Friday, October 7, 2016

#11 Michigan 3, Union 4

1st period

PIAZZA GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 1 Union 0 PPG 08:54 Assists: Slaker

Slaker wins the draw, but it isn’t clean. He has to jostle for position and eventually gets over the other center, and as Lockwood and his defender lift their sticks there’s a lane for Slaker to pass back to Piazza.

Piazza glides for a second while he assesses what’s in front of him, then decides to try for the far-side top corner. Sakellaropoul has a long enough time to see what’s coming and whiffs on the shot.

[After THE JUMP: breakaways, screens, and whiffs]

CALDERONE GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 2 Union 0 SH 11:52 Assists: Shuart

Shuart makes a nice play to get to a loose puck first and clear it out of the zone. He also directs it to the correct area, as Calderone (circled below) is exiting the box.

Calderone picks up the puck and is out on a short-handed breakaway. He waits until he’s just about at the hash marks on the inner part of the circles to make a move, pulling the puck to his backhand. The goalie does a pretty good job reading the move as he drops his shoulder and almost initiates a poke check before seeing that the puck’s going all the way to Calderone’s backhand and that it’s more important to get his shoulder back up.

Calderone then pulls the puck across to his forehand while he’s pretty much in the crease; the puck is more jammed in than sniped, but it works.

Foo goal, Union

UM 2 Union 1 PPG 15:10 Assists: Taylor

Union’s power play is in the 1-3-1, and the skater at the point decides to move the puck to Foo in the left faceoff circle. (This makes sense, as the skater to the right was covered when Taylor was looking for a place to pass.)

Foo’s choices are limited to none initially; credit Michigan’s penalty kill with taking away all passing lanes…at least, for a minute. Foo can’t pass back to the point because Warren has his whole body in the lane. He can’t pass across the ice because Merl’s swinging his stick through the lane. He can’t shoot or pass to the front with the intent of a deflection because Martin has that shut down.

Foo does the only thing he can: wait. Martin’s stick is down and taking away anything on the ice, so Foo puck-handles for a second.

Foo decides to shoot just as Martin lifts his stick. Nagelvoort has no chance at this; just look at how he’s being screened. There’s really not much Luke Martin can do to help where he is, because if he tries to move the guy in front of the net then he’s leaving the guy in the slot open, and if he takes the slot guy he’s leaving the netfront player to do what he’s been doing.

That’s a tough position to be in; Martin’s a young guy and I assume he’ll play this differently the next time he’s in a similar situation. Cutler Martin had the slot guy neutralized, and should his stick come up the shot’s coming to the inside and toward the guy camped out in front of the net. Locking him up and trying to move him out seems like the way to go here, though I suppose there’s a chance it’s more of an impediment if you can’t move him and end up tangled and doubly screening the goalie.

Foo goal, Union

UM 2 Union 2 EV 18:23 Assists: Supinski & Vecchione

Luce has the puck in the corner and moves it ahead for Luke Martin, but Martin’s off the wall and the pass is too hard; it ends up skirting around the boards behind the net. Martin gives chase, but there’s a Union player who ducks behind the net and gets to the puck first.

Supinski then puts the brakes on and reverses direction, opening up a seam to the front of the net.

Supinski uses said seam to find Foo, who Luce seems to have lost in coverage as he goes to the front of the net; it looks like Luce is tracking the puck carrier. Luce recovers uses his length to get in Foo’s way, but he isn’t able to knock Foo off the puck or block the shot. Nagelvoort tries to come off the post but it looks like he has a little trouble pushing off, and that could have thrown off his angle. He sees the pass coming from the back of the net to the slot, but he isn’t able to stop the shot.

2nd period

LOCKWOOD GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 3 Union 2 EV 01:34 Assists: none

A Union skater has control of the puck in the neutral zone and decides that he’s going to shoot it in deep. He then proceeds to fan on the puck, leaving it sitting still and waiting for a new owner. Will Lockwood decides to step up and carry the burden of caring for the lonely puck.

Lockwood carries in and has a step on the defender who’s back; he also has Kile trailing to his left. Lockwood decides that the best course of action is to shoot, and he cleanly beats Sakellaropoul.

3rd period

Vecchione goal, Union

UM 3 Union 3 PPG 15:23 Assists: Vidmar

Vecchione picks up a loose puck in the neutral zone and carries it into Union’s offensive zone, ducking inside (and toward Michigan’s two defensemen).

Michigan’s D has this pretty well walled off, but Vecchione decides that he he’ll try to make something happen on his own. The screencap below is the flashpoint, as Sanchez is inches away from knocking the puck away as it has been pulled out to the side—Vecchione has seen that he has to either dump it in and chase or shoot, and he’s shooting.

Nagelvoort just misses here. He sees the shot coming but can’t get down into his butterfly fast enough to stop it.

Taylor goal, Union

UM 3 Union 4 EV 17:51 Assists: Foo & Vidmar

A nice stretch pass puts Union in control of the puck in their offensive zone. As Vidmar gets the puck he does a quarter turn, which keeps the defender on his back and allows him to look up ice at the teammates he has skating in. He passes to Foo.

Foo sees that Taylor has entered the zone, and they both must see the space between the two defensemen and the trailing forward as Taylor turns to prepare for a one-timer.

Taylor get the pass from Foo just before the forward crashed down, and the defender nearest Foo was unable to alter the pass. Taylor one-times the puck, and Nagelvoort somehow gets beaten cleanly again.

Saturday, October 8, 2016

#11 Michigan 4, Union 0

1st period

PORIKOS GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 1 Union 0 EV 15:49 Assists: Lockwood

Lockwood has the puck at the top of the zone and tries to chip it in deep, but the puck gets stuck in the referee’s skates.

It bounces toward the blue line and momentarily gets tangled in between Lockwood and the defender, but neither seem to notice. The puck gets left behind as those two skate out of the zone. Porikos spots the loose puck and jumps on it.

He only takes a couple of strides and stickhandles just enough to get the puck out on his forehand, and that’s an excellent decision. If Porikos holds the puck a half second longer, there’s a good chance the defender’s outstretched stick either knocks it away or forces Porikos to carry in sans shot. He doesn’t hold the puck, though. Porikos puts the puck in the top corner blocker-side, which is the only piece of open net. That’s a perfectly placed shot.

PIAZZA GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 2 Union 0 EV 19:45 Assists: none

First of all, credit Calderone and Warren with some great forechecking behind the net. They’re harassing the puck carrier and support player; Calderone’s left no space for the guy who’s now out of the frame below, and that caused him to move the puck behind the net. Warren closes hard and takes away any pass back to the corner, and the guy decides his best course of action is to rim the puck around toward the blue line and hope one of his teammates gets to the loose puck first. In other words, he’s not passing to anyone in particular, but moving the puck away from pressure in the hope that blindly moving it away from the goalie is a better move than turning it over behind the net.

It is not a better move, as it turns out. Piazza seals the puck along the boards, allowing it to settle before sweeping it on net.

To be honest, I’m not sure whether this puck deflected off of a Union stick or skate or whether it was just a perfectly rising shot. The former is more likely that the latter; either way, this is another shot that goes in just over the goaltender’s shoulder, which is nearly impossible to stop (and which can be upgraded to “impossible” if it was deflected).

2nd period

SANCHEZ GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 3 Union 0 SH 11:34 Assists: Boka & Shuart

Vidma decides that he’s going to try and gain the zone along, despite having Shuart checking from close behind and Boka and De Jong standing directly in front of him. Oh, and Union’s got the man advantage. It goes about as you’d expect, with Vidma stripped quickly. Shuart helps Boka with said puck removal and then flips his hips to get in position for a potential pass. Boka moves the puck to his right to Shuart.

Shuart sees Sanchez at the top of the zone and three Union players at or below the circle, so all that’s really needed here is a heads-up pass to start a breakout the other way.

Sanchez takes the pass and skates in all alone through the neutral zone (unless you count the Union defender on the opposite side of the zone who’s trailing). He throws in a little toe drag around the top of the faceoff circle, but the truly notable bit here is just how accurate this shot is. It seems that Michigan’s advance scouting did good work on Kupsky, as they shot high to his blocker side to great success. Sanchez buries this one just inside the top corner.

3rd period

SANCHEZ GOAL, MICHIGAN

UM 4 Union 0 EV 02:00 Assists: Shuart

Union has the puck behind their net and start the breakout to the goaltender’s right. Scarfo tries a drop pass that goes horribly awry; even though he has a teammate behind him, he passes away from a guy who’s a right-handed shot. The pass itself is bad, full stop.

It’s obvious in the above screenshot that Shuart is going to end up with the puck. He does indeed, and he shows some nice vision in immediately passing through the two defenders to Sanchez.

Kupsky is totally hung out to dry here. He has to go from locking down the nearside post in case Shuart shoots to resetting and trying to read Sanchez, and there’s not enough time to do that. The puck is on Sanchez’s blade and being loaded while Kupsky is still getting off the post; on top of that, Sanchez again puts the puck perfectly just inside the top corner.

Notes, observations, and ramblings:

• Michigan spent a lot of Friday night trying to chip the puck in and chase it down, and that wasn’t working well. They turned the puck over often and ended up facing extended pressure because of it. It seemed like most of the game was spent with one player finally gaining possession only to flip the puck ahead to a Union skater, at which point Michigan was again stuck in their defensive zone.
• On that topic, Nagelvoort looked great on all but two of the goals he allowed. He had to stand on his head at times against unrelenting pressure; David had the Corsi count at 69-36 in favor of Union. I was a little surprised to see Michigan switch to Lavigne the next night, but that may have been because they’re still trying to get a feel for what they have more so than a guy getting the hook.
• Lavigne was impressive. He gave up some big rebounds early, but his movement to seal the bottom and then get up and set again was fluid. He seemed to always be in position; after the game Red said he made it look easy, and that’s exactly how I’d describe his game. No athletic highlight-reel saves, but the type of positioning needed to win games.
• Michigan was worlds better Saturday night. Their passing was much crisper, moving the puck from player to player up the ice instead of just chipping it ahead. That naturally leads to far greater time in the offensive zone, and that cause was aided by some great forechecking. That’s going to be critical going forward, because Michigan’s pure firepower is down but can be bolstered by the efforts of guys who can force turnovers. Go back and look at the Piazza goal from the first period Saturday to see what that looks like.
• Will Lockwood and Max Shuart stood out to me as forecheckers. Lockwood was everywhere, and he seems equally adept at pressuring puck carriers and getting in position to take passes from teammates. I’m not at all surprised that he debuted on the top line. Shuart has some offensive upside (he tallied three assists last weekend), but I was more impressed with how he’s built his game defensively. On this team, I think he could function well as either a second- or third-line center.