ESSENTIALS

OVERVIEW

Here we are, gang: one win from the Frozen Four. Michigan meets Quinnipiac tonight in the Elite Eight in Allentown, PA, for the right to face Denver in Boston. Win or go home, the biggest game of the season... no pressure or anything! 

THE US 

Michigan cruised through its opening round game against American International by a score of 5-3 on Friday afternoon. They scored two goals very early on, then tacked on two more in the early second period to go up 4-1. From then on it was basically cruise control, as Michigan was vastly better and dictated play. There was some sloppiness at times, but I would chalk that up to getting bored more than anything else. It's the only tournament game where Michigan will be considerably better than their opponent and there's not much you can take from that sort of dynamic and try to extrapolate to a game like today's.

Michigan got contributions from across the lineup, but their top line of Matty Beniers, Kent Johnson, and Brendan Brisson was particularly effective, combining for two goals (one on the PP) and assisting on Ethan Edwards' tally. The other two goals came from the third and fourth lines. It was a pretty boring game and that's all you can ask for in the first round against the worst team in the field. 

THE THEM

[David Wilcomes]

Quinnipiac is the last team from any of the NCAA's three eastern conferences left in the tournament. The 8th seeded team overall and the 2 seed in the Midwest Regional, QPac steamrolled through the regular season in the ECAC, which is, as Brian called it on the podcast, the A-10 of college hockey. Not quite a power conference, but also regularly producing at least one good-ish team. Quinnipiac has been that team for the last number of years, making the tourney in 2013, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, and now 22. That run of success includes Frozen Four appearances in 2013 and 2016, both of which ended with them losing in the national championship game. 

What's tough about assessing a good team from the ECAC is that 1.) it is generally a poor league, with many very bad teams at the bottom that weigh down strength of schedule and 2.) those very bad teams (and even some of the mediocre ones) have the same offensive firepower as a toddler wielding a foam sword. The ECAC is notorious for its extremely low event hockey games, and for producing champions who boast mind-boggling defensive statistics on paper. Quinnipiac is one of those champions. The Bobcats are the NCAA's #1 defense, allowing just 1.1 goals against per game this season. They are also #2 with a .941 SV%. Figuring out how much of that is real and how much of that is beating up on bad teams is the big question. 

What we know is that this QPac squad is simply exceptional defensively when it plays in its conference. In the first 16 conference games they played this season, they allowed 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 0, 1, and 1 goals. Yowza. It wasn't until mid-February that they finally allowed 3 in a conference game! That is genuinely dominant stuff, but again, we have to look at strength of schedule. The ECAC is a very bad league, especially this season, and it also doesn't help that QPac didn't beef up their non-con either. Here's a list of Quinnipiac's results this season based on whether opponents rank in the top 20, 21-40, or 41-60 of KRACH: 

• KRACH Top 20: 4-3-2
• KRACH 21-40: 6-1-4 
• KRACH 41-60: 20-0-1 

They play most of their games among the bottom feeders who linger in the bottom twenty and they win at an astounding clip in those games. Against everyone else, it's not as impressive and they go to overtime often (hello, low event hockey). Their other metrics, while still solid, are not nearly as impressive against teams in the top 20 in KRACH, and the save percentage of goalie Yaniv Perets drops considerably from its gargantuan average. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More Preview]

[David Wilcomes]

We got a peek at Quinnipiac on Friday night in a weird game against St. Cloud. The Bobcats gave up 4 for the first time all season but managed to win thanks to a very poor goaltending performance from St. Cloud backup Jaxon Castor (forced into duty due to the starter having pneumonia), who allowed 5 goals on 17 shots. St. Cloud owned shot attempts 55-50 at even strength, but shots that made it on goal were extremely lopsided, 34-17 in favor of the Huskies. I was not impressed by Quinnipiac defensively at all and they would've lost that game if St. Cloud had even decent goaltending. We now have data from the three games QPac has played against top ten teams, two against NoDak and the one against SCS: QPac allowed 2, 3, and 4 goals in those games. Bodes decently well for Michigan, as they are a notch above those two teams at scoring goals. 

Offensively, Quinnipiac is a team that has trouble scoring goals at times if they're not firing on a bad netminder. They lost several 1-0 games in the low-event ECAC, and have scored two goals or fewer 16 times this year (out of 41 games), which is a bit alarming when you consider the caliber of teams they often play. They don't have a single skater with a points-per-game clip higher than 1.00, and the team leader in goals has 15. Their top point scorer is a defenseman, Zach Metsa, who has 9 goals and 27 assists. They are led by four senior forwards up front in Wyatt Bongiovanni, Oliver Chau, Ethan de Jong, and Michael Lombardi. In fact, their top six scorers, and seven of their top eight, are seniors. This is a very veteran team. 

QPac is also not a terribly talented team when we talk about pro aspirations, paling in comparison to Michigan's array of draft picks. The Bobcats have only two drafted skaters, Skyler Brind'Amour (Rod's son) who has 19 points and is not on track to play in the NHL at this point in time, and Ty Smilanic, a decent prospect as a third round pick who was recently traded from Florida to Philadelphia in the Claude Giroux deal. Quinnipiac likes to clamp you down and win low-scoring games, but given their performances defensively against teams like SCS and NoDak, it's worth wondering if the talent limitation of their roster prevents them from pulling a Notre Dame against an NHL-laden team like Michigan, considering the Irish are a much more talented roster than QPac. 

[James Coller]

SPECIAL TEAMS

Michigan's PP got a tally on Friday against AIC on a bomb from Brendan Brisson, leaving it at 25.9% for the season. The Wolverines have the second highest PP of teams left in the tournament field, trailing only Minnesota State, who punched their ticket to Boston yesterday by knocking off Notre Dame. The Wolverine penalty kill was not as impressive in round one, with a dumb mistake leading to a Jacket goal with the man advantage. Michigan's PK now sits in 19th at 82.6%, but I don't think it's generally an area for concern, especially when you make adjustments for strength of schedule. 

Quinnipiac is a tale of two extremes with special teams. The defensively-minded Bobcats are 91.8% on the penalty kill, tops in America and an extremely impressive mark, while they rank in the bottom ten on the power play, down at a measly 14.5%. There's an old adage about wanting the sum of your PK and PP to be above 100, and well, that's one way to get there. We didn't get to see Quinnipiac's special teams in action against St. Cloud because there were no penalties called in that game(!). It's hard not to conclude that QPac's PK is probably inflated by who they play, but it's definitely good. 

GOALIE

This is the big matchup to discuss, Yaniv Perets against Erik Portillo. Perets is up for the Richter Award for the top goalie in the country and Portillo, as we know, has been excellent for awhile now. Both are in their first season as a starter, with Perets only having appeared in two games prior to this season. The Bobcats brought in veteran transfer Dylan St. Cyr in the offseason out of the portal but Perets beat him out and won the job to the tune of a .944 SV%.

As you may guess, that is very inflated by strength of schedule though. Perets has a .965 against bottom 20 teams in KRACH, but it falls to under .920 against the top 20. He's also a little cold as of late, with a .901 SV% in his last four games, allowing three goals or more in three of those outings. Perets is still a goaltender who can goalie you, because literally any goaltender can, but I don't think Michigan should be as intimidated as the numbers suggest. Perets is very much not like Duluth's Ryan Fanti, who rode into the tourney scorching hot and pitched a shutout in the opening round. 

[James Coller]

KEYS 

Get the first goal. A lot like playing ND, you want to get the first goal and assert yourself in the game. Dictate the pace, set the game on your own terms and make sure the Bobcats play your style, not the other way around. 

Limit quality chances against. Quinnipiac is a team that probably is not going to able to score much on Michigan unless the Wolverines let them. They don't have a ton of talent, they don't like to play high-event games, they don't score much, period. This is not an offensive team, so don't give them golden opportunities to score. We've seen Michigan play clean games this season where they limit odd-man rushes against... that's the sort of game they need today. 

Don't take a five minute major. This one remains on here, because duh. QPac has a weak PP so it might not be the worst thing if it were to happen, but still, this is a team who's probably going to struggle to score. Don't give them a five minute power play! 

PREDICTIONS

are stupid for a one game hockey playoff