Michigan Hockey finished off a weekend sweep on Friday and Saturday over Ohio State, the first game by a margin of 5-3 and the second 3-0. Despite not having the four Olympians in either contest, the Wolverines were clearly better than the rival Buckeyes, who are a likely tournament team, and managed to pick up a big six points. Michigan remains two ahead of Minnesota and now we enter the final weekend of the regular season. The stakes are clear: the Gophers are heavily favored at home against lowly Wisconsin. Michigan heads into South Bend. The Wolverines need four points to earn a share of the regular season title, assuming no help from Wisconsin. The easiest formula for that is a regulation win and then at worst an OTL in game two. It is a bit murky as to who holds the tiebreaker between Minnesota and Michigan, but four points gets you a share of the title at least. Here we go. 

 

No Olympians, No problem 

Michigan finished 4-0 without Beniers, Brisson, Johnson, and Power in the lineup over this stretch, with this defeat of Ohio State being the most impressive. Mel Pearson was asked after Friday's game whether the Olympians would be back in the lineup on Saturday and though he gave a simple "no" response, the truthful answer really should've been "we don't need those guys to beat their ass". Because it's true, these games weren't particularly close. Only Friday's goofy second period with the puck hopping up and down more than I've ever seen it at Yost gave OSU a window. Possession at even strength each of the two nights was ~58% in favor of Michigan, which is a pretty solid edge. Not an MSU-style landslide, but one where it's pretty clear who the better team is. 

Onto the highlights, we have to start by simply saying "Luke Hughes, take a bow": 

This is #SCTop10 from Luke Hughes right here! pic.twitter.com/S7lyS2TGpz

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) February 20, 2022

One of the most electrifying goals in recent memory at Yost, and that was the one that really sealed the Saturday game in Michigan's favor. Friday night saw a great individual effort from Thomas Bordeleau, who I talked about as a guy needing to step up during the Olympics: 

Bordeleau over the blocker ties the game pic.twitter.com/CPxHsLVFux

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) February 19, 2022

There was also a nice mini 2v1 that Dylan Duke converted on (with some help from a very poor effort to take away the pass by OSU defenseman Grant Gabriele) following a bouncing puck: 

Duke scores with assists from Pasta and Truscott pic.twitter.com/9iIfDaTxde

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) February 19, 2022

The tension we got in the Friday game was largely relieved when Nick Blankenburg scored a PPG in the third period: 

Blankenburg pulls out the guns after netting his own rebound pic.twitter.com/b8VxHRD3K5

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) February 19, 2022

I thought that Jakub Dobeš helps him out a little bit there, making a very nice stop on the initial shot but then one of two things happens: either Dobeš lost track of the rebound for a split second, which made him look back across his body and be late to react to the second shot. Or, he lost his balance and had to look back to steady himself, which caused him to be late to react. Either way, Blankenburg got a window and made it count. Also, it was a great pass from Mark Estapa on the goal line to set up that chance. He's come on strong recently and seems like someone who is going to stick in the lineup even after the Olympians return. 

While the series played out similar to what I expected, I felt the most interesting development from the weekend came in the third period of Saturday's game. With Michigan ahead 2-0, they finally did what I've been waiting for them to do all season: put together a dominant defensive third period to salt a big game away. Ohio State got just seven shots in the third period and not a single one was a Grade A look. I'm going to put together a video-based deep dive on the strategy/schematic side of it later in the week because I'm being a #HockeyGeek over the nuts and bolts, but it was masterclass defense.

Hard work on the forecheck salted the game away on Saturday [James Coller]

Michigan had excellent defensive positioning from everyone on the ice, using their sticks very well to disrupt passing lanes, winning puck battles, and making quick outlet passes to facilitate zone exits. If you go back and watch some of the 1997 Red Wings and Flyers Stanley Cup Final, you'll see that the Detroit systems and discipline choked the life out of the Flyers at 5v5, footage that looks quite a bit like what we saw on Saturday night. It's what a championship-level team should be able to do when they're protecting a lead late, using the forecheck and smart/simple breakout concepts to get the puck out of the zone and alleviate pressure. Michigan is going to need to be able to replicate it over the next six weeks if they want to win a national title, but it was extremely encouraging for a team that has relied a little too much on talent and too little on systems/discipline to win games this season. 

The pathetic last two weekends for Ohio State against the big two in the conference have made them look much more like I was expecting this year. To be clear, they are still well above where I had them in my preseason power rankings, but the more I watch them, the more I feel like I was correct about their roster except for goaltending, where they got a 5th rounder to come in and post a .930. Going from .890 to .930 goaltending does wonders, and it can make a meh roster go from abject to a tournament team, which is basically what's happened. The remainder of the team is still pretty unremarkable and having watched them play against true title contenders the last two weekends has made it clear that OSU is not that caliber of team this year. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: lineup changes, 2022 success, and Notre Dame]

 

These two Olympians are back [James Coller]

Reconfiguring the Lines 

Michigan will have its four Olympians this weekend and the big question is how they reconfigure the lineup to put those players back in. Among the forwards, I think you have to keep the Samoskevich-Beecher-Duke line intact. That's a very good NCAA third line and they are playing well together. Van Wyhe and Moyle are mainstays on the fourth line. Estapa, Bordeleau, and Pastujov have played well so the question really becomes the following: do you keep that line together and put your three Olympian forwards together, or do you break the Bordeleau line up to put Brisson back with him? Michigan has tended to gravitate towards pairing KJ/Beniers and Bordeleau/Brisson together on separate lines this season, but it's still hard not to think about when the combo of Brisson-Beniers-Johnson throttled UMass back in January (UMass is going to be a 2 or 3 seed in the tourney, for context). For continuity's sake and given the way the team is playing, I'd like them to keep the Bordeleau line intact and try the all-Olympics mega-line again. Which would look like this: 

Brendan Brisson - Matty Beniers - Kent Johnson 

Michael Pastujov - Thomas Bordeleau - Mark Estapa 

Mackie Samoskevich - Johnny Beecher - Dylan Duke 

??? - Garrett Van Wyhe - Nolan Moyle 

There you have what should be a dominant top line, second and third lines that can both produce a touch of offense but also are really sound defensively, and then your checking line. The question when the all-Olympian line was formed the first time is whether those second and third lines are good enough offensively to survive when the mega line isn't on the ice. Mel got spooked and broke them up against Penn State, but we've now gotten two weeks of evidence that those two lines are producing well offensively. Michigan has scored 21 goals in four games during the Olympics with those two as their top two lines. 

The question mark on the fourth line could be any of Philippe LaPointe, Nick Granowicz, Jimmy Lambert, and Luke Morgan. Though I think PLP has played well recently, and Granowicz is always a good hustle guy, I defer more to the latter two. I wouldn't want to see them both in the lineup, but I think having one of them is useful because neither GVW/Moyle are particularly fast. Adding one of those two guys to the line gives the fourth line a transition option who can transport the puck up ice and has speed that the other two lack. Both Morgan and Lambert kill penalties too. 

On defense, it seems logical to slide Power in next to Blankenburg, keep the Hughes and Truscott pair together, and then bump Edwards back down to the third pair. There you're left with a decision of pairing him with either Jack Summers or Keaton Pehrson. I'm firmly Team Pehrson here, who fits the mold of the steady stay-at-home guy that you want next to a speedy puck rusher like Edwards. The last decision is your 19th skater... Jay Keranen is a safe pick because he's the only guy who can play both forward and defenseman, filling in anywhere if there's an ejection or injury. If not him, I'd like Summers as the 7th D and then LaPointe as the 13th F. I guess it would probably be a circumstantial decision. 

 

This is one of the two best teams in college hockey, folks [James Coller]

Michigan is a flamethrower 

We talked about this last week, but it bears re-examining how good Michigan has been since the 1st of the year. They are 11-0-1 (counting OT games as ties), scoring 4.33 goals per game and allowing 1.83 goals per game. That comes out to an average margin of +2.5, and thus over 12 games results in a +30 goal differential. The GA/G number is actually inflated a bit because Jack Leavy allowed two goals in seven minutes of garbage time against MSU, so with Portillo in, it's even better. Michigan is completely dominating its schedule in 2022, a schedule that has already seen two tournament teams in conference plus a two game set with a tournament team in the non-conference.   

Speaking of Portillo, he's posted a .945 with a 1.68 GAA in 2022, and if you want to go back to include the Michigan Tech game over Christmas, he's got a .949 with a 1.54 GAA in his last 13 starts. We're getting to the point where I feel pretty comfortable with saying that until Michigan sees Dryden McKay and Minnesota State again, they're going to have a better goaltender than every other team they see on the schedule the rest of the way. Meanwhile, Michigan is going to have a better offense than nearly every other team they play (maybe Denver is better?). You get the idea: hockey is random, but Michigan is going to be better than almost every team they see the rest of the way (Minn. State is the only team that I think has a case right now). That doesn't mean they're going to win the national title, because the NCAA Tournament is stupid and designed to produce a random champion out of the sixteen teams, but if this were a Stanley Cup Final type playoff structure, I'd take the Wolverines over every team in the country in a seven game series. 

This reminds me of what friend of the site Nate Wells tweeted back in October after the IceBreaker Tournament, when Michigan bested Minnesota State. 

#WouldWatch these two teams play again, but if this is Michigan in October... https://t.co/MgmhPkQ7BK

— Nate Wells (@gopherstate) October 16, 2021

Michigan has grown since the fall, with Portillo playing better, the team playing better defense and suppressing rush opportunities against, and the depth offense beyond the stars starting to click, particularly players like Duke, Samoskevich, and Estapa. If Michigan can play defensively in close games like they did in the third period against Ohio State on Saturday, they are going to be very, very hard to beat without a goalie going wild (which could happen at any time... hockey!). Let's just face the facts: this is the best Michigan Hockey team in a long time. Probably since 2007-08... when your author was in the third grade. Savor them while they're still playing, because this is a special group. 

 

Minnesota is closing in on a 1 seed [Coller]

A Very Quick National Note

Michigan remains 1st in PWR, having held that mark since the end of January. They hold a moderate lead in RPI over Minnesota State for first overall and those two remain a good chunk ahead of Denver at 3, who then holds a large lead over #4 WMU. In other words, not much has changed from last week, when I noted how large the gap was between Michigan and the #5 spot, now held by Minnesota. At this juncture it seems extremely unlikely that Michigan or Minnesota State fall off the one line, barring some catastrophic collapse. The real question is about who gets 1st overall at this point. If the Wolverines keep winning, they'll keep holding onto #1 and probably have a tiny bit of room to spare a loss since Minnesota State isn't going to bank many quality wins in the CCHA.

If Michigan were to sweep Notre Dame, they'd probably be at the point where they could lose in the BTT semis and still hang onto 1st overall. A couple losses down the stretch and things are a bit more dicey. Still, a one-seed of any variety seems to be on ice. The big battle in PWR is Minnesota vs. WMU for the fourth one seed, as the Gophers have chased down the Broncos, who aren't doing a ton to set themselves apart in the NCHC right now. The B1G still feels pretty secure as a four bid league, with OSU and ND just a shade off the bubble, which remains occupied by the pile up of eastern teams (BU, UCONN, Lowell, Clarkson, Northeastern, Providence). One month to go until Selection Sunday. 

 

The last meeting was not the most enjoyable experience of all time [James Coller]

Notre Dame 

If Michigan wants to raise a regular season championship banner, they need four points this weekend in South Bend. The two programs have had an odd relationship the last couple seasons, with each team doing very well on the road. The Irish have amazingly now won seven straight at Yost (some in OT, including two this year), but Michigan has won four straight at Compton. If Michigan sweeps this weekend, it will be the third straight season where the road team won every game in the rivalry. Weird! 

The two games back in the fall were deeply unsatisfactory results, back-to-back games where Michigan blew 2-0 leads to lose in OT to the Irish. The first of the two games was a total defensive meltdown in the third period that saw Michigan be lucky to even get to OT, while the second was a weird mix of a Portillo off-night and wretched refereeing. It was not the cleanest series from the Maize & Blue from an execution standpoint, to say the least, but as I mentioned in the preceding section, this team has grown a lot too. 

Notre Dame is still Notre Dame. They get good goaltending, they have an elite PK, they don't allow many goals because the defensive structure is drilled into their brains, and they have a balanced offensive group. This Irish team is not a great one, but with 18 regulation wins in a western conference that currently boasts two of the top five teams in PWR, they're closing in on a bid. A Michigan sweep could push the gold domers back towards the bubble, but they still have a bit of cushion over the eastern mosh pit that currently hold the 14-19 slots in PWR. Matt Galajda and Ryan Bischel have shared the crease this season, posting nearly identical numbers. We saw Bischel back in November, but it seems more likely to be Galajda this weekend. Don't think it makes much difference who is in net. 

Probably doesn't matter who the goalie is tbh [Coller]

Max Ellis is still their leading scorer with 28 points and 16 goals. There aren't really any stand-out stars, but instead a bunch of good players who play team hockey. That's been the mold for years now. It used to be that the first goal was incredibly crucial against a team like ND, and while I think that may still be true, goals were not hard to come by when these teams played back in the fall. Not that it can't happen, but I'm not super worried about Michigan's offense, especially when they're about to get a big jolt from the Olympians returning. 

The Irish have played the most OT games in the country this season, and of course Michigan is responsible for a chunk of that. ND plays a lot of close games and thankfully Michigan can afford to have one go to OT as long as they win the other in regulation. Four points is the magic number to clinch a share of the title and the #1 seed in the BTT and thus a bye into the semis (+ home ice for the remainder of the BTT). At the end of the day, this is hockey. It's moderately random. I'd like to be in a better spot in terms of clinching the conference title, but as Ringo said, it don't come easy. Michigan is still in the driver's seat and they're the better team this weekend, while also having some added motivation from the fall. Just do what you did last season in South Bend and beat the Irish soundly both nights. This is the chance for hardware that doesn't require winning a single elimination hockey tournament... get it done boys.