Michigan hockey vs. Bowling Green open thread

Submitted by CaptainBlue on

Michigan going for its fourth straight win, against BGSU. No TV.

Radio: LINK

Stats: LINK

Live blog: LINK

BubbaBerenson

February 24th, 2012 at 7:11 PM ^

justingoblue

February 24th, 2012 at 7:12 PM ^

I hate this not being on TV. Other than this game, there's one major conference basketball game tonight, no NHL on anything other than the super-premium channels, and no M hockey. This is one of the worst sports TV nights I can remember in hockey/basketball season.

Also, I couldn't convince anyone to actually go to the game with me, seeing as how it's a two hour drive from my apartment on a perfectly good Friday night.

Doc Brown

February 24th, 2012 at 9:20 PM ^

fuck, this is what we get for attempting to blow off this game against these scrubs. typical merrill. he has been shit since the lil bro series. boy i cannot wait to see our drop in the pairwise due to the RPI taking a nice hit...WTF...fuck it I am going to go get plastered

Bando Calrissian

February 24th, 2012 at 10:17 PM ^

Call him out, sure.

But to troll the thread with a bunch of profanity-laced rants that essentially tar and feather a college student is something entirely different.

There's a fine line between being an intelligent fan that can legitimately dissect a player's effort (which, honestly, is not nearly as bad as you think it is), and being an idiot who can't do it without insulting the kid. 

JustGoBlue

February 24th, 2012 at 10:39 PM ^

Maybe it's a word choice thing, but unless by effort you mean effort without meaning performance, I'm curious to know how Merrill hasn't been not nearly as bad as it's appeared the last few weeks.  Not that I have anywhere near the same extent of anger (or mean to excuse it), but Merrill has been less than his normal stellar self for the last 5 games.  (Or at least, allegedly tonight, I wasn't at Bowling Green, but the Daily LiveBlog was unimpressed).  He's been very directly responsible for two HUGE goals against and if he hasn't been more turnover prone than the rest of the D-corp, he certainly hasn't been much better.  Has he had near-brilliant likely goal saving moments in there?  Of course.  He's scored a few points, too.  Kevin Clare's done the same and had a few of those moments last year, too.

The performance of the defense as a whole has been bad recently and Merrill certainly can't shoulder the blame for all of that or even most of that.  But I feel like what you expect from him is consistency, that he's going to make the right play at the right time and do it about as often as humanly possible and right now he's horribly inconsistent.  In a sense, even though he's probably still one of the best performing defensemen of the last few games, he might be the worst, because of the lofty expectations.  If he hasn't been "bad" by the strictest relative definitions, I think he's very obviously been "bad" compared to what he expect from him.  And for the record, I don't think our (or at least my) expectations are completely unreasonable, because he fulfilled them and more for most of his career. 

I know I pointed to the goals he was responsible for, specifically, as part of my argument, and I understand even the best defensemen  are going to be made to look foolish as a forward scores, every once in a while, if it was JUST those two bad moments, I probably wouldn't be typing this, but honestly, I've felt straight up uncomfortable for the last couple games when he's been on the ice, like it was our third pairing out there instead of him and I don't like it.

weasel3216

February 24th, 2012 at 9:23 PM ^

and i have to say, i hate the hockey team.  I know it is the only sport BGSU has every one a NCAA National Championship in, but damn the team last in last place every year in the CCHA while i was in school, but yet they would beat Michigan every damn time in BG.  Shit pissed me off,  I would have to hear it from my roommates (Ohio fans) for the next week.  Fuck this sucks.

JustGoBlue

February 24th, 2012 at 9:28 PM ^

and maybe knock some sense into the knuckheads along the blue line than lose in the tournament.  WMU/FSU in OT right now, if FSU gets even a point, this game matters not so much.  The RPI hit will suck.  Like, a lot.  But hopefully they can make it up with a nice run through the CCHA tournament.