Hockey Treadmill Undisturbed Comment Count

Brian

12/11/2009 – Michigan 4, Notre Dame 1 – 9-8, 5-6 CCHA
12/13/2009 – Michigan 0, Notre Dame 2 – 9-9, 5-7 CCHA

louie-caporusso-nd treadmill

It's a sign of the raging apathy I've got going over here that the first I heard about Notre Dame's struggles to date—they, like Michigan, are a hugely disappointing .500—was in a game preview on Friday. I haven't looked at the CCHA standings all year. It turns out that Ferris State is really good (13-3-2) this year and Michigan is in 10th place. Hurrah. (They do have two games in hand, but those games in hand are against Ferris.)

Even so, it was a surprise to see the team totally dominate the Irish en route to a 4-1 victory that was probably their best game of the year. And then it was not a surprise when Michigan fell limply on Sunday, losing 2-0 despite outshooting the opponent 38-20.

Sunday was the seventh game this season in which Michigan has had close to a 2-1 advantage in shots but lost anyway because they can't put the puck in the net:

  • Michigan outshot Alaska 23-13 in the opener and lost 2-0.
  • They outshot BU 35-22, losing because Hogan wandered out of his net and gave the other team an Osgood-type goal.
  • They outshot Miami 28-13 in one of the most frustrating games I've ever seen at Yost, losing 3-1.
  • They outshot Michigan State 31-19 in a 2-0 loss at Munn.
  • They outshot Bowling Green 31-21 in a 4-2 loss.
  • And most spectacularly, Michigan lost to OSU 5-3 despite putting 45 shots on Cal Heeter and facing just 19.

That's seven of their nine losses. They only trailed in shots in the second game against Miami and the first against Michigan State. The Daily says Michigan was "unlucky" on Sunday, but it's hard to look at that pattern and not find something systemic.

If the games had gone according to script, this would be a freakin' awesome team. It's not, obviously, for reasons that remain mysterious to me. Some guesses:

There is an obvious deficiency in top-tier offensive talent. Caporusso occasionally does something reminiscent of Michigan's traditional magic midgets, but he's a far cry from Comrie or Camalleri or Tambellini or Hensick or Cogliano. Mostly he just ends up giving the puck away because he's trying to go 1-on-3. And the rest of the team is not there. Wohlberg's regressed (two goals), Czarnik left, Langlais and Burlon and Kampfer haven't provided the offensive pop they were expected to, and there's no one on the team who is a lock for a long NHL career despite not being able to go on all the rides at Cedar Point.

This was the case last year to some extent, too, but Wohlberg and Caporusso were scoring like mad. The two combined for 39 goals last year without much help from Aaron Palushaj, who spent almost the entire year playing on other lines. This year they have seven between them. They're on pace to score well less than half of last season's output, which is a drop in production you can't weather when your freshmen are anything less than epic.

The defense has been sloppy. The thing about some of those games, primarily that Miami game, is that even though Hogan didn't face a whole lot of shots I don't know if there was anything he could have done to stop the goals he let in, which resulted from massive defensive breakdowns that left Miami players totally uncovered in dangerous scoring areas.

It's not that they've been bad, necessarily, it's that they don't do a good job covering high-value areas of the ice and too often leave guys wide open in bad spots.

Hogan: meh. Bryan Hogan's save percentage is .905, which is 44th nationally. It's not far away from 30th, and given the weird tendency of Michigan to give up small numbers of high-quality shots it's harsh on him. But it's about right, right? Hogan has been basically average. He hasn't given up many (any?) really soft goals, but he's given up some questionable ones and rarely makes a "wow" save.

Other Items

Results? Another weird item from the year's first foray into accumulated statistics: AJ Treais has only three points. Treais certainly looks like he's doing stuff right out there. His dangles are increasingly dirty as the season goes along and he gets more comfortable trying stuff against college competition. He certainly seems like a more effective offensive player than Luke Glendening or Brian Lebler, but the numbers aren't there for him. And he's playing on a line with Caporusso, so it's not like they've put him there to die with the grinders. He didn't have much in the way of points with the national team, either. Hopefully this is just a slow burn to effectiveness like an Andrew Ebbett or John Shouneyia.

Next time just punch the ref, please. Berenson did end up yanking senior defenseman Tristin Llewellyn for a couple games after his now-usual assortment of stupid roughing penalties and irresponsible defensive play, but he returned for the Notre Dame series, where he proved he'd learned his lesson by taking the world's dumbest crosschecking call on Friday.

I mean, I get that he's not that fast and sometimes he's going to get spectacularly walked by Drew Palmisano. That's life sometimes. It's the incessant penalties that get me. Llewellyn has five more than anyone on the team despite missing two games and most of them are boarding, slashing, roughing, that sort of thing. The penalties aren't from excessive defensive zeal, they're unnecessary, potentially dangerous plays that don't do anything except put Michigan a man down. This is not a new trend: Llewellyn lead the team in penalties last year with 25, five more than Travis Turnbull.

With Lee Moffie playing very well, I'd scratch Llewellyn again.

Tourney. Unlikely at this point unless Michigan goes on a rampage. Michigan did have the good fortune to do well in the nonconference portion of the schedule (4-1 against teams outside the CCHA, with a nonconference loss to Alaska), which will be disproportionately helpful at the end of the year, but they are currently 28th in RPI—not even a team under consideration—and going 12-6 the rest of the way only gets them to around 20th.

They'll have to win something like 13-15 of their final 18 games to be on the bubble when the conference tourney rolls around. That's probably not going to happen.

Comments

Don

December 14th, 2009 at 1:35 PM ^

Palushaj and Pacioretty also left well before their eligibility expired.

It's a testament to Red's coaching and his recruiting ability that this season hasn't happened before now. You could build a Frozen Four-worthy squad out of the guys who've bailed out on Red over the last decade or so. You can't continue to lose highly-rated recruits before their eligibility is gone year after year without it eventually catching up with you. By and large, they don't give a flying crap about Red, Michigan's program, or about obtaining a degree from UM. The guys who leave early are simply using Red and Michigan as a means of burnishing their credentials until such time as they receive the pro offer that they're looking for from the moment they set foot on campus.

Birdman

December 14th, 2009 at 2:26 PM ^

No one is just using the program. Every standout player has already had more then enough opportunities to get to the NHL/A while being paid. They come because they see a Michigan degree as the best insurance policy and the coach a proven player developer. Football and Basketball players have such an easy decision making process, Hockey players have some many more streams and options that they have to consider. The other athletes just need to perform and the best path is usually clear enough. Short of being the next Sidney Crosby a 15 year old has a lot of hard choices to make and the NCAA does a lot to discourage them.

msoccer10

December 14th, 2009 at 2:16 PM ^

All those penalties yesterday made me want to smash my tv. So frustrating. We never had a chance to get anything going because we were perpetually a man down, or 4 on 4.

casmooth

December 14th, 2009 at 2:25 PM ^

At the beginning of the year I expected us to win a lot of 2-1, 1-0 type scoring games because we have, what should be, some of the best depth at defense we have had in a while. I'm not at all surprise by the lack of scoring, we just don't have any of those typical marquee forwards we tend to have any given year. Nonetheless, this year has been maddening. I'm still holding out hope that we will turn the corner and start winning more games. If we are a bubble team for the tourney this year, I would imagine the fact that the Frozen Four is in Detroit may improve our chances at sneaking in the tournament, mainly because we would be one of the largest draws (should we make it that far).

Judge Smails

December 14th, 2009 at 3:13 PM ^

Sadly, who gets into the tourney is based solely on numbers, and a complicated computer formula. There is no human element that would allow for Michigan's selection based solely on potential FF attendance figures, or any other reason that is inconsistent with what the PairWise rankings say.

Birdman

December 14th, 2009 at 2:32 PM ^

Its seems to be Championship Team that has the ability to lose to anyone.

Funny how the 3 teams are now all "High Variance" types right now. Does everyone like it?

imafreak1

December 14th, 2009 at 3:41 PM ^

I'm a little bit confused. I'm not sure what makes anyone believe this could be a championship team? I also don't understand what the bit below means?

"If the games had gone according to script, this would be a freakin' awesome team. It's not, obviously, for reasons that remain mysterious to me."

I'm also confused by what "High Variance" means here. The football team was just not that good. A decent offense with a terrible defense. I don't even think the results were even that variant. They beat bad teams and lost to good ones (the only real outliers were Illinois and kind of ND.)

The basketball team just looks bad. No variance there. They even take a while to blow out the cupcakes.

I guess I'm saying that all types or strategies look bad when the team is bad.

msoccer10

December 14th, 2009 at 4:43 PM ^

"If the games had gone according to script, this would be a freakin' awesome team. It's not, obviously, for reasons that remain mysterious to me."

I think he means that we have out shot and subjectively outplayed our opponent in all games but two. If we only had two loses on the year while splitting games with Miami and MSU, we would have a great team, but unfortunately, that's not the case.

On the rest of your post I agree, especially with the football team. I think the basketball team could beat a really good team if our shooters got hot at the right time though.

a2bluefan

December 14th, 2009 at 3:16 PM ^

Unrelated to the game (but worthy of mention)...

The Michigan faithful hurled a whopping 1,383 teddy bears onto the ice during the first intermission of Friday's game. A new record.

Way to go, folks!

Don

December 14th, 2009 at 3:28 PM ^

How is a Michigan degree an insurance policy when the player doesn't stay long enough to actually attain the degree?

The reason these kids don't accept the NHL offers prior to coming to Michigan is because they know that playing in a Frozen Four for a legendary college coach will result in more lucrative offers than the ones they'd get right out of high school.

I'm not saying that they don't have every right to do what they're doing; everybody is entitled to get the most while the getting's good, regardless of the sport.

However, to assume that they all come to Michigan with every intention of actually getting the degree and only decide to go pro after their freshman or sophomore years because of the totally unexpected surprise of a nice fat NHL contract that they never were thinking about beforehand is naive. Being a student at the University of Michigan, getting the degree, and all that being in college entails is completely beside the point of getting the biggest NHL offer they can, as soon as they can.

Does Michigan win Red's first national championship in 1996 if senior Brendan Morrison—who scored the championship-clinching OT goal—had left after his sophomore year?

Birdman

December 14th, 2009 at 5:35 PM ^

When Kids are in the year they turn 16 they are eligible to enter the draft, actually many drafts to play for teams that pay them. Making it easy to destroy any chance to play in the NCAA. The NHL draft is the year they turn 18, and graduate highschool. NHL teams have a year to sign players or they get re entered into the draft like all pro sports. Staying at a school has nothing to do with getting more money. They want an education until they know they don't need one, right away.

Homer

December 14th, 2009 at 10:39 PM ^

Not to nitpick, but Morrison was a junior when he scored the national championship-winning OT goal.

Re: Brian's comment "With Lee Moffie playing very well, I'd scratch Llewellyn again." Moffie's been playing quite a bit lately. The more relevant question may be Llewellyn or Pateryn? Or, Red could revert to rotating among five defensemen, as he did for most of the Wisconsin game.

matty blue

December 14th, 2009 at 4:50 PM ^

...that we could a) get better, and b) blow through the ccha tournament?

i'm not saying that we WILL, mind you, but it's not hard to imagine the talent just improving a bit every week from here on out and being a very, very tough out in the tournament. at that point it's just two out of three, two out of three and two straight in joe louis...

jehu22

December 14th, 2009 at 5:48 PM ^

Treais hasn't been on the line with Caporusso too long, I think it was only 1-2 series. He spent the Notre Dame series on the third line while Lebler played with Caporusso.

Don't know why Berenson did that, the Caporusso and Treais had a good series against Ohio Stat if I'm not mistaken.

DoubleMs

December 14th, 2009 at 6:30 PM ^

Didn't anyone else see this coming last year? Hogan never really proved himself playing 2 a weekend last year, and has basically proven that he can't really do it this year - he has only held the fort on three weekends - USNTDP/Windsor (argh Campbell), LSSU, College Hockey Showcase (Barely). That's it. I really think that we should try alternating him and Hunwick one weekend, and see if Hogan plays better on only one night where he can go all out.

V-Link

December 15th, 2009 at 7:43 AM ^

Especially considering how he "won" the starting job last year. He never really proved he could be The Man, he was just in net when the offense decided to score more than 1.5 goals per game.

allansrule

December 14th, 2009 at 9:33 PM ^

I haven't been able to go to any tournament games since Maine and CC in 2003. It's practically impossible to get away from work during tournament time, which is our busy season. Even Van Andel would not have been practical, which is not to say I didn't gripe like hell on years we didn't get the draw. I was really looking forward to the Frozen Four in the D this year.
I saw Mr. Hanson at the ND game last year. That was pretty sweet. Oh yea, and once I sawr a blimp.

mich12fan

December 15th, 2009 at 1:12 AM ^

Another player that has been a disappointment this year has been matt rust. He really hasn't contributed as much as i thought he would, despite being on a line hagelin and brown for the most part. Brown has looked promising at times and I think playing with rusty and hagelin has helped him. The best looking player this year, by far, has to be hagelin. He is just working harder and going to the puck faster (his amazing speed definitely helps this) and no surprise leads the team with 9 goals. One last thing to say about hagelin, Bork! Bork! Bork!