U-M Hockey @ MN BTT Sat Open Thread
Welp. Game 1 just had to be an OT loss. Now it's win or go home.
Time: 5PM ET
Watch: FSD+
Listen: MGoBlue Audio
Let's Go Blue! Grill them gophers!
And stay out of the damn box!
? Keys to tonight’s game with @CoachPearsonUM and @andrewmerrick78.
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) March 9, 2019
Puck drop at 4 pm CT from Minnesota. https://t.co/pGgf1Fjd9k
Strauss Mann gets the start again. Hughes seems to be walking around OK, but still a game time decision, as they have to see how he is when he puts skates on.
WI @ PSU at 6PM ET, FYS @ MD at 7PM ET.
The true key and best strategy for winning?
Do NOT go into overtime.
Update: They succeeded!
Do or die.
do that hockey.
Extra D, junior Christian Meike.
Lines for tonight as we are set to get underway in Minnesota!
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) March 9, 2019
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Quinn Hughes in the lineup, but with a 7th defenseman (Christian Meike) in the lineup as well--just in case Hughes can't make it through the game.
Quinn out there,,,good
FUCK! They score, 1-0 them.
D'OH! Lockwood steals, but misses the net.
SHIT! They score, 2-0 them.
So we just have to score 3 unanswered, right?
Jeez, so many gophers skating around our D.
Yikes
wow what a trainwreck
I'd rather have a team of juniors and seniors that give a shit than these guys who are here for 1-2 years and have their foot out the door their entire career. Results have varied but for the most part we haven't been very good with them.
I think, just like it is in hoops, that it's getting the right mix that's important. Build a team of experience and leadership and add a couple two-year-and done stars... but make sure you have talented goaltending over everything else.
Oh, good. The old "let's get bad players instead of good players" opinion.
Look around you and tell me how many of these tournament teams have one and dones. And if they do, do they ever win the thing?
To answer your question with a question...
Other than Quinn Hughes, who out there isn't going to stay all four years? Are you saying M would have been better off telling Hughes they weren't interested?
Michigan has no one-and-dones that we know of, either, so this seems like a red herring.
However, "prospects with the potential to leave early" is certainly the profile that Quinn Hughes fits. Also several guys that would have made this team better had they joined the team, for that matter.
Teams that have that kind of player include defending champion UMD, who lost Joey Anderson after two years this past offseason and has guys in Riley Tufte and Scott Perunovich that are high draft picks that are real departure threats.
The year before Denver won the title. By my scan of the roster there are at least 5 guys (I could be missing a couple) that would be eligible to play this year that have gone pro instead.
In 2016 Michigan had a team loaded with prospects. They were beaten by North Dakota, who went on to win the title. North Dakota was loaded with pro prospects, including Brock Boeser, who is scoring nearly a point a game for the Canucks this year.
So, yeah, they can win the thing.
Annnnd they score again. 3-0 them.
This is getting ugly
This is a disgrace
Lockwood draws a penalty, but given how our PP has been doing, I'm not sure it'll benefit us.
No joy. No surprise.
Toothless on the PP...again
1st period mercifully over. 3-0 them.
I am not trying to do a hot take, but was I totally insane to have expected the coaching transition to not be such an unmitigated disaster?
So not making the tournament is "an unmitigated disaster"? Then I'd say yes, you were. I thought making it this season was an iffy proposition.
There's not making it and there's having a losing season.
Making the tournament?
Do you realize that if this score holds the team will have finished a full four consecutive wins short?
It’s not like this was a close call.
It wasn't exactly a disaster last season, and injuries have been very costly this year, seeing our lack of depth going into this season.
We'll see improvement next season. Waaaaaay too early to write Mel off.
I'm gonna wait until all of Red's guys are gone before I judge Mel.
Zero leadership at all this season. No one out there should be wearing a C.
Tony Calderone held the team together last year. Vocal leader who wasn't silent when guys on the team weren't giving it their all and got them in line.
Made the Frozen Four in year one. Definitely a disaster because this year wasn't good. Especially given that hockey recruiting is done so far in advance.
I read that about hockey recruiting, but honestly I consider it a bullshit excuse.
How often do we see football and basketball recruits flip?
And these hockey players are often only 15 or younger on commitment.
Go and keep working and flip some of these kids.
It's nice to hear you know how hockey recruiting works better than anyone else on the internet.
The good news is that you put this in bold so that your hot take (and this is a really, really stupid hot take) is even more visible.
You really have no idea what the deal has been with recruiting, either, do you?
Mr King didn’t get to respond to your article yesterday about the Minnesota high school team very touching story, googled more of the story shows you the power of family and sports thanks for writing about it.
The bold is because this site still sucks on mobile and it’s often the only way you can write replies.
I do realize there are verbal commitments in hockey many years in the future. My point is - who cares? Work and flip some of them.
We are basically the Alabama of college hockey (minus bagmen).
Go flip recruits.
1. We aren't the Alabama of college hockey. We're a top five program, but we're not Alabama.
2. The bagmen work for the OHL.
3. You probably weren't following the big deal JH recruiting cycle and didn't register the situations with OW or BW that directly affected this team.
4. Which recruits do you think Mel should have focused on flipping? Which ones should he focus on now?
I am not saying I follow it closely enough to be able to name names. It’s also true the OHL poached a couple. Again - who cares?
If you consider OW a 5 star and he doesn’t come, do what football or basketball would do and flip a 3 or 4 star.
I also remember our fanbase whining for years about facing teams with 22-24 year old players who aged out of the OHL.
Then, adopt this approach until the teenage recruiting picks up.
Just stop with all the excuses and “well we can’t do anything until the 2022 recruiting class.”
You read one article by Brian, disagree with it, and... that's it?
You say this:
I also remember our fanbase whining for years about facing teams with 22-24 year old players who aged out of the OHL.
Then, adopt this approach until the teenage recruiting picks up.
Leaving aside the fact that players who play in the OHL are ineligible to play in the NCAA, recruiting overage players is a key component of Mel's recruiting strategy and even if you didn't know that just from following the team it's right there in Brian's write-up of the recruiting situation.
Hockey is not basketball or football, and your insistence on the program behaving in the same way, with no knowledge of the subject, is RCMB/talk radio stuff.
Additionally, nobody has said "well we can't do anything until the 2022 recruiting class."
Which is good, because it's not true. Not quite as foolish a statement as the one you made about the coaching transition being a disaster, but not true all the same.
Well, apparently you think things are going swimmingly and no reason to be concerned or consider a course correction.
Bravo. Certainly makes a season ending 4 game losing streak easier to stomach.
Yeah. His lack of knowledge about the fact that OHL players, or any CHL players can't play college hockey cast doubt on all of his comments regarding hockey recruitment.
Shots U-M 7, MN 14.
Van Wyhe line had a good shift at the end of the period, but 3-0 seems like a deep hole to get out of.
And it’s been almost impossible for this team to win back to back games this season, we needed that one last night real bad if this were going to have any kind of chance to win this series. And they are playing like they know their fate!
No need to bash the program. They had a 2 goal lead in the frozen 4 last season. Sure, the defense was suspect last year too but it's just been a rough year. They can bounce back.
Looks like how the basketball game will end up later. I may just go to bed now.
Go fuck off back to rcmb where you belong.
21-7 in Football
2-1-2 this season in Hockey
3 of the last 4 in Basketball