Friday, February 19, 1999

Friday, February 19, 1999, Lawson Arena, Kalamazoo, Michigan

Tonight begins what could be the pivotal weekend in Michigan hockey for this year. After going winless for almost a month and falling rather than rising or staying even at the top of the league Michigan finds itself fighting for it’s playoff life. How this team responds this weekend on the road will in all likelihood set the tone for the remainder of the year. They have played, or not played, as the case may be, themselves into a corner. Their only option at this point is to win – not loose, not tie, but win. There are now three weekends and six games left in the regular season. Michigan is holding on to third place in the league, but barely. If they don’t win these games this weekend they could easily slip to fourth or even fifth place in the league. If they don’t start winning they could easily loose home ice in the playoffs. They are out of options, they must win, what will this team do?

Unfortunately I was unable to attend, watch, or listen to this game so the information from this point on, as it directly pertains to the game, has been gathered from other sources and provided here as a recap of the game.

Michigan scored its first goal of the night at the 6:37 mark when Berenzweig got the puck past the Bronco netminder. The assist on this goal when to one of the new faces in tonight’s lineup, Bill Trainor. However, as has been the case all to often this year once Michigan put a goal on the board they fell asleep on defense and allowed Western to tie the game just 15 seconds later. About three minutes later Van Ryn took a shot from the point, which was blocked, but Justin Clark got the rebound, went around the net, and found an opening to once again move Michigan into the lead. Assists on this goal were given to Van Ryn and Huntzicker. Michigan scored it’s third goal of the period when Comrie made a great pass to a perfectly positioned Langfeld to put Michigan up 3 to 1 with about 14 minutes gone in the period. This was a power play goal, with assists going to Comrie and Berenzweig. While getting a power play goal is good, what is not good is that they got only one goal out of five WMU penalties in the first period alone. The first period did end with Michigan leading 3 to 1.

Michigan continued to apply pressure in the second period, when Langfeld got his second goal of the night just 30 seconds into the second period. This was also a power play goal and was a very similar goal to the first Michigan goal of the night. Van Ryn got a shot off from the point, the shot was blocked, but this time Langfeld got the rebound and put it in the net. There was no more scoring in the second period until over 16 minutes had gone by when WMU got a power play goal to get within two goals of the lead. To close the period Sean Peach got an unassisted goal with just 1 ½ minutes left in the second period to once again move Michigan’s lead to three goals. This was also a power play goal, the third of the night for Michigan. This was the last good thing of the night for the Wolverines. The second period was a penalty fest with 3 calls going against WMU and 8 calls going against Michigan. To make matters worse with just 13 seconds remaining in the period Koch was called for a 5 minute major for cross checking and was given a game disqualification. Michigan ended the second period leading 5 to 2.

The third period started with WMU on the long power play and they weren’t about to squander the opportunity provided by the undisciplined Wolverines. Since Koch was booted from the game he couldn’t serve his penalty time which put Crozier in the box serving Koch’s penalty. Michigan lost two players for this moment of mental shutdown. In the first three minutes and five seconds WMU had scored two power play goals to get to within one goal of Michigan. Where the penalty kill was for this is anyone’s guess, but it certainly wasn’t on the ice. Then just a couple of minutes later a strong shot from the point pulled Blackburn out of the crease. Blackburn stopped the shot, but didn’t cover the puck. The rebound ended up right in the paint and a Bronco beat Peach to the puck for an easy goal. This tied the game at five apiece and that’s the way it ended.

The Wolverines had several opportunities to score in the overtime period, but were unable to get the puck in the net. Two stupid mistakes once again spell the difference between victory and defeat. Yes I know it was a tie, but at this point of the season, with the position Michigan has put itself into, a tie is a loss.

Michigan’s defense was once again out to lunch during this contest. While Michigan got 34 shots on goal for the game, WMU got 30. Where is the defense? How are opposing teams getting so many shots on our goal? How can Michigan give up three unanswered goals in the third period alone and give away a game that they were in control of? Did they assume that just because they led by three goals going into the third that WMU wasn’t going to come out and play hard? Did they think with a three-goal lead they could forget about this game and start thinking about Saturday’s match up against MSU? I don’t know what they were thinking and no one except the players on that team probably ever will, but I do know this. In it’s last four games Michigan has been beaten by one top notch team (OSU), they got hammered by a team sitting in 9^th place in the league (LSSU), and have been tied two straight games by a team sitting in 10^th place in the league (WMU).

The Wolverines are lost and rudderless. Where is the senior leadership on this team? There aren’t many seniors on this team, but all of them have been on teams that went to the final four every year. All of them have been on teams that have won National Championships 2 out of the last three years. All of them have been around players like Morrison, Botterill, Muckalt, Legg, etc… to see what it takes to lead a team of young players. To help those young players stay focused and on track to put the team in position to win games, not tie games. As much as it pains me to say this it appears that this group of seniors is incapable of providing the leadership necessary for this team. One of the young guys (Kosick, Langfeld, Comrie) is going to have to step up and assume the leadership role for this team. A message to the young players on this team – this team is yours for the taking. Take the bull by the horns and lead this team for the remainder of this year and for the remainder of your careers, because the current group of players that should be filling that role have abdicated their responsibility. Here is quote from one of these seniors - "It seems in the past, you'd get a team down 4-1, 5-2, and you'd be able to put them away," senior forward Bobby Hayes said. "But Western didn't quit, we let down and they took advantage of it.". We let down, how on earth can this team let down after the month of hockey they have played (or not played this year). They have been embarrassed, out played, and embarrassed some more and yet "they let down" because they had a three goal lead. They should have come out looking to score five more goals in that third period, not coast to the finish line. If I may provide one more item to show how far this team has fallen and how far the perception of Michigan as a national power has fallen this year I found this in the local paper (admittedly not a paper known for its coverage of college hockey). From the Grand Rapids Press – "Mark Wilkinson scored the last of three unanswered Western Michigan goals as the Broncos settled for a tie with Michigan in Kalamazoo". Since when did the Bronco’s settle for a tie with Michigan? Last year or earlier this year for that matter, if WMU had tied Michigan it would have been considered a huge upset. Now WMU "settled" for the tie. Perhaps this is what this team needs this year. They can join the basketball team and watch all the playoff action on the TV, because right now they don’t appear ready, able, or capable of winning anything let alone a playoff game.

As you can tell I’m a bit disgusted with the hockey team right now and I have even waited until Saturday to finish writing up this article. Rather than diminish my anger, however, it has only made it worse. If this team can’t beat this years cellar dwellers in league play they certainly aren’t going to beat the leagues top teams and they certainly aren’t going to go very far in any playoff situation. Tonight Michigan has to play MSU at Joe Louis Arena. MSU is a team that hasn’t lost since Thanksgiving and is playing exceptional hockey. Michigan is a team that can’t win a game if their life depended on it, and by the way their life does depend on winning tonight. I don’t know what is going to happen tonight and hopefully by time tonight’s game starts I will have a better attitude, but right now I’m so angry with this team I could spit nails. As we all wait for the results of tonight’s game (with much trepidation) – C-ya.