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Friday, February 26, 1999
Friday, February 26, 1999, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Well here we are just two weeks and four games away from the start of the CCHA playoffs and the playoffs in general. For Michigan the playoffs begin this week. The boys in maize and blue have painted themselves into a corner and their only chance of getting out is to win out. While Michigan is still ranked in the top 10 nationally in the polls (even though they haven’t won a game in a month, no one else has really stepped up to fill the void) they have dropped to number 12 in the pairwise power rankings. The pairwise rankings is what carries the weight with the NCAA committee and spot number 12 is pretty much no mans land. They can pull themselves back up in the pairwise by winning their remaining regular season games and by winning the CCHA tournament, but any more losses and I’m afraid our season ends with the end of the CCHA tournament. I don’t mean to paint to bleak a picture, there is still a lot of hockey to play and as I said there are other teams around the country struggling right now, but Michigan simply cannot afford to loose any more games if they want to help themselves. If they want to rely on others to play poorly they can, but I wouldn’t recommend that as a philosophy when trying to make the playoffs.
Many of you probably already know this, but just to make sure everyone is up to date our very own Bubba Berenzweig and MSU’s Mike York have been named co-captains for Team USA in the upcoming North American College Hockey Championships. This championship is a two game contest between all stars from US colleges and all stars from Canadian colleges. This year will be the third year that this contest has been held and the first year that the all stars have played two games (they had previously played a single game). The first of this two game series will be held at Joe Louis Arena on Saturday, April 10, 1999 at 7:30 PM and the second will be held on Sunday, April 11, 1999 in Toronto at the Air Canada Center. Game time for the second game is 4 PM. Congratulations to Bubba and Mike and good luck to Team USA.
Tonight’s game is the first of two against the Redhawks of Miami (Ohio). This is a team that has been on a roll since the mid season break. The only other team in the CCHA with a hotter hand right now is MSU. This is also a team that Michigan should beat. Ohio State is idle this weekend so we catch up to them in games played and with a weekend sweep of the Redhawks we can move back into a tie with OSU for second place in the CCHA. That’s the good news, the bad news is that OSU beats us on the tie breaker so we have to rely on OSU to loose or tie a game next weekend and UM must win out to actually claim second place.
The Wolverines came out flying in this game and playing a very physical game. They were skating hard and putting bodies on the Redhawk skaters faster than you can say SCORE. Just 3:34 into the contest Mike Comrie scored the first goal of the night with a nifty wrap around goal to give UM the early 1 to nothing lead. An assist on this goal was give to Huntzicker. After another few minutes of hard, physical hockey Dale Rominski added to the UM goal when with some assistance to fellow senior Bubba Berenzweig. The Redhawks were looking to clear the puck out of their zone when Berenzweig made a great play to keep the puck in the Miami zone, fed the puck up the ice to Rominski, and Rominski took it home to give UM the 2 to nothing lead. This goal came exactly three minutes after the first and the lone assist went to Berenzweig. The hard skating and heavy hitting continued in this period when with just over ten minutes gone in the period Mark Kosick deflected a Jeff Jillson shot from the high slot to give UM a three to nothing lead with only half of the first period gone. Assists on this goal went to Jillson and Comrie. That was all the Miami coach had to see as he pulled his starting goalie (Marsh) and inserted Olsen into the game. The change in goaltender put a damper on the Michigan scoring for the remainder of the period, but Miami was able to get a goal with only about two minutes left in the period to cut the UM lead to two goals. The first period ended with Michigan holding a 3 to 1 lead on the scoreboard and a slight edge of 9 to 8 in shots on goal.
The Wolverines took a penalty late in the first period and the second period started with the Redhawks on a 42-second power play. Miami was unable to score on this power play. Just over two minutes into the period Miami was called for a penalty putting Michigan on the power play. Michigan got three shots on goal during this power play with a flurry of activity around the Miami goal. Even with all the offensive pressure the Wolverines were unable to get another score. The only bad thing at this point was that right after the power play expired Michigan let a Redhawk get free enough to take a real good shot at our goal, but Blackburn stood tall in net and stopped the scoring chance. There were a lot of penalties on both sides during this period. During one power play Miami really got off a lot of shots on the UM goal, but again Blackburn was able to stop them all. The Redhawks were swarming the net during this flurry, but they were unable to get the puck in the net. With about 14 minutes to gone in the period the fans in Yost picked up on something that the officials took a little longer to see. Miami had messed up on a line change and had six players on the ice (I should say seven since the goaltender was still in net). The officials finally figured this one out and called Miami for to many men on the ice once again putting Michigan on the power play. While on the power play Michigan was unable to mount any real scoring threat, but about 1 ½ minutes into this power play Miami was called for another penalty giving Michigan a two man advantage for about 30 seconds and then another 1 ½ minutes of power play time. Even with the two-man advantage and the extended power play time Michigan was unable to score a goal. The change in goaltenders seemed to be having all too much affect for the Redhawks. Michigan again took late period penalties, but the second period ended with Michigan still leading 3 to 1, but the shots on goal were all even at 15 apiece.
While the second period seemed to slow down a little bit, probably because of all the penalties, the third period again saw the Maize and Blue flying around the ice and putting bodies on Miami players. Michigan’s Langfeld was called for a penalty with just under 1 minute gone in the period giving Miami an early power play chance, but Michigan was able to kill off this power play. Not long after the Miami power play had expired Mark Kosick made a great pass off a face off in the Michigan zone, got the puck up ice to Ritchlin who marched it right into the Miami zone and slammed it past the Miami goaltender to give Michigan the 4 to 1 lead. The lone assist on this goal went to Kosick. About 1-½ minutes later UM struck again. Once again the play started with a face off. UM got the puck back to Jillson at the blue line. Jillson then punched the puck in toward the net where it dropped and bounced around in the crease. Not one to pass up a golden opportunity Greg Crozier got his stick on the puck and gave it a little nudge to go over the goal line and give UM the 5 to 1 lead. Both Kosick and Jillson were given assists on this goal. Then just to put a little icing on the cake, just 35 seconds later working from the face off following the previous goal UM had the puck deep in their zone. Rominski got the puck up to center ice where Matzka picked it up and broke into the Miami zone all by himself. Matzka got into the zone, lined things up where he wanted them, and let fly a slap shot that went into the upper right corner of the net, over the goaltenders shoulder. This was the third goal in a two minute span, early in the third period that just broke Miami’s back. Rominski got the lone assist on this goal. The remainder of the period saw hard skating by UM and the Wolverines continued to check the Redhawks at every opportunity to keep them from getting any type of offensive rhythm going at all. With a little over five minutes left in the game Michigan made one of its typical (of late) errors and gave the puck away to a Miami player who had a clean run at Blackburn, but this time wonder of wonders he didn’t score. The game ended with Michigan holding the big edge in points at 6 to 1 and Michigan also holding a big edge in shots on goal 29 to 21.
Well I can’t say how much better the team looked on this night. The played offensively, they played defensively, they played aggressively, and they played that way the entire game. The defense did show up intercepting what over the last month would have become shots on goal. They checked, checked, and checked some more to keep Miami off balance. When on offense the Wolverines worked the puck well and took advantage of opportunities when they were presented with them. Tonight when they had an open net, they buried the puck in the net. As much as I tore into the seniors for lack of leadership last week I will give them their due this week. No less than three seniors scored goals in this game, they also had assists on other goals. The seniors also led by example and played their hearts out on the ice. Even Bobby Hayes kept his cool this night getting called for NO penalties the entire night. On a down note from penalty land Bill Trainor the only Wolverine out of this much penalized bunch who hadn’t been called for a single penalty all year long, was called for three last night. He had to take penalties sooner or later, but it was strange to see him take three in one night after going so long without any. To the Seniors I want to say – job well done!! In addition, it should be noted that crowd favorite Greg Daddario (also a senior) got into the game toward the end of the third period. Yes, Miami did get shots on goal while he was on the ice and yes he did stop them all. The entire senior class got into the act tonight, the first night of senior weekend, and I hope what we saw tonight is what we will see from here on out. This team can be great when they put things together and tonight they had things together. They must keep focus on Miami for one more night and then look ahead to the final two games of the season. Until next time, C-ya.
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