MGoBlueline

Michigan men represent excellence academically and athletically. At least that's what they represent if you believe the two statues above the doors to the Union. Milford men, on the other hand, are adept at being neither seen nor heard. Buster Bluth was a Milford man. The 2012-13 Michigan hockey team played like one.

The 2012-13 Michigan Wolverines took the ice in October ranked #3 in the country by USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine. That preseason poll was the highlight of the season. Things went downhill quickly, and if you've been reading this blog for a while you'll remember that this team didn't do much to endear itself to the Michigan faithful. Now that we've had time to let the healing power of the basketball team's run to the title game and football recruiting goodness to soak in I think it's time to go back and try to figure out what went wrong for the team that broke The Streak™.

For comparison, let's look at the stats of the 2011-12 Wolverines versus those of the 2012-13 squad. This idea was inspired by Ron Utah's excellent post comparing the 2011 and 2012 football teams. The 11-12 hockey team lost in the first round, so we aren't exactly starting with high expectations for success here. Shawn Hunwick, Luke Glendening and David Wohlberg were the most significant departures from the 11-12 team.

2011-12 Michigan Hockey: 24-13-4 overall. 15-9-4 conference

Home: 15-5-1, Away: 4-6-3. Neutral: 5-2-0

2012-13 Michigan Hockey: 18-19-3 overall, 10-15-3 conference

Home: 10-8-1. Away: 5-8-2, Neutral: 3-3-0

What happened?

I highlighted the things that really stood out to me. Everything is open for interpretation, but let's start with the basics. The 11-12 team scored 43 more goals than they allowed, while the 12-13 team scored one fewer goal than they allowed. Ouch. If you're wondering how shot volume impacted things, it doesn't get any prettier. Michigan had very similar offensive output in 11-12 and 12-13; their total shots were about the same and their scoring percentage was an identical 9.6%. The real fluctuation from year-to-year occurs when you look at the opponent's shots; 1242 allowed in 11-12 versus 1126 in 12-13. Even though the 11-12 team allowed more shots opponents only scored on 7.2% of them, compared with 11.5% in 12-13.

Special teams can't be used to explain away the year-to-year differences. Michigan actually scored more power play goals in 12-13 (31) than they did in 11-12 (23). Looking at it from the perspective of the penatly kill, MIchigan allowed fewer power play goals in 12-13 (24) than they did in 11-12 (27). Michigan spent less time on the penalty kill in 12-13, but they also spent almost two minutes less per game on the power play that season. It appears as though Michigan was outmatched at even strength throughout the 12-13 season, so much so that they missed the tournament and won six fewer games. 

What does it mean for next season?

I wish I knew. Steven Racine established himself as the starter going into 2013-14, and that's more than you can say for the 12-13 team. There are some good prospects coming in (highlighted by former US NTDP forward JT Compher), but is that enough to replace the mass exodus of point scoring that Michigan will suffer this offseason? It doesn't seem likely. Michigan loses AJ Treais' 31 points, Jacob Trouba's 29 points, and Kevin Lynch's 27 points. Those were three of Michigan's top six pointgetters in 12-13. On the other hand, Michigan's problem in 12-13 was clearly one of defense and not offense so anything is possible. All it takes are guys who are willing and able to forecheck and backcheck, and as a sport hockey still lacks the sophisticated statistics that are able to capture the more esoteric elements of the game.

So, that Trouba guy left

Yeah, and now Michigan’s defense is in pretty sad shape.

I heard he was good at the hockey thing

Uh, right. A little better than good, actually. Only defenseman besides Jack Johnson to have an expletive seamlessly integrated into his name in recent memory.

Isn’t there somebody to replace him? I mean, this is Michigan fergodsakes

No. I was going to say not really, but let’s not lie. No. No no no. The answer is no.

Let’s start with his basic stats. In 37 games Trouba scored 12 goals and had 17 assists for a total of 29 points. That puts him third on the team in total points, behind only Alex Guptill and the also-departing AJ Treais. The next highest pointgetter on defense? That’d be Mac Bennett with 18. Trouba was fifth in assists, third in goals, and first in powerplay goals.

His offense will be sorely missed by a team that is losing its two best defensemen in Trouba and Merrill, and though Merrill missed a large chunk of the season and didn’t generate an earth-shattering stat line because of it those two were still key parts of Michigan’s powerplay. There isn’t a stat to quantify what a hard point shot like Trouba’s means on the powerplay, but the best proxy (best does not equal good, but still) is probably powerplay goals. Trouba had 7, which as previously noted was enough to lead the team and was also two more than anyone else. That accounts for 22.6% of Michigan’s powerplay goals so yeah, powerplay man. In total Trouba scored 9.3% of Michigan’s goals which means that he didn’t score 90.7% of them. I am desperately grasping for something positive here. Unfortunately, looking at Mac Bennett’s goal total (6) and realizing that it translates to 4.65% of Michigan’s total goals coupled with the fact that all other Michigan defensemen combined contributed 3 goals was not the ray of sunshine I was looking for.

There isn’t a good way to analyze defensive performance without advanced statistics, and even then the link between things like Corsi (which looks at shots generated versus shots allowed while on-ice) and a player’s defensive abilities is tenuous at best. College hockey isn’t exactly a haven for stats nerds so I have no advanced stats to trumpet here, which means we have to rely on the ol’ eye test. These ol’ eyes think that Trouba was pretty good in the defensive zone. He displayed greater hockey intelligence as the year progressed, understanding where pressure would be coming from and making the right pass to avoid it while also learning that sometimes going headhunting provides a super fun adrenaline rush until you get scored on because you were out of position, which is in fact a total bummer. I think that plus/minus is a hopelessly flawed statistic because it’s so reliant on how the team as a whole performs, but we might as well look at Trouba’s anyways. He was a –8 on the season, which sounds bad until you realize that we’re talking about a team that scored 129 goals and allowed 130 while posting a collective plus/minus of –45. Players tend to have negative plus/minus scores when they play for teams that allow more goals than they score, and even then a plus/minus score is so heavily dependent on who you play with that it’s practically impossible to tease out who was responsible for the goal (either for or against) and who deserves the plus or minus.

The one element of Trouba’s play that was less than stellar was his penchant for racking up penalty minutes. He finished the season with 29 penalties for 88 minutes, though 17 of those minutes came in one game at Northern Michigan early in the season when Trouba committed three penalties and got a game misconduct for a hit on NMU’s Reed Seckel. Trouba committed three penalties in a game on four separate occasions in 2012-13; once in November, once in December, once in January, and once in February. The ol’ eye test may be failing me here because I really thought he toned it down a little as the season went on but it looks like instead Trouba just went all non-potty mouthed Mike Rice on people once a month (sorry, too soon?).

Is there some Troubanian uber-recruit that can replace him?

The best of the incoming defensemen is Michael Downing, a self-described defensive-defenseman who can contribute sparingly at the offensive end. He’s likely to have more value on the penalty kill than the powerplay, and that’s according to himself. In the grand scheme of things this is good, as defense was clearly Michigan’s weakness in 2012-13 (see: more goals allowed than scored). I don’t expect Downing to replicate Trouba’s offense even if he is given a shot on the powerplay, and I don’t expect any of the defensemen currently on the roster to have as significant an offensive impact as Trouba did. After all, Trouba did win the GONGSHOW’s offensive defenseman of the year award, which sounds like something I would have created in NHL 02 if they let you create trophies but accolades woo! I think that the only way Trouba’s offensive production gets replaced is “by committee,” which is an athletically oriented way of saying we don’t have a replacement.

As Center Ice put it  in Seth’s Exit: Jacob Trouba post, the inclusion of multiple freshmen and the promotion of seldom used players to regulars will either work, or it will be a disaster.

You’re not a very optimistic person, are you?

Typically I am pretty optimistic but in this case DOOM. I’ll close by recycling a joke I already used in Seth’s Exit post because if you’ve read this far you probably like hockey and muppets and Michigan or something.

What's that picture?

An anti-muppet.

Well that's just weird. I don't think that's how they're used around here either.... 

I beg to differ. Trouba and Merrill left and that deserves an anti-celebration. Those two decided that, like the oft celebrated Muppets that are so beloved by perusers of this here blog, you can’t have one without the other.

Every morning I wake up and go through the same process. I head straight to the Keurig and start making coffee. I use the make-your-own filter because it saves money and lets me choose from different types of ground coffee, but it doesn't taste very good. There's always grit in the bottom of the cup, like the ugly duckling cousin of french press coffee.

I'm a creature of habit, you see. Sure, the coffee I make admittedly isn't very good but I continue to make it. It's just what I do in the morning. At some point I think hockey slipped into that domain for me.

I love hockey, always have and always will. At some point, though, it just wasn't as exciting as it used to be. I watched all season long but couldn't bring myself to write one of these goal-by-goal analysis posts from November to February because it just isn't much fun to write about how it feels to get punched in the face repeatedly.

I started writing again because there was a storyline besides misery to write about. Either The Streak would come to a screeching halt or it would be miraculously continued. What came of this was more than I could have hoped for in some ways and a bitter disappointment in others.

The second period of the Miami game reminded me why hockey became part of my routine in the first place. Those four goals were an adrenaline bomb to the system, the crescendo of a symphony writ by composite sticks, metal blades, and a black rubber sphere. I can't remember the last time I was that excited about hockey, and in that way the tournament run demonstrated just how far this team had come.

At the same time, I don't see how this season can avoid being labeled a failure. Sure, the team came on strong when its collective back was against the wall. They also finished below .500 and broke The Streak. Lessons will undoubtedly be learned from this season, and as Brian said in his post the future does indeed look bright. If anything this season will be remembered for both utter ineptitude and the kind of performance that can only come from seeing the prospects of your future in front of you and fighting like hell to avoid them.

At least, that's how I'll remember this team. They were both the team that sleepwalked through being bludgeoned by the Bowling Green Falcons at home and the team that obliterated the No. 3 Miami Redhawks in the CCHA semifinals. 

CCHA Semifinals: Michigan vs. Miami- March 23, 2013

 

1st Period

 

19:00 Michigan 1 Notre Dame 0: SH Derek DeBlois (11) from Jacob Trouba(17) & Travis Lynch (5)

This play starts with pressure at the point. Notre Dame gets shoved out of the offensive zone and the puck ends up behind the point man, Trouba comes up the boards to pick it up and start the shorthanded rush.

Trouba passes to Lynch the younger before Michigan enters the zone on a 3-on-2 rush. Trouba drives the net, which opens up DeBlois to receive an easy pass.

DeBlois' shot is stopped by Summerhays, but he kicks the rebound towards the corner.

Trouba is there and collects the puck. He pulls a nice spin move around his defender before hitting DeBlois with a pass that he just shovels past Summerhays. Summerhays is kinda out of position on this one.

 

2nd Period

 

10:34 Michigan 1 Notre Dame 1: Anders Lee (20) from Jeff Costello (19) & Stephen Johns (13)

Notre Dame sends in a shot from the point. It's hard to tell from the video whether the shot is direct of whether it gets slightly tipped, but either way it goes behind the net and hits the infamously bouncy Joe Louis Arena dasher boards.

The puck takes a bad bounce (for Michigan) and ends up with Costello at the side of the net.

He spins towards the front of the net and passes to Lee, who's open in the slot. Racine has already hit the ice to stop a potential shot from Costello, so all Lee has to do is lift the puck over him. Michigan handled this pretty well defensively, as I can't think of what else you could really do here. Just an unfortunate bounce that ended up in the back of the net.

 

3rd Period

 

00:29 Michigan 1 Notre Dame 2: Austin Wuthrich (5) from Mario Lucia (11) & T.J. Tynan (18)

Bennett gets turned inside-out by his man, though the puck ends up at the blueline before Notre Dame gains control again. He takes a step towards the guy that burned him, so Trouba starts to move in the other direction.

Bennett then steps the other direction again (towards Trouba), which bunches both of Michigan's defensemen together. By stepping back towards the middle Bennett has opened up his check to a pass, and that's exactly what ND does.

Wuthrich gets the puck and shoots quickly, beating Racine. Trouba tries to move over to cover where Bennett should be but can't get there in time.

 

18:53 Michigan 1 Notre Dame 3: Jeff Costello (11)

Moffie chops at the puck to try and get it into the Notre Dame zone, which causes Racine to go towards the bench for an extra skater. The problem? There's an ND player at the blueline who gains possession of the puck and passes it up into the neutral zone.

Just read the screencap please.

This season in one screencap: effort, yes, but not enough to overcome a bad situation.

 

If you have hockey-related things you'd like to see future diary entries about please let me know in the comments section. Without games to do GBGAs of I'll be looking to branch out a little.

I'm not going to lead with a story this week. No trip down nostalgia lane, no personal anecdotes, no waxing sentimental. Instead I'm going to let the Michigan players speak for themselves via what they tweeted Saturday night after sweeping Western Michigan out of the CCHA playoffs.

If you haven't already embraced this team I'd recommend doing so right about now.

Friday, March 15, 2013- Game 1

 

1st Period

 

08:43 Michigan 1 Western Michigan 0: Phil Di Giuseppe (9) from Kevin Lynch (14) & Brennan Serville (1)

PDG and Lynch work a give-and-go in the neutral zone, with Lynch passing to PDG and then PDG going back to Lynch. Note that this happens because Lynch has a step on his defender, creating a 2-on-1 odd-man rush for UM.

Lynch's defender manages to slide over and tries to get his stick in the passing lane, which is exactly what the other defenseman is doing. Lynch threads the needle between the two sticks and puts the puck on PDG's stick. Take a look at Slubowski here; he's square to Lynch, but he's going to have to slide a long way laterally to get square with PDG.

PDG roofs a shot over Slubowski's shoulder. The only reason that the shot is available (and that he doesn't have to try and pick a corner) is that Slubowski seemed to commit to Lynch and, as I mentioned above, had to move laterally to recover. This requires hitting the ice, which opens up the top portion of the net.

 

18:00 Michigan 2 Western Michigan 0: Justin Selman (4) from Mac Bennett (12)

Seth wrote in this week's "Dear Diary..." post that he noticed an increase in puck movement during the Northern series. If that was the theme last weekend, then what's the theme this weekend? Odd-man rushes! Count 'em up; three guys behind the play and one scrambling and praying to all that's holy to try and get back.

Selman has two options; he can shoot it or he can pass to Bennett. The positioning of the defenseman, coupled with the fact that he's already on his knee, makes both options equally viable for Selman. He chooses to shoot, but his shot is stopped...

...but not without a sugary sweet rebound popping out in front. All Selman has to do is keep skating (which duh, he did) and the puck is his to backhand over the sprawled Slubowski.

 

2nd Period

 

03:30 Michigan 2 Western Michigan 1: Chase Balisy (11) from Dane Walters (13) & Garrett Haar (5)

Michigan has a chance to clear but can't, as DeBlois is unable to hang on to the puck. Haar holds it in at the blueline for Western and immediately sends a pass to Walters in the faceoff circle. Check out the uneven distribution of Michigan defenders and the player who's now all alone behind the Michigan defense, Bailsy (circled above).

Walters fires a pass to Bailsy. Again, all of Michigan's defenders are clumped together. Walters doesn't even have to think here; Bailsy's that open.

Bailsy has to settle the puck before loading his shot, and even then he doesn't seem to get much on it. The puck flutters over Racine and in. Racine got hung out to dry but he also had a second to prepare for the shot. I wouldn't blame solely him, but I am a little surprised he didn't stop this one.

 

04:32 Michigan 2 Western Michigan 2: Colton Hargrove (8) from Ben Warda (9) 

He's off camera now, but Bennett starts the play with an outlet pass up the boards to Treais. 

Just as the puck's about to arrive a Western defender closes on Treais and it bounces off of him and towards center ice. The puck takes another bounce, this time off of Moffatt's stick and back towards the Michigan blueline. Moffat turns and tries to chase it down.

Moffatt never recovers the puck, but Western's Colton Hargrove does. He snipes one past Racine and it looks like the floodgates might oh-so-familiarly open.

 

07:13 Michigan 3 Western Michigan 2: Jacob Trouba (11) from Alex Guptill (18) & Mac Bennett (13)

If there was any doubt about whether he had earned the JMFT moniker that should be put to rest after this play. Trouba splits two defenders to continue his own rush through the neutral zone.

Trouba carries the puck into the offensive zone and looks like he's about to unleash one of his signature spark-meets-gunpowder slapshots.

But then he doesn't. No, Trouba instead slows his slapshot down and wrists one past Slubowski. The slowing of the shot freezes Slubowski and the defenseman, hence the statuesque squares around them in the above screencap. He's not just JMFT, he's JmfT. More subtle, yet equally effective

 

10:19 Michigan 3 Western Michigan 3: Josh Pitt (3) from Kenney Morrison (13) & Colton Hargrove (2)

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this one because it's about as close to an unpreventable goal as you're going to get in a playoff series. Western takes a shot from the blueline that hits two of their players on the way to the net, one of whom is screening Racine.

 

3rd Period

 

09:15 Michigan 4 Western Michigan 3: PPG Jacob Trouba (12) from A.J. Treais (16) & Alex Guptill (19) 

Treais has the puck at the point and passes to Trouba. This draws one of the penalty-killers closer to the blueline and essneitally gets two guys bunched together, as they're now lined up with each other as opposed to covering the top two corners of the PK box.

Trouba slides across the blueline and Treais moves behind him. This causes the penalty-killers to flinch, with the low man especially confused about who to cover. He starts to skate towards Treais while the high man moves towards Trouba.

The circled Western player then decides to call Treais as his man, leaving the low man to try and cover the open ice between himself and Trouba. There's no way he can recover and Trouba takes full advantage, actually unleashing the whole spark-meets-gunpowder slapshot this time and converting.

Let's troll

 

Saturday, March 16, 2013- Game 2

 

I used the CCHA's highlight video for the screencaps but discovered after writing everything that Center Ice posted a better quality video. Check it out, especially to watch Guptill chirp angry-Western-guy at the end.

 

1st Period

 

01:08 Michigan 1 Western Michigan 0: Kevin Lynch (10) from Lee Moffie (9) & Jon Merrill (7)

Moffie has the puck in the defensive zone and sees a gap up the middle of the ice that he can launch a pass through to start the breakout.

Outlet passes don't get much better than this one, as Moffie stretches the ice and puts the puck perfectly on the tape of Kevin Lynch's stick.

Lynch shoots almost immediately and just straight up beats Slubowski to put Michigan on the board first.

 

16:36 Michigan 1 Western Michigan 1: Garrett Haar (4) from Nolan LaPorte (3) & Josh Pitt (6)

Western rims the puck around the boards to the blueline. The Michigan defender who's supposed to be covering that area of the ice (circled above) runs into a Western player, which frees Haar to carry the puck across the blueline undefended.

Haar is going to have a shot available to him because Selman is stuck trying to make a choice; he has to guess whether Haar will pass to Brown or whether he will take the shot himself. By the time Selman can read the play Haar's ready to shoot, and he uses a snapshot to get the puck through quicker. If he winds up for a slapshot Selman would likely be able to move up and cover.

Racine has four guys in front of him and doesn't have much of a chance to stop this one. The disclaimer that goes with this goal, however, is that there's only one camera angle of it. It looks to me like the four guys are in Racine's line of sight and impacting his ability to track the puck, but that may not necessarily be the case.

 

2nd Period

 

02:53 Michigan 2 Western Michigan 1: Andrew Sinelli (3) from A.J. Treais (17) & Luke Moffatt (11)

Treais beats his defender and is able to get a shot on net that a sliding Slubowski stops (aliteration FTW). 

Slubowski's best Dominik Hasek impression causes him to send the puck itno the corner, where Treais digs it out and centers it.

Is it Slubowski or Hasek? I can't even tell!

Sinelli shoots through the defender's legs and hits the half-open net behind him.

 

10:09 Michigan 3 Western Michigan 1: PPG Alex Guptill (13) from Andrew Copp (10) & Luke Moffatt (12)

Moffatt carries the puck down low with speed and sees Copp on the other side of the net. There's a defender draped all over him and another in the slot, so he holds the puck for an extra second before trying to center it. By now Copp has crashed the net and the puck never gets to him, instead getting lost in a scramble in front of the net.

It's hard to tell whether Slubowski got a piece of the puck or whether this is the work of someone else, but somehow the puck slides backwards into the high slot. Guptill is in perfect position to pick it up 

Guptill gathers the puck and makes a perfect read. The defeneseman in front of the net dives to stop what he assumes will be a backhanded shot so Guptill spins. This opens up a scoring chance, because Slubowski is already on the ice and now so too is the defenseman in front of the net. Guptill roofs a shot over the mass carnage in front and scores.

 

10:58 Michigan 4 Western Michigan 1: Derek DeBlois (10) from Phil Di Giuseppe (19)

PDG carries the puck into the offensive zone with a ton of speed, but he gets penned in by thee Western defenders.

OR DOES HE?. He shows flashes of Datsyuk as he slides the puck under the defeder's stick and picks it up on the backhand on the other side. PDG throws the puck on net and Slubowski kinda stops it, but also causes it to flutter through the air.

The puck lands in the crease and just happens to land directly in front of a Western defender. Doesn't matter though, because DeBlois charges hard and wins the game of whack-a-puck.

 

19:42 Michigan 5 Western Michigan 1: Alex Guptill (14) from Luke Moffatt (13) & A.J. Treais (18)

Moffatt looks like God's gift to stickhandling on this play. He stops on a dime and starts to turn his body as if he's going to spin and carry the puck down the boards. This freezes one defender and draws another over.

He instead pulls the puck back across his body to the forehand and passes to Guptill, who's wide open and has just one defender to beat.

Guptill skates across the crease and nets his second of the night. Nail, meet coffin. Broom, meet Bronco.

 

H/T to the Daily's Zach Helfand and Paul Sherman for the Trouba photo

A cursory glance doesn't reveal many similarities between Michigan basketball and Michigan hockey these days. After all, one team took the court this weekend with a share of the B1G title on the line and fans that lined up something like 22 hours before tip-off. The other team took the ice this weekend with no title on the line and not even a live televised feed of their games. 

Take a closer look, though, and some broad similarities appear. Basketball and hockey are both games of runs. It's just the way the game goes when there are no pre-established offensive and defensive turns. You hit and you'll get hit back. You exert pressure and that pressure will eventually be exerted on you. Michigan basketball ended on the wrong side of a run, suffering a knockout punch that was one part bad luck and two parts missed opportunity. Michgan hockey, on the other hand, survived the inevitable pressure Northern Michign exerted after Michigan took a 3-0 lead.  

A 3-0 first period lead wasn't something the Wolverines could rest on. Too many times this season they've taken an early lead only to be swept away by the undertow of another team's run, late goals and late pressure that were too much to overcome. With their postseason hanging in the balance Michigan responded on Friday, doing what was sufficient and holding serve in the third period to weather the storm and in the process made that dim glimmer of hope we hold that Michigan can extend its NCAA tournament streak to 23 consecutive seasons a little brighter.

1st Period

I'll try to get a GBGA of Saturday's game up....sometime. Not sure when, but I'm working on it. Look forward to more pictures, more laughs, and most importantly moooooooooore goals.

(Burke photo cred: Julian Gonzalez, Detroit Free Press)

It's amazing how easily we take things for granted. We become acclimated and everything turns into background noise, only to gain our attention when things shift unexpectedly. It's how I felt when I graduated and moved out of Ann Arbor, and it's how I've felt about this year's hockey team.

I was introduced to Michigan hockey in 2006. Having grown up in a house with a die-hard Michigan State alum for a mother and a father who cared more about what went on in the philosophy and astronomy world than the sports world I had some catching up to do. I remeber reading the Daily's hockey season preview and thinking that becoming a fan of Michigan hockey was just a natural extention of my love of the Red Wings. I folded up that newspaper insert and stuck it in my backpack so that I could re-read it whenever I wanted. My conversion to a Michigan hockey fan had begun.

I never made it to a game that season. Instead, I had to rely on keeping up with the team through Daily articles and watching the few games that I could find on TV. Jack Johnson became something of a folk hero to me, a player that I still regret not seeing play while he was wearing the winged helmet. I vowed to myself that I would not make the same mistake twice.

Fall 2007 rolls around and mini-season ticket packages go on sale. A few friends, my girlfriend (who's now my wife) and I decide to get a mini season ticket package. I'll never forget going to my first game at Yost. If there's one arena in the world that can't possibly be done justice by TV this is it. I remember walking in through the cramped corridors and past the ornate woodwork. Then you walk into the stands and it's a fluorescent blast of white exacerbated by a sheet of ice. The corridors scream history while the inside of the rink just screams. If Michigan hockey is powered by a fuse box it only has one switch and that switch, which is permanently flipped, has "ON" printed above it on label tape. 

I went to a CCHA playoff game that season and was struck by how the regular season atmosphere is essentially the same as the playoff atmosphere. There's no way for it to get louder and rowdier than it already is, especially when you're in the student section. At the time that seemed hard to believe. Again, I wasn't used to Michigan hockey just yet. Having been a Red Wings fan for so long you get acclimated to regular season games with half empty lower bowls that switch to rabid sell outs when the second or third round of the playoffs roll around.

The energy of Yost spoiled me, and I didn't realize that until this season. When things are about to be taken away from you, that's when you realize just how good you had it. I didn't think there would be a CCHA playoff game at Yost this year. Not after watching a team that had block M's on the front of their jersey but looked oh so unfamiliar otherwise. Now I realize just how amazing the atmosphere at Yost is. Now I realize just how important the CCHA playoffs are. These aren't throwaway games anymore, this is our ticket to the tournament. And, finally, I'm watching a Michigan team that I recognize. This is a team that somehow, someway dug deep and emerged from the shell of...well, whatever that was that took the ice from October through February. Maybe they realized what I realized; it's easy to take things for granted until you're about to lose them.

There aren't many goals to breakdown here, but that's a good thing. A team that was allowing almost four goals per game gave up two this weekend. Two! And I can't even make a joke about only giving up two and it not even being non-exhibition play because they gave up more than that to like Windsor, man. Let's analyze: