It's been a couple months since we've talked hockey on this site. After all, there isn't much reason to. It's the offseason! The vaunted Michigan Hockey Summer typically brings with it a wave of news, but in recent years, much of that news has been shifted towards the spring, as players make their NHL decisions. The NHL decisions were made and covered on this site back in April, but since then, various new developments have popped up. They include, in some order, transfer portal decisions, changes to the recruiting class, more than a month of waiting for the resolution to the coaching saga, and leaked details about the season's schedule. Rather than put up posts about each item, I decided to tackle them individually in this piece. 

 

The Mel Pearson Saga 

Today is the 40th day in which Mel Pearson is still the coach of Michigan Hockey but is not under contract. His deal expired at midnight of May 1, and most expected some sort of big announcement, but one didn't come. That day just came and went like any other, with no news from the athletic department. Journalists reached out for comment and management simply stated that Pearson did not have a new contract but that he remains the Michigan head coach. In a world where coaches in most college sports refuse to coach in the final year of a contract, it's very unusual that Pearson would continue to coach without a contract. And as the weeks have drawn on since the contract expired, there's been no further announcement from him or the university.

All the while, Pearson continues to act like the Michigan head coach. His Twitter account's bio still reads "Head Hockey Coach University of Michigan #GoBlue" and his feed is no different than any other time, frequently retweeting the accomplishments of various other Michigan sports (like baseball), as well as former UM players in the NHL (Zach Hyman playoff goals, Kyle Connor winning the Lady Byng, etc). He also retweeted an @umichhockey tweet showcasing the upcoming 100th anniversary shirt for this season, as well as a tweet about the Yost staff re-painting the ice to feature said 100th anniversary logo for this upcoming season. Those sorts of retweets, praising Michigan Hockey's success and highlighting changes to the promotions for this fall's 2022-23 season, do not indicate a coach who expects to be fired. 

So what's going on here? The smart reporting at the time of the contract expiration was that Michigan's athletic department has already heard a short summary (perhaps orally presented) of what the Wilmer Hale investigation will show, and have concluded that there is nothing egregious enough to remove Pearson from his position. However, they are not going to give him a contract or announce it until the report is finished and then made available to the public (via FOIA requests). That reporting seemed like a decent explanation at the time, and though each passing day without an announcement makes this weirder, I still think it's the most logical. 

[James Coller]

A second explanation is similar, that Pearson and the athletic department both expect the coach to be cleared by the report, but that neither have heard anything from Wilmer Hale. Though you'd like to believe that Michigan has been given cliff notes on the report, it is possible that they're in the dark but that they don't think the allegations have any fire to them. Likewise, this theory assumes that Pearson (obviously) expects to be exonerated and based on those two beliefs, they have kept him on. This explanation doesn't seem crazy, considering that Michigan let Pearson continue to coach the 2021-22 season while they were in the dark (for some duration) from Wilmer Hale.

I wrote at the time that letting Pearson continue to coach while the investigation rolled along was not typical. Generally speaking, if an athletic department feels a coach is problematic, they will be placed on administrative leave until an investigation is finished. But Michigan didn't do that, which at the time seemed like they felt that the allegations didn't have any legs, or at least were not firing offenses. Letting him coach the 2021-22 season sent the message that Michigan was willing to look into the allegations (by hiring Wilmer Hale) but were ultimately unconvinced they were true or not concerned even if they were. Therefore, letting him stay on as coach without a contract, and without any insight from from Wilmer Hale, wouldn't be terribly out of character for the Wolverine brain trust, given the way they've handled this entire saga. 

No one really knows when this thing will end, but you have to think that they need to either give Pearson an extension or let him go and promote someone else by the time the school year starts in late August. At the moment, there aren't many indications that this odd situation has hurt Michigan Hockey's recruiting, which isn't too surprising given that kids are committing three or four years out. The immediate coaching situation is less concerning to hockey recruits than it is in football or basketball, and guys who come to Michigan are generally committing because of the brand and its multi-decade track record of churning out NHL talent than they are to play for Mel Pearson specifically. Michigan was able to keep two blue chip recruits (Quinn Hughes, Josh Norris) in the class when the transition from Red to Mel happened, and so I wouldn't be too concerned about the recruiting effects of this stalemate.

[Patrick Barron]

However, I say that with the assumption that a contract will be signed by the end of the summer. If this were to drag on for a full year or something, that would begin to have more pernicious effects, I'd have to think. But a couple month stalemate? Not the biggest deal when you're recruiting kids who aren't showing up to campus until 2025. That said, they do need to get it done at some point. You can't go into next season with him as the coach if there is a not-insignificant chance that he would be axed midseason if the report is damning.

Having the coach fired midseason is a good way to derail a season and would be unfair to the players who want to focus on hockey. If there is even a slight chance Mel could be gone, you need to put him on administrative leave when it's time for the season. They haven't done that yet, which again leads me to believe that that slight chance is nonexistent, but they can't go into the season at the mercy of Wilmer Hale. Get a contract done by late August, or promote someone else in the interim, unless you're completely convinced that the findings will be a nothingburger.   

[AFTER THE JUMP: Portal, recruits, and GLI, oh my!]

 

[David Wilcomes]

Transfer Portal Updates

Due to the high volume of players exiting to the pros, the number of players who wound up in the portal from Michigan was very small. The list was originally Jimmy Lambert, Nolan Moyle, and Jack Leavy, two veteran forwards and a reserve goalie. Lambert's time in the portal was very short-lived, as he signed a professional tryout contract with the Islanders, rather than commit to another school. Jack Leavy is still in the portal as of this writing, waiting for a new home. Leavy is a rather marginal player who played sparingly at Michigan, so he's not someone I'd expect to be snapped up too quickly. He's likely looking at Atlantic Hockey schools, who could perhaps give him second-string duties (compared to 3rd string at Michigan), but has not found a taker. 

Moyle is thus the lone player in the portal to have found an NCAA destination and it turned out to be.... right back where he started from. It was announced last Friday that Moyle would be coming back to Michigan for a fifth season. This one makes a lot of sense based on what I wrote back in April, that Michigan was short a few forwards and was going to need to explore the portal. At the time, it was a bit confusing that Moyle would be leaving when he could just stay in Ann Arbor and reprise his role on the Wolverines. I guess that both sides realized that it works for them.

Michigan could use a veteran presence on what will be a young team, has slots available down in the lineup, and the roster generally lacks the physical edge Moyle brings. As for Moyle, Michigan gives him the chance to continue to win at a high level, and offers him a role that isn't all that different from what his role would be anywhere else. No one is going to slot Moyle in in the top six. So if he's constrained to the bottom six, why not play for a program you have familiarity with and is likely to be quite good? Running it back made too much sense. 

The decision of Moyle to return does raise some questions about what caused him to look around. A hunch is that Michigan wanted to fish the portal for better options but came up empty, perhaps because it's hard to recruit players to join your team next season when you haven't fully announced who the coach of that team will be. They definitely looked around, and it appeared that interest in Harvard's Casey Dornbach was real, but he ended up committing to Denver. Another explanation is that Moyle was in the portal looking around, waiting to see if the coaching stiuation at Michigan would be resolved and then after hearing that it will be, decided to come back. That line of thinking would presume that the Mel saga is near an ending. Who knows if that's true, but it's a possible explanation. 

 

The newest hockey recruit [Brooks Bandits]

Recruiting Class Changes 

This one is a rather small footnote, but Michigan made a small tweak to their recruiting class, announcing that forward TJ Hughes, who they got a commit from in the middle of last season, is going to be coming to Ann Arbor this fall. Hughes makes a large recruiting class even larger, and he is not a centerpiece addition. Hughes, who is not related to Luke or Quinn, is a borderline triple overager, turning 21 in November. To put that in perspective, he is a full year older than Owen Power, who just completed two seasons at Michigan and is now off to the NHL. That puts TJ Hughes in line with the likes of Lambert and Nick Granowicz in terms of players who arrived at Michigan at a very advanced age.  

Hughes is a classic overager, a guy who toiled in the minor juniors until having a breakout season that put him on collegiate radars. Hughes is from Hamilton, Ontario, originally playing in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League before leveling up to the OJHL, which is one of the Canadian minor juniors leagues that allow you to retain NCAA eligibility (that's the league Eric Ciccolini once played in). Hughes spent only a short time there before heading west to the AJHL in Alberta, which is the same level as the OJHL. Michigan has drawn out of the AJHL rather recently, as Ethan Edwards once played there. Hughes played two decent seasons in the AJ before blowing up this year, with a 66-61-127 line in just 60 games played. That looks like a Mario Lemieux stat line, but let's remember that Hughes was a good bit older than the guys he was playing against. For example, Cale Makar put up a 1.36 points per game clip in the AJHL (as a defenseman!) at age 18 before being drafted. Hughes was doing it as a 20-year-old, and therein lies the difference. 

Hughes had a nice season, enough to put him on Michigan's radar, but those are the not circumstances to make me expect him to be a massive impact piece for the Wolverines. I do not expect him to be in line for a ton of playing time right away, but like I said on the HockeyCast about next season back in April, Michigan is short a few bodies at forward next year. In bringing back Moyle and now adding Hughes to the class, Michigan has gotten necessarily deeper. It's also not hard to view this move as a response to striking out in the portal with guys like Dornbach. With Hughes in the class, Michigan now has 13 players coming in this fall (!), and they're up to 14 bodies at forward. They had 16 forwards this past season, so I think they're probably looking for at least one more guy, but Michigan is now at a number of forwards that make it possible to have a roster that can sustain a few  injuries. 

 

The last real GLI Michigan competed in was in 2019 [James Coller]

Farewell, GLI 

Our last piece of news was announced yesterday, that the Great Lakes Invitational will be resuming at a neutral site but it will not feature the Michigan Wolverines: 

The GLI is heading to Grand Rapids!

Semifinal Matchups:@mtuhky vs. @WMUHockey
Spartans vs. @FerrisHockey

More: https://t.co/urERnTBYtt pic.twitter.com/zPME1KqxJI

— Michigan State Hockey (@MSU_Hockey) June 8, 2022

This seemed pretty much guaranteed after what unfolded last December, with Michigan's infamous "health and welfare protocols" allowing them to wriggle out of playing a top tier team with a massively shorthanded roster. I was the person back before any of that happened wondering why in the world Michigan was agreeing to play in the GLI given the way they have decided to construct their roster. Last season, Michigan sent five players to the WJC, including their top two defensemen and two of their top forwards. It would've been even worse but Brisson just missed being eligible and Bordeleau's expected inclusion on the roster was canceled by him contracting COVID-19 (again). 

This upcoming season, I would expect Frank Nazar, Rutger McGroarty, Luke Hughes, and Adam Fantilli to be going to the WJC, with the possibility of a Seamus Casey type going as well. This represents a bit of a down year for Michigan supplying World Juniors talent, but the fact of the matter is that given the way the Wolverines are recruiting, they will be expecting to send 4-7 players each season, and those guys will generally be among their best players. And unfortunately for Michigan, the GLI happens to take place during the same time as the WJC, meaning that the players Michigan sends to the tournament are not available to compete with the team for this event. 

That's been the case for a bit of time now dating back to the Red era, but it is important to point out that this problem has been placed on steroids under Mel, who is drawing top end NHL to Michigan at historic levels. He is choosing to build his teams through the top of the NHL Draft and players who go at the top of the draft are thus unlikely to be available during the end of December/start of January. Therefore, anyone thinking about this rationally would come to the only conclusion: do not schedule games during late December/early January. 

[James Coller]

As I pointed out back in December, other schools that supply WJC talent on the regular like Minnesota and Boston College either A) do not schedule games during the WJC, or B) if they do, it's against a joke Atlantic Hockey team who they can easily beat with a shorthanded roster. Michigan on the other hand was out here playing in a tournament against a pair of good programs who regularly make the NCAAs (Michigan Tech and WMU), as well as a B1G team who should be a tournament team if they ever bothered to care about hockey or employ a competent coach (MSU). It just doesn't make sense to schedule good teams during a timeframe when you know on an annual basis that you will not have your best players available. 

I get that the history behind the GLI compelled Michigan to go along with this for many years, but I don't think it's right to be guilted by history and Michigan was right to pull out. The GLI is a great event to celebrate the sport of hockey in this terrific, hockey-rich state and I wish Michigan could keep playing in it were it to be held literally any other time of the year, but it isn't. Conor Earegood of the Michigan Daily reported on Twitter that the decision was more or less mutual, with Michigan telling the GLI organizers it would participate at a different point in the season, and the GLI pretty much saying "nah dog, we do this over Christmas break" and Michigan responding with "well, see ya".

And in that case, it's time to move on. There are many other hockey programs in the state of Michigan and they can and should continue the event on without the Wolverines. In other words, I'm glad to see the GLI continuing at a neutral site with teams from the state of Michigan (like it's supposed to be), but I'm also glad to see that one of those teams is not the University of Michigan Wolverines. The GLI is better off without Michigan (featuring teams that have their full rosters), and Michigan is better off without the GLI (not playing good teams with incomplete rosters). In that way, it's like a long-term relationship that had a lot of great moments but that ultimately needs to end. It can be messy, it can be hard, but at the end of the day, a breakup was absolutely necessary for both parties.  

The outdoor GLI was a lot of fun [Bill Rapai]

There are going to be hard feelings in this on both sides of this breakup. You can read through the Earegood twitter thread to find Michigan hockey fans crying about the GLI refusing to move its date, and my old rivals at Tech Hockey Guide coming into say "the GLI doesn't need Michigan, it's better off without them" (*please read this in a teenage girl voice*). But like I said in my preceding paragraph, both sides are better off here and the Tech Hockey Guide people aren't wrong. The GLI isn't obligated to move its date just because the tournament doesn't work for Michigan anymore. It's got plenty of history to justify staying on its traditional date, but a lot has changed since it started in the 1960s. The World Juniors weren't a thing until the mid-70s, and didn't become a premier TV event in Canada until TSN picked it up in the 90s. Times change, and this relationship doesn't make sense anymore. 

I'm curious as to whether Michigan will schedule games during that window or whether they'll just use that time to rest. There's nothing to compel them to do so, but if they want to do an annual series against a punching bag (like Niagara last year), that block of time would be the optimal time to do it. I don't think there's anything wrong with scheduling games in that window if you want it to be a chance for your reserves to play, it just needs to be against a team that doesn't pose too many challenges. On the other hand, if they want to use the time to recover from the first half of the slate and gear up for the second half, I don't see anything wrong with that. Minnesota did that last season and suffered few consequences for it, so maybe Michigan takes a page out of that book.