**Since Adam and I are doing a rather interesting behind-the-scenes hockey stats project, my access to Michigan Hockey has increased expotentially.  There is still a lot of working out how everything will come together and what it will reveal but we're both pretty excited.  Since we've began to look at some that stuff, I figured it might not be a bad idea to reflect some overall ideas on a per game basis for the Michigan Hockey team.  This may develop, stay remotely similar, or disappear completely.  Hopefully, more of the former.  We'll start with four areas and go from there.**

 

OFFENSE

If you've followed Michigan Hockey this season, there's really not a lot left to describe about this offense.  They generated 57 shots on target, last night, rather evenly throughout the game (18, 22,and 17).  Many of these looks came from dangerous areas: around the crease, in the slot, and inner halves of the faceoff circles.   Kyle Connor had 2 more goals; Boo Nieves also had 2 on Senior Night; Motte, Werenski, and Selman each tallied a couple of assists, as well.  As will be emphasized throughout, Penn State only dressed 16 skaters.  There's no question that this played into Michigan's ability to control play all night long.

 

DEFENSE

As seen by the previous section, Penn State basically had 3 lines and 3 pairings.  Michigan's defense, for the most part, was largely irrelevant.  Scanning the shot charts, there were very few shots even ATTEMPTED at Michigan's net: 60 (25 coming in the 3rd, once the game was out of hand).  Michigan for comparison had 90, with almost 30 per period.  Just glancing at where these attempts came from, maybe only 10 came from threatening areas in the first couple periods.  Penn State is 6th nationally in goals (3.69/game) and averages a shade over 42 shots target/game.  So, to be honest, I think the result was probably a little more due to Penn State's personnel limitations than Michigan's locking them down.  M did have their normal stretch of sloppy defensive play that forced some great saves from Racine (and then Nagelvoort).  

 

GOALTENDING

Again, Penn State threatened very little for the 'in doubt' first 30 or so minutes.  The defense kept most of the threats to the perimeter, aside from a few lapses.  Racine played well in his final game at Yost.  The goal came on a deflection from Cecconi as he was tracking a PSU attacker and crossed Racine's vision.  Tough luck for Racine.  He was great in every other opportunity he was presented with...though there were not a lot of them.  Because of the offensive barrage, Racine was afforded the chance to be ceremoniously taken off for last 12 minutes.  FWIW, Nagelvoort seemed to play well, as Michigan's defense sagged off towards the end of the game.  Nagelvoort made 9 saves in 12 minutes versus Racine's 21 in 48 minutes.

 

SPECIAL TEAMS 

Michigan was phenomenal last night.  3/6 on the power play and 3/3 in their first three attempts.  Once it was 5-1, M had a 5 min PP (due to a red card to Penn State's Ricky DeRosa) and then a 5-on-3 for 2 minutes.  They did not score, but at that point, the game was all but decided. The puck movement from the top line (Werenski, Kile, Motte, Compher, Connor) is just ridiculous.  Its the best I've seen in a long time at Yost.  Maybe the best I've seen?  I know Hensick, Porter, Tambellini, etc had some great ones, as well.  But that was a while ago.  Michigan's PP leads the nation at a 29.5% clip.  Last night, clearly no exception.  On the flip side, Michigan only took 1 penalty and allowed just 1 shot on that penalty kill...and it came from the neutral zone.  Again, Penn State only had three forwards lines.

 

BONUS: Odd Man Rushes

Still in the infancy of deciding how to track these and what to do with them but from what I counted last night: 4 OMRs given up for Michigan.  

• The first 2 were soft 3v2s that didn't even result in a quality look.
• The third was Cecconi with an awful centering pass from the blue line that was picked off and Scheid came in on a rush before Martin caught him at the top of the circles.  Racine calmly blocked the shot into the corner.  
• The fourth was a neutral zone giveaway that left Downing back in a 2v1 but a nice back-check from Warren nullified the opportunity.