begins sweeping the area around him. He starts with the stick to his left, swings it to his right, then swings back to his left. There’s a moment where he has cut off the pass to the slot, but Malone waits a second and passes to the slot once he swings back to his left to deter the shot. 

So, uh, the last bit of description was one screen cap too early. The thing to note here is that Piazza’s positioned reallllly wide, and though Warren stick checks for a second, he doesn’t catch up to Frederic.

Frederic fires a shot that Lavigne stops, but he never fully has control of the puck. He gives up the smallest, leakiest of rebounds, and Frederic jams the puck in on a second-effort whack.

2nd period

Johnson Goal

UM 2 UW 2 EV 02:14 Assists: Ford & Greenway

Wisconsin enters the Michigan zone off of a puck that’s chopped ahead in the neutral zone and a nice cross-ice feed to Johnson.

Cecconi does a fairly nice job of using his stick to block the shot attempt; even so, Lavigne squares up and makes the save. He kicks the puck away with his right leg pad…

…to a backtracking Piazza, whom the puck hits and deflects off of and into the net. Hockey!

Kunin Goal

UM 2 UW 3 EV 03:47 Assists: Hughes & Wagner

Michigan’s forwards get stuck deep in their offensive zone when Wisconsin gets the puck near the blue line and starts on a 3-on-2 break the other way. Boka is hellbent on taking away the easy pass to the slot, which leaves Hughes looking for another option.

The problematic bit here is that De Jong also is hellbent on taking away the slot, which you really can’t blame him for after the Penn State series. Here, though, it bites Michigan in the butt because it’s a 3-on-2, and with the forwards not backchecking fast enough to impede Wisconsin’s progress, Kunin cuts to the slot and is open for a pass. He loads up and gets a ton of flex behind this wrister.

That puck’s not getting stopped, not with that much behind it from an unchecked first-round draft pick who’s known for his shot. Kunin goes bar down, beating Lavigne blocker-side.

PIAZZA GOAL

UM 3 UW 3 EV 08:09 Assists: Dancs

A puck is flipped from deep in the Michigan zone to the neutral zone, where Dancs picks it up near the wall and races into the Wisconsin zone. The two defenders who are back have the pass to the slot pretty well taken away, so Dancs fires a shot from the faceoff dot.

The shot hits Berry and takes a really high bounce that arcs its way into the slot, ricocheting off a Wisconsin defender and toward Piazza (who’s camped out in front of the net).

Piazza plays the puck off his skate, backhanding a shot between his legs that Berry stops. Berry kicks the puck to his left but without much momentum; it dies in the crease about the same time Berry pulls his pad back to shuffle and kick out further to his left. Piazza sees the loose puck and pops a backhander in before Berry gets his left leg pad extended again.

Kunin Goal

UM 3 UW 4 PPG 10:22 Assists: Wagner & Besse

Wagner passes from the boards to Kunin near the point, and things look to be in good shape for Michigan. You can see in the box below that there are two Michigan defenders flanking Lavigne, leaving Kunin with plenty of room in front of himself to shoot but not much area near the net to aim.

Michigan’s defenders switch, leaving Lockwood directly in the middle of Kunin’s shooting lane as he loads up to release his shot.

Kunin’s shot is basically a frighteningly accurate trebuchet, as he releases and picks the far-side top corner—and hits it. Hard to be upset with any Michigan skater/goaltender here.

Johnson Goal

UM 3 UW 5 EV 14:40 Assists: Malone & Davison

Shuart is looping through the defensive zone when he backhands a pass into the neutral zone that’s more or less right to a Wisconsin skater.

Michigan’s lucky to have two defenders back, preventing this from becoming a breakaway opportunity. Johnson carries the puck in and turns, passing back to Malone. De Jong (in the high slot in the cap below) reads the pass and tries to jump into its path.

Malone passes immediately to Johnson. With De Jong out of the picture, that leaves Meike and Lavigne back to influence Malone’s attempt.

Malone decides to carry behind the net. Lavigne locks down the short-side post, but it seems that in his zealousness to do so he starts to lean too far in the direction of Malone.

Malone wraps the puck around and in. Lavigne’s aforementioned lean isn’t ideal, but it’s hard to tell how much it impacts him; he and Meike collide. Meike sells out and puts his stick on the ice to stop a short-sided attempt (see the screen cap above), but when he gets tangled with Lavigne he can’t get his stick over before Malone has wrapped the puck in.

Cavallini Goal

UM 3 UW 6 EV 17:13 Assists: Zirbel & Davison

Zirbel takes an innocuous shot from the top of the faceoff circle; a lengthy shot from the outside isn’t terribly dangerous, but this one keeps rising.

The puck hits the glass and deflects in front of the net.

Cavallini happens to be in the right place at the right time and punches it in. Hockey!

3rd period

MARTIN GOAL

UM 4 UW 6 SH 07:59 Assists: Warren

Boka beats a Wisconsin skater to a loose puck near the boards and throws a pass toward the blue line. Brendan Warren turns as the pass arrives and whacks the stick out of Zimmer’s hands, but the refs miss the slash.

The puck skitters out of the zone, Cutler Martin jumps on it. He carries through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone on a 2-on-1 rush.

Martin pulls the puck back to feign pass, and once he sees the defender take a knee he knows he can shoot unimpeded. My apologies, as I put the arrow on the wrong side below; after watching a few replays it looks like Martin’s shot hit the six-hole, the area below the goalie’s glove and above his leg pad.

Freytag Goal

UM 4 UW 7 EN 17:46 Assists: None

Lockwood thinks that the short pass to Boka is a safe one, but he’s being hounded by a Wisconsin defender who gets his stick in and breaks up the pass. Lockwood simply doesn’t realize how close the defender is.

Freytag, the aforementioned Wisconsin defender, quickly transitions to offense, grabbing the puck in the neutral zone and firing a long shot from near the boards into the empty net.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Michigan 4, Wisconsin 1

1st period

KILE GOAL

UM 1 UW 0 PPG 11:32 Assists: Slaker & Lockwood

Michigan’s under siege in their own end when Lockwood chips the puck ahead to the neutral zone, where Slaker just happens to be. He grabs the puck and flies through the middle of the ice, passing to Kile juuust before he crosses the blue line.

The one Wisconsin defender who’s back seemed to expect Slaker to carry it into the zone himself, so he’s now forced to cross over while skating backwards in order to catch up to Kile. He does so and turns, but his starting position was too far away to influence the show. Kile picks the short-side top corner and snipes one.

C. MARTIN GOAL

UM 2 UW 0 EV 12:45 Assists: Slaker

Wisconsin’s trying to play the puck up the boards to Frederic near the blue line. Davison makes the ill-advised decision to bank the pass, which sends it jumping off the board and in front of  Frederic. For once, the opposition makes a mistake in their end of the ice. Hockey!

Martin’s in the right place at the right time, grabbing the puck and backhanding a puck to Slaker as he cuts to the middle.

Slaker gets caught in traffic and the puck gets knocked away—right back to Martin. He pulls the puck back and slings a big wrist shot on net. The goaltender goes into his butterfly to take away the bottom of the net, and Martin’s shot beats him top corner.

2nd period

Besse Goal

UM 2 UW 1 PPG 17:58 Assists: Wagner & Kunin

Michigan has a 2-on-1 that gets deep into their offensive zone; they end up paying dearly. The puck is stripped and moved up-ice quickly, and Wisconsin essentially has a 4-on-2 break (though one skater never really gets in on the play, so for the purposes of this post consider it a 3-on-2). The pass comes from the wing to the slot, which was always going to happen considering the depth of the other forward and the two defenders having to play split.

The shot from the slot hits the right post and bounces out to Lavigne’s left.

Defensively, the problem here is that Luke Martin converges on Wagner in the slot when he needs to stay spaced out and tending to the left side of the crease. He also gets turned the wrong way, which prevents him from taking the man who’s standing to the side of the net and waiting to tap the puck back in.

3rd period

CALDERONE GOAL

UM 3 UW 1 EN 19:10 Assists: None

Two Wisconsin skaters converge on the puck at the same time, and they knock it back toward the blue line. The puck does make its way to the puck, so it’s a safe—albeit frantic—play.

The skater at the point wants to pass to his left—not a bad idea, considering that guy’s loaded up for a one-timer. Calderone reads the play and gets into the passing lane perfectly, picking off the pass and heading the other way.

Calderone never even leaves the defensive zone, instead opting to hurl the puck down the ice. It obviously works for him or I wouldn’t be taking screen grabs and you wouldn’t be reading this.

WINBORG GOAL

UM 4 UW 1 EN 19:51 Assists: None

Wisconsin circles back in their zone and throws a pass up ice, but the intended target isn’t open for long.

Winborg steps in front and picks off the pass, and there’s now one defender between him and the net.

Luckily for Winborg, he has something of a human shield to his left in teammate Alex Kile. Winborg takes his time and flips the puck in to seal the game.

Notes

sums up Friday perfectly [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

• If you haven’t already read David’s recaps, you really should. They’re broken into sections (offense, defense, special teams, goaltending) and further broken down by period. They’re a great complement to this piece, and reading them together should give you a feel for how the series went. Here’s the recap from Friday’s game and here’s the recap from Saturday’s game.
• Wisconsin’s currently the second-best Corsi team in the nation (behind only Penn State). They outattempted Michigan handily each night, but they didn’t seem to have as many interminable stretches of offensive zone possession. That can be attributed to better passing; as more connected, Michigan was able to get the puck out more frequently than the week before. That didn’t necessarily translate to more offense, though. The defensive breakdowns this weekend were by and large missed assignments, an issue that has plagued the team for longer than just this season.
• The goaltending remains superb. Lavigne faced an avalanche of opportunities and look very positionally sound on all but a couple of attempts; that’s what’s going to keep Michigan in games the rest of the year so long as the goalies face triple-digit pucks thrown their way every series. What really speaks volumes is that Lavigne got pulled for Nagelvoort on Friday and still got the start Saturday in a season where Michigan’s been rotating the goalies almost every game. Mike Persak had a good article in the Daily about Lavigne’s back-to-back starts and what it has done for his confidence, a reminder that two of the three goalies are still working to establish themselves as NCAA starters and that decisions like that aren’t taken lightly by the players.

• Zach Shaw had an interesting update on Lockwood’s injury late Monday. Michigan’s slated to get Cooper Marody (10-14-24 in 32 games last season) back for the GLI, and that should provide a sizeable boost for the offense after he shakes the rust off; how long that takes is anyone’s guess, but it doesn’t take too much lineup finagling to reunite last year’s effective Warren-Marody-Calderone line. Marody isn’t exactly a 1-for-1 swap with Lockwood because of Lockwood’s defense, though Marody’s not a bad defensive forward. It seems the best-case scenario here is Lockwood being able to beat the initial six-week injury-recovery timetable and return in five, which puts him back in the lineup during Michigan’s trip to Minnesota. He’ll miss two important GLI games against Michigan Tech (no. 23 in PairWise) and either Western Michigan (no. 10 in PairWise) or Michigan State (no. 35 in PairWise, which we will not make fun of because Michigan’s no. 33).