Friday, October 30, 2015

Michigan 5, Robert Morris 3

1st period

UM 0 RM 1 EV 16:16 Denham from Gibson

Joseph Cecconi attempts a routine pass to Zach Werenski, but the puck hops over his stick. Denham, who’s in front of Werenski in the screen cap below, closes on the puck as Werenski turns to recover and taps it into the neutral zone.

Cecconi gets back to help Werenski, who’s now in a footrace in what appears to be a rapidly developing 2-on-1.

There seems to be some miscommunication here as Cecconi points to the trailer and covers the puck carrier, but Werenski just sort of glides through the middle and stays shaded to the side with the puck carrier.

Gibson, who Werenski failed to cover, gets a nice pass from Denham and skates in on Nagelvoort. Nagelvoort make the initial save but Denham is unchecked (Gibson plows through Cecconi; you can see that happening in the screen cap below) and chops the rebound in.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest]

2nd period

UM 1 RM 1 EV 11:15 Compher (1) unassisted

Compher tries to jam the puck in near side but is turned away. The rebound comes back to him, and he again carries it behind the net. As he’s hit he tries to pass to Alex Kile. That pass, however, is intercepted. The Robert Morris skater then decides to try and pass behind the net to clear, and Compher is able to pull his skates together and block the pass.

He wastes no time, immediately peeling off for a backhanded attempt. He’s greeted by three Robert Morris players who all take him down and pile on.

Somewhere in that mass of humanity the puck crosses the line.

UM 1 RM 2 EV 12:30 Dorowicz from Cope

Robert Morris somehow gets the pass through two defenders and works it even deeper into the zone. Seeing this, Shuart reverses course and tries to take the puck carrier.

Werenski, who’s supposed to be covering the front of the net, gets his stick almost in the passing lane to the skater in the faceoff circle. At this point there’s no doubt that the puck carrier is going to take this to the front of the net.

Seeing the puck carrier barreling forward, Werenski pulls up and turns away from him. It looks like he’s setting a pick here, but on film it seems Shuart’s able to get around to the inside, albeit having to slow a bit and alter his course with no choice but to stick with the puck carrier when instead he should be getting help from the netfront defender.

With Shuart behind this leaves Nagelvoort in a pretty awful situation. He’s one-on-one with a guy who’s already forced him to lock down a post and move laterally. The skater has the upper hand, and he flips the puck over Nagelvoort’s pad.

UM 1 RM 3 EV 18:19 Lynch from Gibson & Moore

Moore starts a breakout with a really long stretch pass through the Neutral zone that Lynch corrals.

Lynch carries in on a 2-on-1 and De Jong comes over to cover. Somehow Lynch threads a perfect pass through De Jong’s legs. Gibson gathers and shoots, and Nagelvoort makes the stop.

But not without a rebound. As Gibson skates past the net (with Calderone a step back the whole way) Lynch approaches. Cecconi has turned but isn’t able to get a stick on it; he’s not in position to do so, but that’s more an effect of having to turn and cover than being in absolutely the wrong place. It’s an easy forehanded shot for Lynch.

3rd period

UM 2 RM 3 EV 01:38 Marody (3) from Calderone (2) & Warren (2)

Michigan gets a 2-on-2 break started because Cecconi blocks a shot in the defensive zone, with the puck picked up and carried up by Brendan Warren. Warren passes ahead to Calderone as they’re entering the offensive zone.

Calderone has no passing lane to Warren, and instead of carrying in himself he makes a no-look drop pass to the trailer, Cooper Marody.

Marody roofs a shot that hits  the top corner so quickly the goaltender never even lifts his glove.

UM 3 RM 3 PPG 05:23 Downing (1) from Kile (2) & Warren (3)

Kile passes to Warren in the corner, who then passes back to Kile near the boards. This back and forth keeps the attention of the two defenders labeled in the screen cap; a third is tied up in the middle, leaving just one to cover two Michigan skaters.

Kile passes to Downing at the point, who has a ton of time and space. He shoots quickly, though, and beats the goalie glove-side (again).

UM 4 RM 3 PPG 11:55 Werenski (1) from Connor (4)

Werenski passes down low to Connor, who sends a return pass back almost immediately. This gets the low defender moving, leaving some ground to make up between himself and Werenski.

Werenski executes a beautiful shot fake that freezes the two defenders boxed in below. With the one on the left hitting his knee, Werenski knows that he’s going to be able to walk around these two, and he does.

The defender who took a knee tries to recover but he can’t; he’s circled below, and you can see that he’s too far to stop Werenski from picking his shot. Michigan’s skaters pretty clearly saw something on the scouting report to take advantage of, as Werenski puts the puck in the glove-side top corner and the goalie is beaten again.

UM 5 RM 3 EV 14:19 Calderone (3) from Marody (4) & Shuart (2)

Shuart carries the puck in down the wing and tries to center it, but the puck gets deflected by a Robert Morris defender. That same defender puts a body on Shuart (who has spun around), but it’s not enough to knock him down. Shuart recovers the puck.

Shuart threads a pass through a crossing defender to Marody, who sees that the netfront defender is low and giving up enough space to easily pass to the goaltender’s right, where Calderone awaits.

Calderone one-times it, and you can see that he’s already following through when the goaltender starts to dive to cover that side of the net. The puck’s long since been released, and the goalie has no chance to recover. This goal came in part because of a defender playing very shallow and in part because of excellent, crisp puck movement.

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Michigan 0, Robert Morris 4

1st period

UM 0 RM 1 EV 02:40 Denham from Friedmann

Downing goes to retrieve a puck that’s slid toward the corner off of a broken up rush, and just as he gets the puck he has his stick lifted and the puck stolen.

The pass gets by Werenski for a split second, but he turns with the pass and is able to break it up. Unfortunately his spin results in the puck being launched toward the front of the net.

The pass in front is redirected by Denham; his deflection beats Nagelvoort through the five hole.

UM 0 RM 2 EV 10:37 Leavens from Gibson

Michigan’s been trying to pass their way out of the defensive zone forever, and just as they get it to the blue line Compher has it knocked away.

Compher gets back to the middle to take care of his defensive responsibility as he should, though a 2-on-1 breaks out the other way.

Gibson times his pass well, and Leavens is able to shoot from a fairly bad angle but without much resistance. He hits the far-side top corner. This is a bit of a soft goal, but it did come off of a turnover and a rapidly-evolving 2-on-1 in the dang defensive zone.

UM 0 RM 3 EV 19:02 Wilson from Gibson

Michigan loses a faceoff, and the left wing (Gibson) passes to a defenseman who’s pinching intelligently i.e. he has the puck and is headed deep into the offensive zone because there’s no one there to impede his progress.

Nagelvoort has the post locked down well, so Wilson holds the puck and continues toward the crease in an effort to get Nagelvoort moving.

It doesn’t take long for him to see something he likes, as he snaps a backhander that beats Nagelvoort…well, I’m still not sure exactly where. I think it’s near-side as Nagelvoort opens up just a bit as he’s about to move laterally, but I’m not positive.

2nd period

UM 0 RM 4 EV 19:15 Lynch from Mann & Leavens

Michigan’s spent an eternity trying to clear the zone when Warren and Gibson both hack at a loose puck. The puck ricochets to the goal-mouth. Gibson pursues while Warren sort stands there for a minute.

Some Michigan defenders converge on the net and are able to flip the puck away as Gibson skates across the front of the net, but it dies and Leavens gathers and turns hard back toward the net. He immediately fires, and the shot hits Racine (oh yeah, Red switched goaltenders by this point) and bounces away.

Lynch was behind the play but charges hard upon seeing the loose puck. Calderone tries to cover but is a step behind. Lynch shoots it and beats Racine five-hole.

Notes/Thoughts/Brief Hot Taeks

This defense is as frustrating as it’s been the last three years. I was skeptical when some of the preseason hype was about how good this defense would be, and so far that skepticism unfortunately seems warranted. There are way, way too many odd-man rushes being given up; guys just do not seem to know where they’re supposed to be. That’s exacerbated by some players who seem to try and outskate or outpass everything and everyone when they really just need to put a body on the opposition. There’s a lot of offensive talent in the defense corps, but right now there’s no lockdown defender. As the mistakes mount it seems more and more likely that this team is going to have to outscore its mistakes, a formula that hasn’t exactly proven fruitful the last few years.

RPI is weird and early-season RPI is weirder and hockey is just the weirdest. Michigan dropped precipitously even though they split at home with a team that USCHO has 18th. They’re now ranked 21st, which is a big drop from last week’s spot but feels more accurate.

JT Compher is a true two-way forward. He’s always had a lot of offensive talent and exerted a ton of effort, but watching him this weekend reinforced that he knows his defensive assignments better than most collegiate forwards I’ve seen. He was consistently in position, and in the rare instances he was caught behind a play he fought to get back to cover his area of the ice and ceded nothing easy.

The goaltender platoon rages on. I thought that Nagelvoort was starting to pull away, and then this weekend happened. We’re right back where we’ve been the last couple of seasons; someone plays well for a while and tails off, the other guy comes in and looks great before tailing off; lather, rinse, repeat.

Next: Michigan’s off this weekend, and their next “series” is a one-off contest with unranked Niagra at Yost on the 13th.