Brandon Burlon Gone
http://michigan.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1218655
Well, it's official now. Burlon is out. Wohlberg and Merrill are both expected back. There's a nice MGoLicious link that talks about Merrill that is enough to convince me that he will definitely be back, Wohlberg I never thought was THAT likely to leave.
Best of luck to Burlon in Albany, he was a pretty darn good player and he will be missed.
I guess this puts out of play my dream pairing of Merrll and Burlon (at least in college). I was thinking that could be the best, offensively and defensively, D-pairing in college, but Michigan has enough D-depth that it isn't the end of the world.
Also, on the Yost Post, Glendening is the cpatain, Hunwick, Pateryn and Wohlberg are expected to be the alternates.
bummed out about this.
well thats a setback. Lets just hope Moffie and Bennet can step up. We need at least one of them to hill his shoes. We have enough depth on the blueline but it is starting to scary.
rough year next year.
We probably won't be able to count on a near-30 win season like we have the last 20 or so years, but Michigan isn't in THAT bad of shape. Between the D-men and the Hunwick/Gibson situationi in goal, Michigan should have one of the best D's in the country, especially if Red adapts his system to be more defensive, which I would guess he will do, if not for the first game of the season, shortly thereafter. Then, if everybody can increase a little in production and one or two of Wohlberg/Brown/Treais/Lynch/Moffatt/surprise freshman/surprise D-man (Moffie full time, Bennett with a year of experience, Merrill with another year) can exploe, the goal production isn't significantly lower than last season and Michigan can definitely still pull out a tourney berth. Burlon is a loss, certainly, but he wasn't going to singlehandidly lift Michigan from mediocrity to a NC.
Unless by rough year, you mean potentially watching Mason-style hockey all year, in which case, I agree.
rough year meaning we're probably not a contender for the CCHA reg. season and will probably struggle to make the tourney.
the CCHA is weak enough where we could contend. Miami has veteran goalies and defense and Reilly Smith, but most of the rest of their offense is going to be very freshman oriented (even if their class is rather more impressive than ours...), then I don't know enough about WMU to say if they can make another run. Notre Dame should be the odds on favorite to win the CCHA, by quite a bit, but if they struggle, for whatever reason, there is a good chance that Red does contend for the conference title, since after those 3 and Michigan, the conference is very meh, until/unless somebody proves otherwise.
Yes, I'm a little bit on the kool-aid, but I would still be surprised by anything less than top 4, I think second is very doable and first is a stretch, but a possibility. As for NCAAs, yes, that will probably be a bit of a struggle, but I refuse to ever count out Red finding a way. Having the best coach in the country can level the playing field a surprising amount!
As good as Burlon is, his departure hurts the least of all the players we lost this season. D is in good shape and we have enough depth to replace him. Keeping Wohlberg is the priority and it looks like he is staying.
I was thinking too. It's not good that Burlon is leaving, obviously, because he is a great player and he's very productive and I've never heard or thought or would guess that he's not a good teammate and the whole addition by subtraction thing. But it's not as bad as it could be, since Merrill is probably the better defenseman, especially with a year of experience and we definitely need Wohlberg's scoring.
I know that Burlon was promised by Mel Pearson that he would play in the title game if Michigan made it, and aobviously he didn't dress for the game. But I hope that isnt the reason that Burlon won't return to Michigan. But it seems like it really is the only reason to me which is too bad. We need him next year after losing this senior class.
I was just going to mention that about the title game. I doubt it factored into his decision. But I can't help but wonder if it really pissed him off.
I hope he's still waffling if he hasn't signed that contract yet. If he has, please sign some F'ing offense with that scholarship.
Actually Burlon really wasn't expected back this year. He was contemplating this last year. I thought and still think that his line of thinking is clouded, but he did it.