Goal-by-Goal Analysis: Minnesota- Part 1
Thursday, February 25, 2016
#20 Minnesota 2, #6 Michigan 6
1st period
KILE GOAL, MICHIGAN
MINN 0 MICH 1 EV 11:19 Assists: Unassisted
Cecconi picks up a loose puck in Michigan’s defensive zone and passes to Motte near center ice. Motte flips the puck to the opposite corner while Michigan changes. Collins picks it up and skates to the faceoff circle when he sees two Michigan forecheckers on their way. He puts on the brakes, takes a step back, and looks to make the outlet pass. He accomplishes the looking part but not so much the passing part; much like my golf swing, he picks his head up early and swings over it.
Kile picks up the loose puck and pulls it to his backhand. This forces the goaltender to hit the ice, and he does a nice job squaring to a backhander, should that be what Kile does (and, to be fair, it certainly looks like that’s what he’s going to do). Kile, though, somehow pulls the puck on a string back to his forehand, which leaves the goaltender flopping.
Kile’s able to slide the puck around Schierhorn’s pad, but it requires a deflection off of Collins’ stick to hit the net instead of going wide.
[After THE JUMP: a newfound appreciation for the overhead goal cam, and your weekly dose of mind-boggling CCM things]
2nd period
KILE GOAL, MICHIGAN
MINN 0 MICH 2 PPG 12:22 Assists: Motte & Compher
Motte gets the puck in the corner and passes to Compher, who walks it toward the red line. Motte sinks deeper in the zone, and the defender between Compher and Motte can’t even move much because that’s taking a chance at getting burned, a chance he can’t take since he’s defending them both. Compher passes down to Motte.
Motte skates toward the net like he’s going to try to jam the puck in short-side. This grabs everyone’s attention, including the two guys circled below. One of those two should probably be paying attention to Kile, who’s in pretty good position for a rebound.
Motte does make a move toward the net, but it’s Schierhorn who poke-checks the puck away. Said poke check actually functions as a nice pass directly to Kile, who buries it as Schierhorn tries to slide to his right.
3rd period
CONNOR GOAL, MICHIGAN
MINN 0 MICH 3 PPG 11:54 Assists: Compher & Downing
Minnesota was using the box on the PK, but Connor moving the puck to Downing pulled the defender circled below to the point while the defender in a box below moved to the middle of the ice to cover Dancs. Downing passes back to Connor, and Connor sees that he’s got a huge, open passing lane to Compher.
Let’s just take a moment to appreciate that one defender’s first response to Compher getting the puck at the side of the net is to Bobby Orr. I’m not even criticizing, since that could be a block if Compher one-timed it. I just want to appreciate the spectacle for a minute.
Compher waits for the defender to slide on by before putting a pass through another defender’s legs for a very, very open Connor. I can understand why the defenders missed him; Michigan did a nice job of getting guys to clog the net-front area and pull defenders in. Looking at Schierhorn’s position, though, indicates how this is about to go for Minnesota.
The pass is little behind Connor, but he’s able to pick it up and snap it on net in a realtively fluid motion that leaves Schierhorn diving across helplessly.
KILE GOAL, MICHIGAN
MINN 0 MICH 4 EV 14:52 Assists: Dancs & Boka
Michigan’s cycling like they’re on a power play when Dancs gets the puck at the point and shoots. Schierhorn makes the initial stop but not without a rebound which Lettieri tries to clear. It hits his teammate’s leg and bounces right to Nieves.
Nieves swings it to Boka, and the instant he gets the puck all five Minnesota defenders take at least a step forward. This pulls them away from Kile (circled below), who’s unnoticed and lurking for a rebound. Boka shoots into traffic and the puck hits Schierhorn high, going up and over his shoulders.
As the puck rolls over Schierhorn’s shoulder Kile sweeps it down and into the net. It looks like all five Minnesota defenders turn and notice him at once, but that moment is after the puck’s in the net.
SHUART GOAL, MICHIGAN
MINN 0 MICH 5 EV 16:27 Assists: Porikos & De Jong
De Jong knocks the puck away and stands up his skater. Porikos sweeps the puck out of the zone and Shuart takes off after it.
Two Minnesota players go off for a line change directly in front of Shuart, which kind of completely opens up entry into the offensive zone.
There’s one defender back, but Shuart slows and turns instead of taking him head on in order to create a 2-on-1. The Minnesota player on Martin does a nice job of backchecking and getting his stick in the passing lane, so Shuart holds the puck.
He has some space because the defender in front of him has to play off a bit to try and get his stick in the passing lane, so Shuart shoots. The puck looks like it hits Schierhorn’s leg pad before going in five-hole.
CONNOR GOAL, MICHIGAN
MINN 0 MICH 6 EV 17:12 Assists: Unassisted
A pass up the boards quickly goes awry as Connor gets his stick in the passing lane to the point. The puck hits his blade and heads for center ice.
Connor does the same, picking it up just over the center line with no one between him and Schierhorn.
Connor puckhandles a bit in the high slot, but the most incredible part of this goal is that he puts it on his forehand and just leaves it there until he shoots. There’s no deception in this goal, just a shot release that’s probably the quickest in college hockey.
Johnson goal, Minnesota
MINN 1 MICH 6 EV 17:23 Assists: Cammarata
Johnson picks up a loose puck behind the net, skates it out of the corner, and turns to see if there’s a teammate to pass to in front of the net. There isn’t, so he heads up the boards.
Collins switches with Johnson and slides down in the zone; Dancs sees what’s going to happen and takes Johnson without a problem. You can see in the screen cap below that he’s got him locked down.
Dancs brings his stick up into Johnson’s midsection, and that’s enough room for him to get a shot off. It’s not a pretty shot but it’s effective; the puck bounces off the ice before it gets to the net and beats Racine off the hop.
Could not agree more with Dancs. I don’t put any blame on Racine for not stopping a shot on which he’s 1.) being screened and 2.) expecting it to rise, not skip.
Novak goal, Minnesota
MINN 2 MICH 6 EV 18:28 Assists: Seeler & Glover
Minnesota has the puck at center ice and Novak carries in, eventually passing to the boards and heading for the front of the net. Glover passes across to Seeler, and a defensive breakdown leads to him being really, really open. If you look at the blue triangle below you’ll see all three Michigan forwards, and you can see from the direction the puck’s going that a triangle in that corner is not great.
The result of that breakdown is this shot, which actually isn’t all that bad; there’s a lot of space, but the two guys tangled in front of the net are fairly far outside the crease and off to the side enough for Racine to track the puck.
Racine makes the initial save but can’t hold on to the puck. The rebound bounces off of Novak’s skate and Racine dives for it. He inadvertently knocks it back toward Novak, who flips it over Racine. Boka lost position on Novak before the initial rebound and was never able to regain it, which allowed Novak multiple scoring opportunities; to be fair, it looks like he may have done that on purpose in an attempt to block the slapshot from Seeler.
February 29th, 2016 at 7:39 PM ^
Thursday was amazing, Friday not so much. Still much work to do but this team is exciting! Nice to pick up a win at Mariucci.
]\/[ Go Blue!
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