Saturday, February 6, 1999

Saturday, February 6, 1999, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Here’s hoping that last nights debacle has put behind us, except perhaps as a motivational tool. There isn’t much you can about last night’s loss except that it stunk up venerable Yost Arena. By loosing to a team on our ice, that has nowhere near the talent we do, we have put ourselves in a very bad position in the league. With the majority of our remaining games on the road, in some fairly hostile environments, we can no longer afford a loss of any kind. Losses, without corresponding losses by the other top three teams in the league, could mean we go on the road for the 1^st round of the CCHA tournament for the first time in years. We now need help to win the CCHA championship outright; our destiny no longer rests in our hands. If we don’t win the CCHA outright and don’t win the CCHA tournament in a convincing fashion we might not make the NCAA tournament. Some might say that is crazy, but stop and think about it for a minute. We are now tied for second in the CCHA after taking only two points in the last four games (those came from two ties). The NCAA ice hockey tournament only takes 12 teams. Last year only three teams went to the tournament from the CCHA. There is only a two-point gap between the 2^nd/3^rd place teams and the fourth place team. Another loss by us drops us to third; a win by the current fourth place team ties them with us for 3^rd/4^th. The likelihood of winning the CCHA from this position is slim. From a 4^th place or 3^rd/4^th place finish in the league we would have to hammer the competition in the tournament or the selection committee might just see fit to leave the defending National Champion home and give the tournament bids to the teams playing better hockey than us. The Pairwise rankings already have one CCHA team ahead of us and there are two more breathing down our necks. Last nights loss was devastating in more ways than one and we might look back at that game with even more distaste than we do now. Well I went from having nothing to say to rambling a whole paragraph so let’s move on.

Tonight’s opponent is the Buckeyes of Ohio State and they have been playing some very good hockey of late. Michigan has got to put last night behind them and refocus on the remainder of their games in this season. I probably made things sound pretty dire in my opening, but this season is not over yet and I have certainly not given up on my favorite hockey team. I look for a much different Michigan hockey team tonight and I look for Michigan to get back on the winning side of the ledger against the Buck’s. I have written this up with 6 ½ hours to go before face off so now I will prepare myself for the journey to Ann Arbor and when I complete this I hope to raving about how good the boys in maize and blue looked, not ranting about back to back debacles.

The Wolverines seemed to be a little flat footed as the game started, managing to get themselves out of position on several occasions. On two of those occasions OSU made Michigan pay by scoring goals. We were barely four minutes into the game and we were looking at a two-goal deficit. Both of the OSU goals were kind of freaky ones that saw the puck take strange bounces down low. After Friday nights rather embarrassing loss I cannot understand how we could not come out breathing fire, but we didn’t. After going down by two goals the team seemed to pick up the emotional level, but the early jump had given OSU all they needed to get fired up and answer any challenge mounted by the Wolverines. The first period was a rather rough one with many penalties called on both teams. The second of OSU’s early goals was scored on the power play. Michigan finally got on the board late in the period (at about the 18 minute mark) when Ritchlin got the puck past the OSU netminder. This goal came while Michigan was on the power play with a two-man advantage. Assists on this goal went to Rominski and Matzka.

The second period saw Michigan continue to skate hard, but they could not get the puck into the net. About midway through the period OSU got their third and as it turned out game winning goal. This goal was unassisted and came about off a give away. Once again a Wolverine mistake led directly to an opponent scoring a goal. OSU held the two-point lead until we reached the 16:31 point of the period when Langfeld punched one past the OSU netminder. This was another power play goal with the assists for this one going to Berenzweig and Comrie. There was no more scoring in this period.

All through the third period the Wolverines were flying around the ice and had numerous chances at scoring goals. However, none of those chances led to any points on the board. Even when Michigan pulled their goalie with around a minute to put the extra attacker on the ice we still couldn’t score. We came close, but we simply couldn’t get it past the OSU goalie.

As you can see I don’t have much to say about this game. It has taken me until the middle of the day Sunday just to sit down to finish writing this up. I must say that I thought some of the penalty calls against the Wolverines and some of the non-calls against the Buckeyes were particular horrible last night. I still can’t figure out why Hayes got called for a 10 minute major in the first period. Hayes received this call right after Shegos had made an interference call against Murray. I can only assume that Hayes said something to Shegos that led to the penalty, but it didn’t look like Hayes was being overly belligerent and as an assistant captain it’s part of this job to talk to the officials about calls the Wolverines feel aren’t right. You can usually tell when Hayes is screaming at someone and he certainly looked to be under control while talking to Shegos. A tripping call against Langfeld in the third, followed by a couple of glaring non calls against the Buckeyes were just so wrong they warrant no more discussion. Michigan did go 2 for 6 on the power play and they held the Buckeyes power play to 1 out of 7, but the bottom line is that we lost this game when we couldn’t afford to loose one and we got swept for the weekend.

This weekend couldn’t have been much worse for the Wolverines. We have now fallen into third place in the league five points behind league leading MSU and now 2 points behind OSU. We only hold a two-point edge over fourth place Notre Dame. Winning the CCHA regular season title is all but gone. It would take an incredible series of events to see that happen. While the title is probably out of reach we could climb back into second place as we still have a game in hand against the Buckeyes, but it will require OSU to loose before the end of the regular season as they hold the edge in league tie breakers. Of course this assumes that Michigan doesn’t loose another game and that, at least right now, seems unlikely, but this last set back still weighs heavily on the mind.

For those who keep track of these things Michigan is now 4-6-2 in their last twelve games (dating back to the loss to MSU on December 27 in the finals of the GLI). Michigan has gone 0-3-2 in their last five games, there worst run since the 88-89 season when they had a 0-7-2 run. The last time Michigan was swept at home was on February 12 and 13 1988. This is also the first time we have lost three games in a row since a string of three losses from February 20 to 27, 1998. Of course you will see that this was just last year and if you remember after that three loss run we went on to win the National Championship. Before everyone decides to jump all over Blackburn about this loss, let me say it’s not just him. The team as a whole is making a number of critical mistakes. We made three glaring defensive mistakes last night and for each of those mistakes OSU got a goal. We made other mistakes during the night; at least those didn’t lead to OSU scores. We are getting out of position on defense, we are giving up the puck to provide break odd man rushes on our goal or lone break aways, and we spend way to much time playing with the puck instead of pushing it to the net. You need to get someone down in front of the goal, push that piece of rubber to the net, and look for the rebounds. You’re never going to score a goal if your passing the puck back and forth in your own zone or back and forth along the blue line. In defense of the team they don’t seem to have any luck, except bad luck. They’re just not getting any breaks out there on the ice and every time they make a big mistake the opponent is in the right place at the right time to exact the ultimate penalty – a score.

We will now see what this team is really made of. We only have two home games left in this regular season, the rest of the work we will have to do on the road. Will they shake this off and get back on track or will they fold up camp and wait for next year. I believe in this team, they are a much better team than the recent string of losses and ties would lead one to believe. They need to get a break here and there and get a win or two to get some confidence back. They need to get back to strong defense and they have got to push the puck to the net. Michigan has only one game next weekend, this coming Saturday night at Western Michigan. They can focus completely on one opponent and one game. They can leave everything they have on the ice for that game, because they only have that one game to play. Time will tell which road the Wolverines go down, I’m betting they will get down to work and win some games on shear determination. Until next week, C-ya.