hockeyguy9125

December 1st, 2016 at 7:20 PM ^

but I remember some years of the Red Wings were in the playoffs for some of their disappointing early exits....they would get 45 shots a game and that sounded like they were just blasting teams but the goalies were heroic....in some cases that was true, but some games with high shot totals would end up with 35 of the 45 shots hitting the goalie in the chest....

My point is, yeah you need to shoot more....but don't just shoot and hit the logo on the chest for the sake of increasing your SOG number. 

lhglrkwg

December 1st, 2016 at 7:31 PM ^

This is the first time this season I've been able to rip my attention away from college football long enough to catch a game. 6-5-1 tells me I haven't missed a ton...

lhglrkwg

December 1st, 2016 at 7:33 PM ^

Penn State is 11-1-1 and Ohio State is 8-1-4 while Michigan. Minnesota, and Wisconsin all suck? The traditional powers in the Big Ten have been pathetic recently.

Charmandar

December 1st, 2016 at 9:12 PM ^

turned off the game when it was 0-3 to watch Christmas Vacation on freeform. looks like it just got worse. 

stephenrjking

December 1st, 2016 at 10:30 PM ^

This is the least talented team Michigan has put on the ice since the streak started, in my opinion. 

The issue of depatures is nothing new. Programs that recruit top players deal with it. Michigan has dealt with it for years.

The missed the tourney three years in a row with solid NHL talent on the roster. They were good last season; this season's team is not as good as its record.

I have a strong suspicion that some of the early depatures have been the result of a not-so-great situation off the ice. As Brian pointed out on twitter, Cooper Marody's suspension is a big red flag here. So was the departure of Andrew Copp, who was the ideal four-year Michigan guy who grew up in Ann Arbor. Motte and Compher departures, too.

I don't think Michigan is a great place to play hockey right now. 

mabeaton

December 1st, 2016 at 10:43 PM ^

This is nothing new.  His teams have sucked for 5 years.  He had chances to go out on high notes . . . he never took them.  I've had it this hockey team. I won't go and watch crap hockey. When a club team 5 years out shoot is kicking our asses, it's time to go. I won't goto Yost until changes at the top are made . . . The Michigan Hockey Team should be winning the Big 10 every flippin year and making solid runs into the NCAA tournament.  

stephenrjking

December 1st, 2016 at 11:03 PM ^

No need to lose your cool. Red appears to have lost his fastball, yes. And the team is underperforming, yes.

The players that are there are playing hard. 

And, while this season stinks, Red has earned the right to stay on too long. I am probably not a significant fan of the sport of college hockey if not for Red. The vast majority of the current Michgian Hockey fanbase does not exist in its current state if not for Red. The expectations you are putting on the team are not reasonable if not for Red. 

He was a great player for this program. He went to the NHL, he coached in the NHL, and, like Harbaugh, he came back home to rebuild a program in tatters.

He succeeded, emphatically. A peerless tournament streak. The Yost experience. The Winged helmets. All-time greats like Turco and Morrison. An incredible run of Frozen Fours. Two national titles. 

The end here is a bit ugly, but this program will rise quickly. And hanging on in decline is a privilege Red earned with his incredible success to this point.

ckersh74

December 1st, 2016 at 11:44 PM ^

Yeah, but the last national title was 19 seasons ago now. 

Has he earned the right to choose the timing of his exit? Sure. But then again, does he want to go out like this, hanging on year-to-year? If they don't get the ship upright in a hurry, he could be looking at the worst season in 30 years (they were 14-25-1 in '86-87).

I do think this is his last year. It's going to get worse if it isn't. It's to the point where he's actually starting to hurt the program by hanging on. I highly doubt that's what he wants. Oh, and he turns 77 next Thursday. 

stephenrjking

December 2nd, 2016 at 2:27 AM ^

(The last title was 19 years ago, but if you want a list of the heartbreaking near misses since then, I can write one up for you. It's really, really, really long. St. Paul wasn't that long ago. Last season was probably a mild underachievement, too, but it wasn't a bad team at all and healthily made the tournament and won the conference tournament).

mGrowOld

December 1st, 2016 at 11:45 PM ^

So how long Steven? Indefinitely? If Red said "I want to coach until I'm 90 you'd be ok with that"?

I don't follow hockey that much but I do have a very good friend who's an assistant hockey coach for M who said the players stopped listening to Red years ago. That he simply can't connect with them and that it's going to keep getting worse until he leaves.

stephenrjking

December 2nd, 2016 at 2:25 AM ^

There's good discussion here, and that's a legit question. I have no inside info, but here's some supposition:

I think Red's had his finger on the trigger for several years. I think he would have retired if Michigan had beaten UMD in St. Paul, and in fact I was prepared for him to announce it on the ice. I think he enjoys coaching but he knows that he has been in a position to retire soon for a while.

Still, he's had unfinished business to come back to. Michigan went to OT in the national title game, reasonable to think the team is so close. A flukey OT tournament loss the next season in a tourney Michigan could easily have won, reasonable to think the team is close. Then there were missed tourneys, which isn't how you want to finish, and good recruits coming in. And a return to success isn't unprecedented--Jack Parker managed to pull his team out of a long slump and win a national title before he retired. Red might have been hoping for the same thing.

Always a reason to come back. I thought he should have retired after 14-15 when a very talented team failed to make the tournament, and Larkin and Copp both surprised us and left. 

But he stubbornly came back, and was kind of proven right by how well the team played last year.

However, I think the Compher and Motte departures really took him off guard. Those guys come back and you have, at least on paper, a talent base to work with. Connor was gone, of course, but those guys seemed like good shots to stay. At least, I assume that's what he was thinking, because there's no way he wants to go out like this, and after everybody left this was pretty much a sure thing.

So this is it. A bad team, hopefully at the end of his career.

I have no way of verifying your report of what the assistant said, but if that's true is does not surprise me in the least. I think Pearson was the real engine before he left and the results kind of speak for themselves now. Too many talented teams have come through with poor player development, too many teams with questionable locker rooms, too many red flags.

Andrew Copp was the bellweather. His freshman year he was asserting leadership and playing hard and scoring key goals on an otherwise listless team. An Ann Arbor kid, playing at his dream school, a guy with slim pro prospects, the next great captain of the team.

I was absolutely stunned that he left early. Larkin was disappointing, but you could at least understand him taking the check. Same with Trouba and, later, Connor. But Copp had everything to play for in college.

And he wanted to leave. 

That tells me that things are very unpleasant. I don't know if it's just an out of touch coach or something else, but Copp didn't want to be at Michigan anymore.

When I say that Red has earned the right to call his shot, that doesn't mean I think he should keep coaching. It means that I will live with it if he doesn't. But I think he should have retired two years ago.

25dodgebros

December 2nd, 2016 at 12:06 AM ^

The team, the team, the team.  As Bo said, no coach is more important than the team.  Red has been allowed to think that he is more important than the team, and it is costing the UM hockey program dearly.  I've been a UM hockey fan since freshman year in 1973 and i love Red and no one did more for UM hockey than he did.  But, now, and for the last 5 years or so, he is a detriment to the team and the program.  " No coach is more important than the team" applies to Red, even though we all love him and he did great things in the past.   He must retire.  

Mi Sooner

December 2nd, 2016 at 12:23 AM ^

Our buddy, the former AD, stepped in and wasn't going to promote the obvious candidate to replace Red. So Red stayed on and for much longer than I think even thought.

The new coach will be from outside; I do not believe that help will come from the UP in terms of the next coach. He is pushing 60 himself.

stephenrjking

December 2nd, 2016 at 2:13 AM ^

This is an interesting theory. And it's easy to dump everything on DB, who is both an incompetent villain and a convenient scapegoat.

I would say this: Mel Pearson was not anxious to leave when Tech offered him the job. He waffled on it quite a bit. He was settled in the Ann Arbor area, his family was here, and I believe he actually initially declined.

I believe he was encouraged to go. How much of that encouragement was Red saying "I'm not retiring for a while" and how much of it was "if you want this job you need some head coaching experience," I don't know. But at the time I thought he was going to get head coaching experience to be a better candidate to replace Red. He certainly seems to be there now.

FWIW Brian has heard whispers and the feelings I've seen from around the outside of the program suggest that Mel is probably the guy. And he's good, so it's not a bad move. The downturn of the program and his departure is not coincidental.

crg

December 2nd, 2016 at 8:21 AM ^

The team, the team, the team.  I completely agree that in this kind of environment everyone in the program needs to do what's best for the team.  In that light, what does it say about a player who bolts for an immediate paycheck when he was in line to be a leader on the team.  Those players who have learned the ins-and-outs the hard way have a responsibility to help pass on that knowledge to the underclassmen before they leave.  I understand the practical considerations of course - it's hard to pass up that kind of income and risk a career-ending injury just for some additional development and college glory - but if they don't, are they really following "the Team" mantra?