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This was the story of one of two games this weekend [JD Scott]

Hockey Weekly is Still Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Comment Count

Alex.Drain January 14th, 2021 at 12:00 PM

After a long holiday break, Michigan Hockey returned to the ice last weekend against the rival MSU Spartans. For about the first 116 of 120 minutes between the weekend's two games, there was one coherent story. Michigan was the better team, outshooting MSU and generally controlling play at even strength with consistency. They had run the Spartans out of the building on Friday and then were locked in a more characteristic-for-MSU tight, low scoring affair on Saturday, but one they seemed on track to win. With a narrow 2-1 lead and less than 4 minutes to go, Michigan just needed to close out a dreadful State offense to get a big sweep and the opening series of the second half we were looking for. That ... didn't happen. Two all-too-familiar defensive breakdowns later and Michigan got an incredibly bitter pill to swallow in the form of a weekend sweep for a series where they outscored the opponent 11-3. What to make of this? Let's dive right in, as Hockey Weekly returns from a break. 

 

Speed and skill back on display? 

Again, 97% of the weekend was good, it's just that the final 3% was so bad it erased about half of the good stuff. What was the good stuff? Well, Michigan finally got to flash their speed and skill again, which was nice to see after the dull Minnesota series at the end of the first half. Yes, I know that most of Michigan's big guns had to miss that series due to the World Juniors, so that team wasn't a representative of the whole, but it was a nice refresher that when Michigan clicks, it can be really special. Take the first goal on Saturday: 

Granowicz goes on the forecheck and puts a hint of pressure on the Spartans, gets a bit fortunate when one of the defenders blows a tire, snags the loose puck, then hits Ciccolini with a pass, who then makes an extrasensory no-look backhand pass to Beecher for the easy tic-tac-toe goal. That's stuff we saw a lot of in the first four games of the season and haven't seen as much of since then. Good to know it still exists. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More Good Stuff- Also the Bad Stuff]

 

As for the speed component, there are a few examples, but the smooth skating of Owen Power showed up in an offensive capacity on Friday: 

Not a lot of fancy stuff to it, but just a simple rush down the seam and one nice diagonal pass to Kent Johnson for the goal. I (and all NHL Draft scouts) would like to see that a lot more from Owen Power moving forward. 

SIDE NOTE: how the heck wasn't that hit on Johnson after the goal a 5 minute major? I mean, it's after the goal, Johnson is completely defenseless and doesn't have the puck, and it seems to be a hit up high. I'm not someone who complains a lot about hockey getting "soft" or whatever, but I've seen a lot of dudes (including Keaton Pehrson on Saturday), get hit with majors for a lot less than that. 

Facing a stout defense in the Spartans, Michigan's offense did what it needed to in order to procure the sweep. It's the defense that held them back (sound familiar?). Friday night's 9-0 thumping was evidence of the fact that Michigan can still win a national title. They've got the players to do it, they're just not as polished as Minnesota and that became painfully clear in the waning moments of Saturday's game. 

 

So what went wrong on Saturday? 

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It had been so long since MSU scored against Michigan I had trouble finding any photos for this [Dianna Oatridge]

Michigan State's twitter account never tweeted out proper clips of each goal, so I will be linking to the same Michigan game recap tweet repeatedly and will put parentheses in the paragraph below denoting which part of the video I'm referring to: 

(Starting at 0:08) The first goal looked like a set play that MSU runs for Charlie Combs, their grad transfer from Bemidji State. Combs is Just A Shooter, to borrow basketball jargon, with 40 goals and just 27 assists over his college career. He also really only shoots from one place, I can say having watched the weekend series, which is the slot. Nodler gets the defender at the point to play dump-and-chase. He goes after it, nudges it along the boards to Lewandowski in the corner, who finds Combs in the slot for the shot and goal. It's nicely set up, yes, but Michigan also should've stopped that, with four players back when the play begins. The big culprit here is probably (uncharacteristically) Garrett Van Whye, who strangely goes behind the net when two Michigan players are already there. If he goes around the net the other way, he's in position to meet Nodler's pass to Lewandowski. But even taking the angle he takes, he doesn't make much of an effort to get his stick in the passing lane of Lewandowski's feed to Combs. It was a nice shot from Combs, though. 

(Starting at 1:19) The equalizing goal is partially on Michigan's defense and partially on Adam Goodsir's simply phenomenal forechecking shift. Goodsir first gets in tight on Granowicz and prevents him from making a clean pass along the boards, then moves up and does the same to Keranen, getting his stick in the way and forcing a turnover, which trickles to Haskins along the boards. Haskins' backhand diagonal pass is intended for Muller on the goalmouth but he whiffs, which sends it to Cole Krygier at the top, who makes no mistake on wiring it past Mann, using three bodies in front as a screen. Granowicz is probably the biggest culprit here(?), as not just does he fail to make a clean pass, but he's also late heading to the netfront, where he could've had a shot to disrupt the pass from Haskins. Still, you've got to tip your cap to a hungry MSU team that spent little time in the OZone all third period and then strung together a terrific forechecking shift, from Goodsir in particular with the stick. 

(Starting at 1:35) The actual game-winner (f*** you, BTN+ guy, who declared the Brisson goal with 4:39 left in a one-goal game to be the "potential game winner" (?!?!)) is a transition, end-of-shift debacle. It's a three-on-three rush coming back Michigan's way and the Wolverine forwards are really hustling, which is nice to see, but they may get a bit overzealous in chasing the play. Three players all chase the puck carrier to one side of the ice and go so aggressively in laying out to block the pass that they slide like children on sleds out of the play and into the boards. That leaves only two out-of-position defenders back to have to defend the play after the initial pass is broken up.

That said, those two who are back (Brisson and Power) do not make a great effort to stop the pass from Christian Krygier to Josh Nodler. Brisson goes down on one knee, which I assume is an attempt to block a shot from Krygier that never comes, and Power just stands and watches the puck. If there's one guy on the roster you'd like in the situation of "needing someone to block a pass with their stick" it would be the guy who's 6'5" with Gumby arms and an approximately 15 foot long reach when you combine wingspan and stick. Yet Power doesn't do so much as even put his stick on the ice or even reach out his stick to obstruct the pass, instead spinning around once it's too late and getting to watch as Nodler deposits the game-winner into the back of the net. 

Defensively it wasn't a bad weekend. Part of that is MSU's style of being content to sit back, but even when the Spartans tried to break out and play a bit more offensively, Michigan shut that down (especially Friday). I said on the HockeyCast that Michigan allowed ~1-2 Grade-A chances on Friday and maybe 4 or 5 on Saturday, yet 3 of those 4 or 5 went in. Sometimes puck luck strikes you, but also the defensive breakdowns we saw in this section aren't exactly puck luck, either. Michigan is a very talented team that played their best series this weekend since mid-November, but they still aren't executing at a consistently high enough level to sweep teams. They're going to need to start doing so, though. 

 

The Tournament on my mind 

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According to Pairwise, this would be the only B1G team in the tourney if it started today (?!) [James Coller]

Michigan Hockey isn't even halfway done with the season yet, but it's time to really start talking about the NCAA Tournament. The brutal truth is that Michigan isn't winning the B1G Regular Season title this year. Minnesota is, and that's probably over. After starting 9-0 in conference play, I just don't see any team catching the Gophers at this juncture. 3-7 in the conference is still a bit of a pile up, and even #2 is attainable if Michigan could sweep Wisconsin at Yost later in the season. But more importantly, this team needs to find a way to get into the NCAA Tournament, and that means actually sweeping teams. Michigan hasn't cleanly swept a team since the opening series, though they did beat Wisconsin in overtime for a sweep the second series. It's unclear how NCAA Tournament seeding will work this year, as Pairwise is not really designed to handle a year with almost no non-conference play, but just for the hell of it, Michigan is 23rd in PWR.

However, I'm a tad skeptical that they will go straight PairWise as usual, because the B1G, normally a conference that puts 3-4 teams in the tourney, currently has one squad in the top 20 (?). Minnesota is 3, Michigan 23, MSU 26, PSU 27, Wisconsin 28, ND 36, and OSU 37. Compared to the current conference standings excepting Minnesota, that list is almost an exact reverse, with 7th-place PSU being the 4th highest PWR team. Doesn't pass the smell test to me. If they go with a more voter-centric formula, that helps Michigan a lot, as national poll voters are still somehow convinced this is a top 10 team. They've got the talent to be, sure, but I'm not sure how a team that's 2-6 in their last eight games is still a top 10 team. All of this is a long way of saying that Michigan can still very much make the tournament, but they need to kick it into gear, as Mel's teams normally do in January and February. We were inches from having this column be very different on Saturday, and a sweep this weekend at home against OSU would go a long way towards convincing me that some of the first half problems are "fixed". 

 

WJC: that other tournament Michigan had guys play in recently  

Since this is our first column since the World Juniors, I figured I'd give an update. Michigan had three players eventually make the roster after Bordeleau and Beecher were cut for COVID reasons, Beniers, Brisson, and York (assistant coach Kris Mayotte was coaching for Team USA too). Team USA ended up winning the gold medal after upsetting Canada in the Gold Medal Game (U-S-A!, U-S-A!) and it was a solid tournament for all three guys. York was the captain, so winning gold as the captain was extra-special for him, and his point total was impressive, with a 1-5-6 line in 7 games. We should note, though, that York piled those points up in part because he was often on the ice with Trevor Zegras, the Team USA star and ex-Boston University center who becomes Mario Lemieux 2.0 at the WJC's, scoring a ridiculous 18 points in 7 games.

Brisson only played sparingly as the 13th forward, but he did get to show off the Brisson Bomb en route to scoring 2 goals. Matty Beniers is starting to gain more fans than just people who follow Michigan Hockey, and is steadily starting to rise up the draft board for this upcoming draft. Centering a line with Cole Caufield and Matthew Boldy, Beniers looked like he belonged playing with/against guys as much as two years older than him. As a polished two-way, all situations centerman with a high floor, Beniers is a "safe" pick that looks attractive in a cluttered draft and is starting to get very real talk in scouting circles as the potential first overall pick for the 2021 NHL Draft (sometimes at the expense of Owen Power). Outside of Team USA and Canada, Finland took the Bronze and Russia came up medal-less with a fourth place finish. 

 

A Brief OSU Preview 

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Expect more of this over the weekend, except without the fans [James Coller]

The Buckeyes are in a bit of a rebuilding/reloading year, sitting at 4-7-1 on the year and 4-6 in conference. They have 13 points in 10 games, 2 more than Michigan in the same number of games played, so the Wolverines can move past their rivals and potentially into a top four seed with a sweep. Losing Tanner Laczynski has really hurt the Buckeyes, as he was the engine that drove their offense for three straight years. Freshman Travis Treolar has been the standout name so far with a 5-7-12 line in a dozen games. Boston U transfer Mark Cheremeta is second, followed by Quinn Preston, Grant Gabriele, and Gustav Westlund, while Vegas Golden Knights prospect Layton Ahac mans the point following the graduation of Wyatt Ege.

Also graduated: pest Ronnie Hein. Hein was a Michigan-native (traitor) who ended up in the Scarlet and Gray and always had a knack for initiating brawls on the ice, targeting Will Lockwood in last year's series at Yost, which led to a Beecher retaliation and a one-game suspension for the big Michigan centerman. That's how OSU plays, they are relentlessly physical, which often straddles the line of dirty, and they kill you on special teams. This year they're at 25.6% on the PP and 81.4% on the PK, though the latter number is down from the typical high 80s range, so Michigan may have some room there to exploit. In goal the Buckeyes still have Tommy Nappier, who is pretty good but is nothing extraordinary. Overall, these are two winnable games for Michigan, but as we've seen this year, if the execution isn't there, they're also two losable games. Michigan needs two W's, that's for sure. 

Comments

almost as old …

January 14th, 2021 at 4:20 PM ^

Yes, there's a reason it's called "puck luck."  A puck's deflection off a skate here, a bounce on uneven ice there; the randomness can indeed be frustrating.  Throw in the "hot goalie" syndrome, and you've got a real mess on your hands in terms of the predictability of results.  What I've resorted to over the years is believing that if a team carries the play and gets the better chances, they have a higher likelihood of winning.  But the key word is likelihood.  Alas, as we have all experienced too many times.

Joined: 03/31/2013

MGoPoints: 85