Hockey Weekly Would Like To See Defense Be Played
Michigan Hockey knocked off Wisconsin in a two-game sweep this past weekend, firing Badgers head coach Tony Granato in the process. It was the expected result for the B1G Tournament quarterfinal series overall, yet the actual games that happened on the ice were far closer than anticipated. Michigan had to claw back at the end of regulation to force OT on Friday, winning it on a Steve Holtz goal in the extra session, and then needed a goal with under three minutes to go in the third to break the tie on Saturday. Shots and general chance quality were close to even, as it was not a series that Michigan was clearly the better team in, unsatisfactory given Wisconsin's poor season and the Wolverines' national title hopes. Today we'll be examining the problems against Wisconsin and some individual shoutouts before a quick bracketology update, and a preview of Ohio State:
Badger Business
Let's start by saying that Wisconsin played well this weekend. I've seen plenty of them this year, including four games against the Wolverines, and this was the most fight they've had in them all year. With their season on the line, the Badgers were playing with desperation and fighting for pride, a last stand for a coach who was all-but-certain to be fired. They defended much better than they have a lot of the year, even if it was still not great by any metric, and a magnificent weekend for Mathieu De St. Phalle was a central storyline. You gotta give them a lot of credit. With that said....
- We officially have to talk about Michigan's defense. Michigan allowed nine goals across the two games and I'm not sure any of them were really on Erik Portillo. Maybe one? This column has been hard on Portillo this season, and justifiably so, but against Wisconsin Michigan was exceptionally poor in their own end. The first two goals allowed on Friday were a bit flukey, garbage goals off pinball scrums and through traffic, but the other three were all calamities. Twice this weekend the Wolverines saw a lone Badger win a puck battle behind Portillo against two Michigan players, leading to pass into a high-danger area for a tap-in. I mean, look at this:
Mathieu De St. Phalle is officially on hat trick watch (again)
— Wisconsin Hockey (@BadgerMHockey) March 5, 2023
🍎: Caufield, Bantle pic.twitter.com/DDlFisY5di
Both TJ and Luke Hughes are working on the same guy, yet the puck still gets by them to a Badger who wraps it around, with the other three Wolverines all around the net and yet again the pass goes through all and hits tape on the far side for an easy goal. Woof. There was one on Friday very similar to that too and neither of these plays are ones where Michigan is getting outmuscled on the boards or anything size-wise. Rather, players are just straight up getting beaten. I'm not willing to say they're outhustled per se, but regardless, it can't be happening.
The inability to take away the pass on the clip above appeared several more times. David and I got into a spirited debate on this week's HockeyCast about the following goal:
He keeps Cruzin' 🚨
— Wisconsin Hockey (@BadgerMHockey) March 5, 2023
It's Lucius on the power play!
🍎: De St. Phalle, Caufield pic.twitter.com/yhwVS8p2Lu
David wanted to focus on the doofus turnover where the clearing attempt is no-look shot straight to a Badger, I wanted to focus on the defense after the fact. My argument is basically that turnovers happen often in hockey because it's an impossible sport to be perfect at with the luck and speed involved. In my coaching mindset, I'm less interested in getting upset about turnovers happening (unless they are egregious, Alex Galchenyuk 2021 turnovers that lead to easy goals) as I am in focusing on how to mitigate damage once a turnover happens.
On the above clip, Wisconsin has 4 in the zone against 3 (largely because they're on the PP), which sure is an "odd-man advantage" but that should not lead to a tap-in goal, yet it does. A give-and-go of sorts is perfectly executed, slicing right through the Michigan defenders with minimal resistance from any of Edwards, Brindley, or Holtz. I talked about this back in the fall, Michigan's tendency in 2022-23 to turn not inherently alarming situations (4v3, 3v2) into five-alarm fires that result in easy goals and they were at it again this weekend.
Of course, on the topic of the earlier debate, there was one egregious turnover that is worth getting riled up about from Luke Hughes that led to a 2v0 rush:
Its the Captain! Dominick Mersch gives the #Badgers the lead on a breakaway! 🚨 pic.twitter.com/G2MpHGWHEL
— Wisconsin Hockey (@BadgerMHockey) March 4, 2023
It's a do-or-die play from Hughes. If he gets that pass to Pehrson sliding down the right-wing wall, it's probably a Michigan goal considering there's a perfect cross-seam passing lane to the other side of the ice where a different Wolverine is waiting to shoot. Unfortunately, it also leads to an extremely dangerous Badger rush the other way when the aggressive sticks from the Wisconsin players high in the zone on Hughes cause havoc.
[AFTER THE JUMP: Fantilli, Holtz, bracketology, oh my!]
[Grace Beal]
This past weekend was an extremely sloppy weekend for Brandon Naurato's team. In addition to the nine goals surrendered, Portillo made a litany of massive saves that could've made it even worse. As we look at the second half of the season, a period that has seen Michigan go 7-2 in regulation and 3-4 in OT/SO (pretty good record-wise), the Wolverines have surrendered the following goals against tallies in those games: 7, 2, 4, 4, 3, 4, 2, 4, 2, 3, 3, 4, 3, 2, 5, 4. Average it out, that's 3.65 goals against per game, substantially higher than the first half of the season and if borne out over a full season would be top five worst in the country. Even accounting for their better first half, the full-season GA/g mark of 3.2 puts Michigan in the bottom third of the NCAA. And it's getting worse, not better.
Portillo's problems have been a factor but the individual defense is poor too, as we've seen in these clips. They lose too many puck battles, turn it over in their own end too much, and then struggle far too often to put out the fires that pop up. The most startling stat that circulated on Saturday was that the Wolverines have won just two games this season in regulation when they score 3 goals or fewer!!! In case you were wondering, one was against Lindenwood and one was against Michigan State. In further evidence of it not just being Portillo, Michigan is allowing a whopping 33.9 shots against per game this season, 7th-worst in college hockey and the whole top 10 besides Michigan are either terrible teams (hello, Mercyhurst) or mostly bad teams with epic goalies who have carried them to decency (Notre Dame/Northeastern). That's not the kind of company you want to be holding, especially not with a goalie who has gone through a lot of troubles.
At the end of the day, the biggest problem with this Michigan squad is they lack structure. They don't have a clear system approach to defense when it's time to shut a game down. Their play is generally pretty ragged and whereas last year's team we saw develop a strong ability to shut a game down in the back-half of the season (save for a brief mental meltdown against Quinnipiac), this team has no such ability and blown leads are the norm. We've just about run out of time to solve this dilemma in 2022-23, but it looms very large should Brandon Naurato be retained next season. Assuming typical attrition, next year's team probably won't be as talented as this one (there's a small recruiting gap due to the Mel fiasco) and will need to lean on structure more, one that hasn't existed at all this season.
[Grace Beal]
- Let's salute Adam Fantilli. Fantilli had a terrific weekend against the Badgers, scoring five goals(!), although a couple were mostly luck. These snipes from the right circle, however, were not:
Wicked one-timer from Adam Fantilli and Wolverines lead 3-2! pic.twitter.com/PamFMmCT37
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) March 4, 2023
We're at the point where there's not much else you can really say about Fantilli other than that he is one of the best players to ever play at Michigan. This Saturday could very well be the final time he ever suits up at Yost, so in light of that, I want to talk about Fantilli's legacy. Through 31 games, Fantilli has scored 25 goals and 31 assists for 56 points, leading the country in points and points-per-game by a wide margin, third in assists, and second in goals. There is no legitimate argument for anyone else to win the Hobey, especially when you remember that Fantilli has missed five games for a collection of dumb, uncontrollable reasons, so naturally NCAA voters will give it to a 29 year old Harvard player with vastly inferior stats who confesses that his life dream was to do unpaid labor for the love of amateurism (#BoycottTheHobey).
As for where he ranks among all freshmen ever, Fantilli's season is entering the pantheon. In program history, Fantilli is now tied for fourth in points by a freshman and 7th in goals, and he still has at least a few more games to play. We should also point out that many of the seasons ahead of him are from a bygone era that requires significant era adjustment. College Hockey News' tracker of freshman scoring records focuses mostly on seasons since 1999-2000 and Fantilli is flying up those lists as well. Back in the season preview I said that Fantilli's best comparables based on his USHL production and age when doing so were Thomas Vanek, Kyle Connor, and Jack Eichel, which seemed crazy at the time considering those are some of the best freshman years of the past two decades, but Fantilli has proven me Not Crazy. His current PPG (1.81) is very much in range of Connor (1.86), Vanek (1.38), and Eichel (1.78). This is a special season for a Michigan freshman and we should cherish that.
[Grace Beal]
- What a cool moment for Steve Holtz. That was my main thought when I saw Holtz score the OT winner on Friday night, one of the most remarkable stories in college hockey anywhere this season. First, let's enjoy the goal:
STEVEN HOLTZ! GAME WINNER! pic.twitter.com/YzOaEpHeWA
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) March 4, 2023
Holtz's brutal bout with the respiratory virus that tore through the Michigan locker room back in the fall was vividly detailed in a piece over at USCHO a few weeks back and Holtz's return to the ice this season was stunning. That was a feel good moment alone, but to get this goal was just damn cool. You could tell how much the bench loved that it was Holtz who got it and more amazingly, it was Holtz's first career goal! Hollywood stuff for that to come in a playoff style, 5v5 OT goal in the BTT, the same season as his flirtation with death. As I tweeted on Friday night, how can you not be romantic about hockey?
Bracketology Update
We now have two weeks until Selection Sunday and the NCAA Tournament picture has definitely become clearer since I last penned a Hockey Weekly. Let's start it off with a quick glance at the Pairwise Probability Matrix from CHN:
I cut it off at the last team with a >0% chance of finishing inside the top sixteen, and that's still rather generous to those last few teams, whose chance of landing in the top 16 is microscopic. I know this matrix is a bit busy, with a lot going on and it can sometimes be hard to parse, so let me try to pare it down some. We can place the teams into the following buckets:
- Guaranteed 1 seeds: Minnesota, QPac, Denver. These teams are all going to be 1s, and highly likely to be seeded in that order.
- 1 or 2 seed: Michigan, Boston U. This is where the Wolverines land, a 70% chance of being a 1 seed (65% to be 4th overall) and a 30% chance of being a 2. Michigan cannot fall to the three line. Boston U is the only team with a realistic probability of jumping up to a 1, a 20% chance of doing so. Because these are the 4th/5th teams in the national seed list, it is likely that Michigan/BU will be paired together in a region.
- 2 or 3 (leaning 2): Harvard. If Michigan is in the 4/5 region and their 2 is not BU, it will probably be Harvard. The Crimson aren't going to be a 1 and while they could fall to a 3, they look most likely to be a 2, probably 5th or 6th nationally.
- 2 or 3 (tossup): OSU, St. Cloud, PSU, Western Michigan. Now we arrive at a pile up of four teams in the national 7-10 range, half of which will end up as a 2 and half of which will end up as a 3. The probabilities of being either seed for these teams are all between 42-56%, hence the characterization of them being "tossups" as to which is which.
- 2 or 3 (leaning 3): Michigan Tech. This is the reverse of Harvard, in the 2-3 range but Tech is likely to be a 3. They could jump up if they won the CCHA and a few things break their way, but they're likely to be on the 3 line right now.
- 3 or 4 (leaning 4): Alaska, Minnesota State. These teams are not a sure thing to make it in the way the previous 11 teams are, but they are close. The Nanooks are up to 90% to make it and the Mavs are 78%, so closing in on a berth. These teams are most likely to wind up in the 13-14 range of the bracket where the biggest risk is bid-stealing chaos than anything else.
- True bubble: Cornell, Michigan State, Merrimack. The three true "bubble" teams in the sense that they A) have a chance to get in as an at-large and B) are not at all a sure thing to do so. They need to keep winning in their conference tournaments to bolster their standing and even so, they may be at some degree of risk of bid stealing.
So based on all of that, how do we see it shaking out? Here's the mock bracket I drew up based on the current PWR layout:
FARGO
(1) Minnesota vs. (4) RIT
(2) St. Cloud vs. (3) Michigan Tech
BRIDGEPORT
(1) QPac vs. (4) MSU
(2) OSU vs. (3) WMU
ALLENTOWN
(1) Denver vs. (4) Cornell
(2) Harvard vs. (3) PSU
MANCHESTER
(1) Michigan vs. (4) Alaska
(2) Boston U vs. (3) Minnesota State
[Patrick Barron]
There are a lot of factors that have to be taken into account here, starting with Penn State. As the "host" of the Allentown regional, they have to play in that location. Secondly, you can't have teams from the same conference play round one, which is a bit tricky to wrangle with several B1G/NCHC teams on the 2-3 seed line. Thus what we do in this bracket is seed normally, but make changes when necessary. PSU is a 3 seed, 9th overall, but needs to be in Allentown, where Denver (3rd overall) is the one seed. Thus we need to move them to that slot. If you do so and correspondingly slide WMU and Michigan Tech up, you have a problem in the Fargo regional with St. Cloud and WMU in line to face each other (both NCHC). So, I simply swap PSU with Tech and have matchups that avoid conference conflicts.
For Michigan, it looks like the most likely scenario is to be the 1 or 2 (4th or 5th national seed) in the Manchester regional. As I stated earlier, the likely pairings would be either Boston U or Harvard, both of whom the Wolverines saw in the non-conference. More likely to be the Terriers but having seen both teams, I'd much prefer to play Harvard. As for the 3/4 in that region, we're looking at the Alaska, Minnesota State, Merrimack, Cornell type teams as being 1st round opponents. Alaska is the best draw as a team that is a paper tiger having gamed the PWR system to make the tournament (but hey, credit to them for pulling it off!), but Minn St and Cornell are both from conferences that I don't rate highly, so I'd be okay with those draws too. We'll get more clarity in the coming days.
Around the B1G, Minnesota is likely to be 1st overall, PSU and OSU were named in that 2/3 tossup range (neither appear likely to be in Michigan's regional), and then MSU is on the true bubble while Notre Dame was booted out of the picture with their loss to Sparty on Sunday night. For Michigan State, it's a pretty clear picture entering this weekend: win and you're in. If MSU can go into Minneapolis and shock the Gophers, they will be in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012. Not easy, but possible. While most Michigan fans will be cheering against MSU making the tournament for obvious, rivalry reasons, I will say it would be neat from a Michigander lens if a quarter of the NCAA field were teams from the state of Michigan. Wisconsin has been eliminated since basically November, but at least they are getting a new coach.
[Bill Rapai]
Ohio State, again
Most Michigan fans were hoping to avoid Ohio State in the BTT given the trouble that the Buckeyes have given the Wolverines this season, but I for one am excited to see how this group responds. In their matchups this year, OSU has soundly outshot the Wolverines as a whole, winning three of four games in the process (one of which in a shootout). Their aggressive offensive zone forecheck has given Michigan's defense fits on their retrievals and zone exits, allowing the Buckeyes to cycle continuously. OSU's #1 PK (89.3%!!!), predicated pressuring the puck in the DZ and disrupting common entry tactics in the center ice area has robbed the Wolverines of life on their PP. Last time the two teams met, Michigan went 0/12 on the PP for the weekend.
They're not a crazy talented team by any means, and they lack a go-to scorer, but Ohio State is well coached. After a couple down years where I was beginning to wonder if Steve Rohlik had lost his fastball, this is a fine coaching job and getting a top ten national seed in the NCAAs is a sign of that. Their best players are Stephen Halliday, who leads the team with 39 points as a freshman after being one of the top scorers in the USHL last season, and Mason Lohrei, the creative puck-moving defenseman who broke Michigan's defense open with a wicked assist in the game in Columbus a few weeks back. Jakub Dobeš in net hasn't been as dominant as last season but is still a fine netminder (.920) who gives OSU the advantage in that area of the game relative to Erik Portillo for now.
The keys for Michigan will be searching themselves to find more discipline and more structure. Playing a simpler, cleaner game. Focus on chipping the puck up and out to alleviate pressure, be more focused with your passes through the neutral zone and less on trying to hit the home run ball. Play your game in the offensive zone but don't get too aggressive and cede chances the other way. Ohio State's game is all about applying pressure and feasting on the ensuing turnovers, which has gobbled up a young and (often exceedingly) sloppy team like Michigan this season. They need to grow up fast and settle down, being crisp with the puck in all phases of the game, PP, PK, EV, doesn't matter. Get the first goal, support your goalie, and feed off the home crowd. If Michigan were going into Ann Arbor Elder Law Arena in Columbus, I would be feeling not great, but with Yost at their back, I do like the chances for the Wolverines. The Bucks have been a riddle this team has struggled to solve, but the fifth try is a decent time to solve a riddle, eh?
That Luke Hughes turnover to the goal on Friday was a teachable moment.... for my 13 year old sitting next to me who is also an offensive defense(wo)man. "If you *ever* do that in your game..."
Luckily in her game last night, she did not do what Hughes did and when confronted with two defenders coming at her when manuevering by herself near the blue line with no one behind her in support, she dumped the puck to an open corner and her forwards generated a scoring chance.
(She also then scored on an end to end rush for the game winner in the third. Yay her. And me.)
My best friend's uncle is an assistant coach for the U of M women's team. Lemme know if you need a connection. Your daughter sounds like an asset.
She's on an official heater right now... 7 goals in the last 3 games, 11 goals in the last 6. Playing top line defense minutes and responsibility in her own end. It's an absolute joy to watch her right now, peaking as we're going into state and league playoffs. I can just tell when goes retrieves the puck or steals it from an opponent in her own ends that her head immediately snaps up and the math calculations like in "The Hangover" are processing as she's plotting her way through the opponent in a split second, she accelerates and leads the rush. Happily for me, she's also looking for her teammates as she has another 4 points in assists during the same 6 game stretch.
Damn! Are they winning?
Also, for those who still are asking "why not give Naurato the job now?", the games this weekend should give you just a little pause. For all the interesting things with offensive philosophy and his analytics based approach, I have seen little to no progress in establishing a defensive coherence this season that would allow this team to close out games. That Saturday game after going up 4-1 should have been a master class in choking the life out of an opponent after you ripped their heart out the night before. Instead, sloppy defensive play and backchecking without a plan allowed an inferior Wisconsin team to come all the way back, and force us to scramble to win in regulation. I'm not asking for Notre Dame like adherence to a defensive system, but I'm worried about the seeming lack of attention to defensive detail that seems to be creeping up more and more in the later season (when it theoretically should be getting tightened up with the additional experience and team cohesion).
One of the biggest pros of Mel Pearson's tenure* was always: "The team is young, but he's able to get them into shape and have them looking best when the second half of the season rolls around."
Naurato's first season has thus far been the opposite.
*I do not want Mel back.
They were a bubble team at the holidays and now they're going to be the #4 or 5 overall seed. So whatever they're doing, they're winning games.
I wish they were better in their own zone too, and it's probably going to bite them at some point that they aren't, but even if they've given up 3.5 gpg in the second half and would be toward the bottom in that stat, they're also scoring 4.3, which would be far and away #1 over the whole season. (Minnesota currently leads at 4.08.)
Another thing that's absolutely correlated is their inability to stay out of the box, horrible whistle (it exists) or not.
They've given up 22 more goals while shorthanded than Minnesota has this year, on 74 more shorthanded situations. That's gonna leave a mark on your team defense.
Playing smarter would directly lead to the team defense looking a whole lot better, at least stat wise. They also miss Truscott a ton.
It might just be that they're the Edmonton Oilers, minus the ability to make a move at the trade deadline to sure up a personnel deficiency. In a tournament where they only have to win 4 games to win a natty, maybe it works....
It's a really good and fair point about the sheer volume of penalties they have to kill off that affects their GAA. That was an oversight on my part.
Glad we both agree that "playing smarter would directly lead to the team defense looking a whole lot better, at least stat wise" (and looks wise, too!).
Average it out, that's 3.65 goals against per game, substantially higher than the first half of the season and if borne out over a full season would be top five worst in the country. Even accounting for their better first half, the full-season GA/g mark of 3.2 puts Michigan in the bottom third of the NCAA. And it's getting worse, not better.
This has got to be the biggest strike against Naurato, and the reason why he has yet to shed the interim tag. Some might make the argument that the second half of the season is all Big Ten play, but it's not like we played exclusively scrubs in the first half of the season. Western Michigan? Boston? Harvard? All tourney teams. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: player development is one of the last things I'd look for in a head coach at the NCAA-level. As an assistant? Sure. But as the leader of a team? No, thank you.
Calling out @stephenrjking, who keeps downvoting comments that have reservations about Naurato, but then doesn't respond with his own opinions, though I'm certain he has them...
Well, not sure of the motivation to downvote but let me add that I don't agree with the last part of this statement "This has got to be the biggest strike against Naurato, and the reason why he has yet to shed the interim tag."
I agree that the lack of defensive organization/improvement is the biggest concern right now but I don't think that's the reason at all for not removing the interim tag. It's been reported that the agreement with Naurato was that any decision would come after the season is completed. That may or may not be accurate but your statement implies that the AD has concerns about Naurato's defensive system. More likely the answer is that there's simply no reason to do it right now. It's unlikely that Naurato is going anywhere if Michigan wants him so why not take your time and evaluate the whole body of work?
I'm still trying to picture Warde Manuel watching these games and having a take about the defense... Is he a hockey guy?
I disagree that there's "simply no reason to do it right now." The easy answer is recruiting. Recruits are less inclined to commit to a program if they can't wager that the program's coach will be there when they arrive.
However, I don't disagree that, at this point, they should take their time and evaluate the whole body of work, as we're just a few weeks from the season's end.
Calling out @stephenrjking AGAIN, as he AGAIN downvoted me (on what I presume was my initial comment calling him out), but AGAIN did not respond with his own opinions, though I'm certain he has them! Cumong, Stephen!
As anyone who posts strong opinions in a place like this, I get my fair share of criticism, and a good portion of that is certainly deserved. But this is the first time I can recall, in some 10 or so years on this board, getting criticized for not saying enough.
You're a good poster, but some of this hand-wringing about "maybe Naurato isn't the guy" is just way over-the-top for me. And, yes, I will downvote someone who gripes about downvotes in the 5 minute break I get in a 14+ hour workday.
Well, you asked for it. Now that I have a little more procrastination time, on to actual thoughts.
tl;dr - The team isn't perfect, but Naurato has done a very good job in exceptionally difficult circumstances, and in the environment of college hockey, making him the permanent coach should be a no-brainer.
I'm certainly not going to minimize Michigan's defensive struggles this year. That stat Alex cites as being "circulated" about Michigan winning two games this year when they scored 3 or fewer goals? I was the one circulating it.
This speaks to my feelings about Michigan's prospects in the NCAA tournament, which I don't think are very good, for reasons stated very well by Alex and others.
But that doesn't mean that somehow we need to defenestrate Naurato and go look for someone else. C'mon.
There's talk about the "last couple of months." Ok. Let's look at games since the new year, when, as the excellent Michigan hockey contributor Packer487 reminds us, Michigan was on the tournament bubble:
16 games. 12 of them against KRACH top-15 teams (Michigan has the #2 overall strength of schedule according to KRACH), 8 of those games against teams that will make the tournament and are in the KRACH top ten, two of them on the road against the clear #1 team in the country, Minnesota. 10 wins, 4 losses, 2 ties (lost both shootouts). Now the #4 team in PWR and basically guaranteed a top 2 seed in the NCAA tournament.
That's a pretty good season. Now, let's remember this:
Brandon Naurato wasn't named the head coach until August 7, less than two months before Michigan's first game. The team lost a boatload of NHL talent, and the staff had to retain the talent they have, including the probably #2 overall draft pick and a top pick in Luke Hughes that could *easily* have just bolted, in an environment for which "turmoil" is not too strong of a description.
Then comes the season, a season in which, in addition to the usual sharp attrition for the World Juniors (including your best player for an extra weekend series), you lose serious man-hours to a pretty bad viral outbreak, costing you your starting goaltender for a key road series against one of those top ten teams and *nearly taking the life of one of your starting defensemen*. Another first-round pick missed almost all of the season, only returning to the ice in the last month. And now, down the stretch, Michigan has had to deal with *serious* attrition, particularly on defense, where our best defensive defenseman has been out, our star puck-moving defenseman has missed multiple games, and emerging guys have been out.
Lets suppose all this happens and Michigan finishes about where Notre Dame is right now: roughly .500, wrong side of the tournament bubble (with an all-time great coach in Jeff Jackson, btw). I would almost certainly argue, vociferously, that you'd have to give Naurato the job and see how he grows in the job, because the season had been so insane. And, on top of that, who would you hire?
"Save us Mel" argued in the recent Wisconsin post-game thread complaint section that Michigan should just offer "Denver's coach" twice what he's making. Uh, that's not happening. Denver's coach is David Carle, a program lifer who would have played there like his brother Matt did... but instead he was diagnosed with a heart condition and had to medically retire.
Denver responded to this by honoring his scholarship anyway. He's, uh, not leaving Denver. You could try the guy who he took over from, who a national title at Denver... but that's Jim Montgomery, who is currently flirting with the record books as the coach of the runaway NHL leaders Boston Bruins.
You could try, say, Scott Sandelin from Duluth, but UMD has a losing record this year, Sandelin is probably just fine staying here the rest of his career, and... well, given what got Mel axed, maybe another old-timer type hockey guy isn't a good fit at Michigan.
So, even if Brandon Naurato had a mediocre season, there's a very good argument to keep him.
But this is not a mediocre season. This is a good-to-very-good season with a team that has a significant flaw.
Now, how do we evaluate this flaw? Maybe it's an area that Naurato isn't strong in, yet. I'm open to that explanation; this is where the considerable evidence that he's a smart guy with some great ideas that can learn is important, because if it's a blind spot for him I have some confidence that he'll work on it. BTW, I completely disagree with the argument that you don't need player development in the college game. For any number of reasons that just doesn't make sense at all to me. It attracts players AND it makes your players better AND as a consequence it's going to make your team better. Ok, yes, maybe defense is an area where Brandon just doesn't have the tools yet; it's not like he had time to hire or train to his weakness here, he had a few weeks to get ready. Maybe that's it.
Maybe it's partly an issue with the players. After all, this isn't *his* roster (in fairness, he benefits from all these great players that Mel recruited, but recruiting is still going well, so it seems wise to at least try to preserve continuity). Maybe it's an issue with the disrupted season. At least part of it is the goalkeeping; Portillo's regression has been perplexing, and one of his key problems is awareness, which affects his positioning, something that's supposed to be a strength for him and for a goalie with his toolset.
I mean, it's something to keep an eye on. But not something that makes you look and say, "you know, great season and all, but let's hire Norm Bazin (PWR #26 right now, incidentally) instead."
The poor D and poor goalkeeping is an issue. We've seen otherwise talented teams hit walls this way before. Brandon will be very familiar with one of them; 06-07, a team loaded with offensive talent and star power that let in... well, about the same goals-per-game-against number this one does.
We'll see what happens. But unless there are issues behind the scenes that we don't know about, Naurato has, to me, unquestionably earned the job.
But this is the first time I can recall, in some 10 or so years on this board, getting criticized for not saying enough.
First time for everything, huh!?
I'm sorry if I antagonized you to the point of frustration, Stephen. I've valued your thoughts on this blog for some time (well before I started posting diaries and commenting) because you have deep, nuanced takes that I much more often than not agree with, and I couldn't stomach seeing your downvotes without getting your take to boot. Your opinions genuinely add something to the blog, which isn't always the most common. I didn't mean to upset you during a long workday. I really just wanted your two cents on what I was saying because I think your opinion is generally pretty thumbs up for me, even if it isn't the same as mine. I hope you can forgive and forget.
(I will also admit to, in part, doing all this as a way to gin up comments on a hockey post, hoping that a larger chunk of the fan base/blog readers can get invested in Michigan's best sport.)
I more or less agree with everything you just wrote (which some of my other comments indicate, including one in which I wrote on this post, "Despite all the discontent with the situation that I've written, I'm still Team Naurato and think the interim tag should trepidatiously be taken off.") It has been an exceptionally difficult season for a variety of different reasons. Naurato was thrown into the fire because of the Mel situation. There are not many (if any) easy options out there who could coach this team better than he could, based on what we know about them.
There are just two things I want to clarify:
- I don't mean to "defenestrate" Naurato, but rather point out the one (as you wrote) "significant flaw" that the team he coaches has despite its bounty of NHL-bound talent.
- I, like you, "completely disagree with the argument that you don't need player development in the college game." I don't think anyone in the comments section of the post has made that argument, and if they have, then they're losing it. The main pro to Naurato when he was hired, at least from what I heard, was that he was a talent developer. All I'm pointing out is that when you start the season with arguably the most talented team in college hockey, you might not necessarily think to hire a coach whose primary skill is talent development, but rather something more like game management.
I'm very optimistic, like you, that Naurato will take the off-season, recognize the weaknesses the team displayed this year/he learned about himself as a coach, and improve on them next year. I agree that they should take the interim tag off, too. I'm just being a bit of a Negative Nancy because Michigan is brimming with talent, and if you're that full of it, you just want to feel more confident that your team can take that next step and figure out some discipline in their own zone.
Thanks for getting back to me. I promise to not poke the bear again (until I feel like the blog needs you again).
Appreciate this. Hopefully Naurato wins a couple of titles and we look back at the Wisco series and chuckle.
"I couldn't stomach seeing your downvotes without getting your take to boot."
You "couldn't stomach" somebody not commenting as rapidly as you wanted them to?
JFC, it's just a sports blog.
Hyperbole. Relax.
This team definitely feels like they might get nuked in the tournament by a competent team. We're just too undisciplined right now. I could see them winning game 1 against their 3 or 4 seed and then at some point they'll bow out losing like 5-2 to someone because they'll get punished for how sloppy they've been.
(On the plus side, maybe we won't see Michigan's season end in OT for something like the 15th time this century and my heart will be spared of that for another year)
And I would agree on Naurato too. Not to gloss over defensive issues, but I don't know how you let a guy walk who is recruiting well and has you lined up for a high 2 seed at worst. Also considering the fact that he's a first year head coach period and he got a super late start on the season. You gotta give him a contract
Fwiw he is the same guy who all 2021 season clamored for Harbaugh to be fired, and then after we beat OSU in 2021, moments later he writes a manifesto on "The Michigan Difference". Couldn't believe the hypocrisy of his.
2020, not 2021, and I fail to see the hypocrisy in writing an explanation of why I was wrong.
Why that has any relevance here is unclear, but you do you.
Yes, I'm sure Warde is watching these games and thinking "If they were better in the defensive zone I'd pull the tag off of Nar."
Why would you not want a player development guy running an NCAA team when you're trying to develop a bunch of talented kids?
It really doesn't help that their best defensive defenseman has been out for the past 12 games.
Why would you not want a player development guy running an NCAA team when you're trying to develop a bunch of talented kids?
I could be wrong in this assessment, but my take is that they're already incredibly talented, so the amount of talent improvement they can make over the course of a season or two is very marginal.
If Michigan was a program that kept most of their guys around for four or five years, I'd be more on board with Naurato, because then we'd see the majority of players making huge strides and becoming excellent college players by their later years. But since many of Michigan's players jump early to the NHL, that talent development is vastly outweighed by a coach who can implement an effective system for them. Talent-development is more important for teams that have lower-wrung talent, and Michigan already, arguably, has Top 3 talent in the country.**
At this point, I'm not confident that Naurato can implement an effective system (I'm still holding out hope, though!), and so I don't think he's a good fit.
**It'd be like (bad basketball reference incoming) hiring Beilein to coach a Calipari recruited team: he doesn't have the time to maximize their talents.
That's fair enough. I think there's more to it than throw the puck out there and go, and talented guys will talent. There have been a TON of highly talented guys who have worked with Nar and presumably have seen benefit from it:
https://narhockey.com/alumni/
I also think in the past few years you've seen how guys have gotten better even in the two years they were here. (That's not to credit Nar for all of that, since he was only here for part of it, but meant as a way to show how elite NHL talent can still grow while playing college hockey.)
Really, though, the ideal situation for a team like Michigan is going to be to supplement the elite NHL talent that will be a bit of a rolling target with some solid players who will stay 3-4 years. Skill develop a guy like Hallum and you've got a helluva player. Add more to TJ Hughes's game (though he's gonna get some NHL offers so who knows how long he'll be around)?
There are some teams that get the 20 year olds and need to wring everything they can out of them in the 4 years they're in school. We're gonna get the 17 year old that's immensely talented but certainly not a finished product. Nar has worked a LOT with high end talent over the years, so I have no doubt he's qualified.
Also, he got the job in August. It's not clear what his ideal team makeup looks like and if "his guys" would be similar to what he has or not.
He's gonna recruit like crazy. I think he's passed the test this year with flying colors.
I should clarify that I am in no way trying to dismiss the importance of talent development at any level. Regardless of age, players can improve, and I'd love to have Naurato in the organization because he has a proven track record of being very good at this sort of thing at the highest level.
I just don't think a team that has some of the best talent in the NCAA should double down on developing that talent if their goal is a national championship. I'm a high school teacher, so my bad analogy here would be: If a kid has an A in my class (talent), and Cs in all other classes (strategy, structure, discipline), and went to a counselor or tutor and asked for help, that person wouldn't help him in my class, but they'd try to help him in all the others in which they were deficient.
This construction of Michigan hockey isn't wanting for talent: they're wanting for a variety of other things (structure, strategy, discipline) that should be developed throughout the course of the year to turn them into as close as a team can get to being a lock for the Frozen Four every year.
Fair but even if that's true, what if one of the factors why he is recruiting well despite the interim tag is that he is a developer of talent and, as a result, talented kids that want to play in the NHL are more interested in coming to Michigan? Yes, you end up with a highly talented but less disciplined roster. That may be frustrating at times but isn't that still a pretty good place to be?
Really good point. I've also heard it said (on the MGoHockeyCast) that recruits like Naurato's system because it's similar to the NHL, and thus NHL teams are interested in the players that come out of it. It absolutely makes Michigan a great place to be.
Maybe it's just a going to be a catch-22 of: Our Roster Is Always Full Of Young And Talented Players Who Play Under A Coach They Love And Who Helps Develop Their Skills And Gets Them Drafted, But He Is Never Able To Put Together A Team With A Solid Defensive Identity Because That's Not His Skill Set, But We Wouldn't Get Those Players Without Him, So We Live With It.
All this being said, it's also very likely that Naurato grows and develops as a coach and becomes better and better. He's still so young. I'm sure he has oodles of growth in the years ahead. He also very well could hire the right guys around him (kind of like Harbaugh did) to fix the issues he can't fix.
Despite all the discontent with the situation that I've written, I'm still Team Naurato and think the interim tag should trepidatiously be taken off because (a) I don't think they'd hire anyone better, (b) I'm optimistic a young guy like him will improve over the years, and (c) I'm complaining about a team that's likely a one seed. It's just been a frustrating season of banging my head into a wall more and more each weekend. I love hockey too much to feel okay not watching it religiously for a year (see: Michigan basketball this year).
Need a lot more time to digest the greatness that is this post - but I've had questions about the evolution of hockey defense. It's one thing to say that there is less defense being played because the focus is on D-men and women to be more offensive-minded. But the modern version of D appears to be to keep your D-men above the goal line while allowing the C and wingers come down low to help out. This is not your father's defensive scheme where D1 and 2 were responsible for going into the corners and the hauling ass back to the net. This makes the area below the goal line highly valuable for setting up goals, particularly where the eyes of the goalie and defense have to constantly be on a 180 degree swivel to identify not only where the puck is, but where it is going to be very, very quickly.
Can anyone expound on this or link to some sources about how this is supposed to work? (Dad of a D-playing youth hockey player).
The following is from a 30 year old who played center for a bad high school team (me):
Hockey teams tend to play a mix of man and zone on defense.
When the opposing team enters the zone, the defensemen and center "man up" on the other team's wingers and center. Their job is to stick with their man, and keep them from getting to the goal with the puck. If they don't have the puck, they need to be positioned in a place that stops them from getting the puck in front of the goal. You can switch, depending on how the offense is cycling the puck (passing it behind the net), and that's just all about communicating with your teammates on the ice.
The only time wingers (whose responsibility is to "man up" on the other team's defensemen) should find themselves down in the corners is if their corresponding defenseman switches with one of the forwards (wingers or center). Teams are coached to almost always have two guys on the blue line, so as to avoid odd man rushes. If the defenseman has the puck at the blue line and skates into the corner with it, the winger should follow because that's his man. Otherwise, the winger loosely covers the defenseman, pinching closer to the net so that if a forward comes out of the corner with the puck and heads for the slot, they can come in with the stick or body and divert their course towards the front of the goal.
If all three forwards are in the corner, then at least two of the three defensemen and center on your team should probably be in the corner battling as well, with one defensemen playing a little more conservatively to make sure that if one of the forwards pops out with the puck, there's at least someone in the way of his attempt to make it to the front of the net. If a defenseman skates from the blue line to the front of the net looking for a pass out of the corner, it's the winger's responsibility to pick him up and skate with him to the net (the same way if a guard cuts from the top of the key to the hoop and someone hits him with the pass, you wouldn't blame the center down low for not stopping him, you'd blame the guard that was guarding him for ball-watching).
If your kid's coach is telling the defensemen to just stay in front of the net and telling the wingers to go battle the opposing forwards in the corners in the defensive zone, either (a) your kid is very young, or (b) your coach is very bad. At higher levels, this runs the risk of a forward gaining possession in the corner and passing to a wide open defenseman, who can skate in and take a good shot from the high slot with no one covering them.
Hope this helps in some sense.
For things not to get fraught, solving a riddle, like solving Wordle, should be done by the 5th try.
My read is that our guys play like they think they are the Oilers with Gretzky.
They can outscore the other team, so why worry about defense.
Except, we are not the Oilers with Gretzky and, as you document, we do not outscore opponents They are young and can improve.
They will have to in order to get to Tampa.
Interesting note, the actual Pairwise has MSU and Merrimack flipped in comparison to where they’re listed on the probability matrix.
Great comment thread!
Single elimination hockey is upon us!
Is there any chance we can get Fantilli back for a second year?
Feels very low to me. The most recent comparable was Eichel who tore it up for a season and went right to the NHL. I'd imagine whoever drafts Fantilli is going to want him right away
Great post Alex. Feels like Luke Hughes suffers from being so much better than most players that he either gets bored or thinks that he is literally unstoppable because he commits a brutal turnover every so often trying to do more than he should.
On the team defense as a whole, I definitely share the concerns. This team sometimes reminds of one of the late Red teams that managed to ruin a season with a great offense by having a truly abysmal defense. Maybe it was 12-13? Or 15-16? I just remember beating my head against the wall because one of those teams would just lose barnburners constantly. Tough call with Naurato though because you're basically getting to season's end and it's do you keep him or let him go basically. It's his first year, the team's in position for a high 2 seed at worst, and recruiting seems to be continuing at a high level. I think you gotta give him a few years and see what you got
Yes, even if this team loses out, I think it's basically a no-brainer decision (unless there is a behind the scenes issues which I really doubt). Let's keep in mind he is a first-year coach and presumably will not only get better personally but also be able to assemble/finesse a staff that can address any weaknesses. The team may be frustrating at times but it's still a much better team than 6-7 years ago (give Mel most of the credit for that) and still fun hockey to watch. They are not really "built for playoff success" but they definitely have a chance of winning it all.
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