Friday, March 26, 1999

Friday, March 26, 1999, Worcester's Centrum Centre, Worcester, Massachusetts

Tonight it begins the 1998 NCAA hockey tournament. All the games that have come before mean nothing, all teams are 0-0-0. There will be no ties, there can only be winners and losers. This is a single elimination tournament, which means you win or you go home. Tonight’s action sees the elimination round in the East Regional. This round will have two CCHA teams in action, the Buckeyes from Ohio State and our Wolverines from the University of Michigan. In all articles I provide for tournament coverage the numbers next to the team name will indicate their seeding, not their national ranking. Let’s get to the hockey.

#3 Maine vs. #6 Ohio State

The Buckeyes started this game in a very defensive mode and for the first few minutes they were successfully thwarting the quicker Maine team. Maine was unable to get any offensive flow going, but this didn’t last very long. After the first few minutes Maine was on the attack and OSU was back on their heels more than they were moving forward. There were countless times when the Buckeyes hit the ice to block a shot. Normally you don’t want to go all the way down onto the ice, unless it’s your only option, it was OSU’s only option. The quicker Maine Blackbears were always on the verge of flying past the OSU defenders. With about 7 minutes gone in the period and Maine again driving into the OSU zone bad things started to happen. The OSU defender appeared to have broken up the rush, but he hit the ice (it did appear that he fell this time and didn’t go prone on purpose) pushing the puck right back onto a Maine players stick. The Blackbear took the gift and just beat Maund to give Maine the early lead. A few minutes later Maine was again just blasting pucks at the OSU net. Not all the shots got through, the defense stopped a lot of them, but it seemed that the entire Maine team had gathered in a semi-circle in front of the OSU net and were passing the puck back and forth between them taking shot after shot. The pressure was intense and OSU was lucky not to give up a goal at this time. With 8 minutes left in the period Maine was once again all over OSU and this time their shots were getting to the OSU goalie. Maund blocked a shot, blocked another went down to the ice to try and cover the puck, but couldn’t. Maine digs the puck out before it can be covered, it gets passed right out in front of the net, and Maine blasts it back into the net to take the 2 to nothing lead. When there were 4 or 5 minutes left in the period OSU committed a penalty putting Maine on the power play and at the time it seemed to be a death knell as OSU could hardly afford to go down 3 to nothing, but OSU successfully killed of the power play. With just over 1 minute left in the period OSU was working the puck around the Maine zone, when the Maine defense broke down, giving OSU an open look at the goal, and they took advantage of it. OSU got the late goal to make the score 2 to 1 at the end of 1 with Maine holding the edge in shots on goal at 13 to 7.

With the late first period goal you thought things might turn around for the Buckeyes and in a way they did. In addition to the lift they got from the late goal barely a minute into the second Maine was whistled for an infraction and OSU went on the power play. Alas OSU was unable to do anything with the power play and the score remained 2 to 1. In this period OSU would actually get three power play chances and they would get no points out of any of them. In fact there was no scoring in this period at all, but in this period anyway OSU played Maine about even up. The period ended with Maine still holding the 2 to 1 lead and still holding the edge in shots on goal at 24 to 17.

I thought things might be turning for OSU after the second, after all they have tended to stay close to their opponents all year and then find a way to win in the third. As I was soon to find out this was not the way things would go for OSU in this game. The third started much as the first had ended. The quicker Maine players were always on the verge of blowing by the OSU players and walking in on the OSU goal uncontested. Maine’s next goal came shortly after OSU had successfully killed off a Maine power play. The Maine player was making a move to the net, once again the OSU player hit the ice to block "a shot", but the Maine player didn’t take the shot. He waited for the OSU player to go down on the ice, then just skated around him with the puck, and banged it home. Not long after this goal it appeared Maine was going to blow the game wide open when they got off a shot from out by the blue line that appeared to beat Maund high. This goal was reviewed on replay and disallowed. A Maine player, in front of the net, had deflected the puck into the goal, and his stick had been to high. OSU gets a break, about the only break they would get for the entire day. At this point things really started to get sloppy, there are now about 12 minutes left in the game. OSU’s passing became very lazy and sloppy, they had no zip, no focus. It appeared to me that the OSU players were just plain tired. Spending the afternoon chasing the Maine players had apparently exhausted them. OSU was constantly giving up the puck and continued to chase Maine. Finally, with about 6 minutes left in the game, while OSU was on the power play, OSU again gave up the puck, Maine took it and just flew down the ice to notch a short handed goal. With about 5 minutes left in the period the Buckeyes got one back to get within two. With about 1 ½ minutes left OSU pulled their goalie to add the extra attacker. However, there was no further scoring in this game and Maine wins the first hockey game of the 1998 tournament by a score of 4 to 1.

I thought going into this weekend that Ohio State would beat Maine because of their more physical style of play, but in fact Maine was just to fast for OSU. OSU couldn’t play as physical a game as they wanted because they were always chasing the Maine players. OSU looses and the CCHA is now down to three teams.

#4 University of Denver vs. #5 University of Michigan

Well let me tell you this is the tale of two teams and two games. The first game was played by the February Michigan hockey team and lasted about 30 minutes. The second game was played by the March Michigan hockey team and lasted about 30 minutes. This was one of the most amazing turn around’s I’ve ever seen (not that I haven’t seen Michigan do this before, but I don’t recall them ever doing it in a tournament game). Let’s try to get through this shall we.

The first period started with both teams kind of feeling each other out to see how they were going to play. However, one thing was perfectly clear. UD was playing a very physical game and was pounding the heck out of the UM players. They hit a Michigan player at each and every opportunity. Michigan seemed to be trying to play finesse hockey and UD was just having none of it. With about 5 minutes gone in the game Michigan is called for their first penalty and UD goes on the power play. While they got a couple of looks at the goal Michigan was able to kill off the penalty and keep the game scoreless. The game remained scoreless in not small part because of Blackburn. He came up with a couple of outstanding saves in this UD power play. As time went by you just got a real bad feeling about this game as Michigan was simply not skating well at all. UD was out skating them, out hitting them, and just plain out playing the UM team. With just under ten minutes left in the period Michigan gets hit with their second penalty of the game once again putting UD on the power play. Luckily things evened up about 20 seconds into this power play as UD was called for a power play and both teams ended up skating 4 on 4. Now Michigan had about 20 seconds of power play time at the end of this and it appeared that after a terrible period of hockey they might actually get a goal. With only seconds left in their already short power play Ritchlin came clear in front of the net. He had the puck, the perfect set up, and the perfect opening, but he shot the puck wide – big surprise the way this period had gone. After this the announcers had to point out that were now 13 minutes into the game and Michigan had exactly zero shots on goal. With just under 7 minutes left in the period the inevitable finally happened. UD had outplayed UM at every turn in this period, but to this point had not scored any goals. Then UM left a loose puck in front of the UM net, while trying to clear it out of there a UM player (he shall remain nameless, but I know who you are) hit the puck and scored UD’s first goal. As if things weren’t going bad enough we decided to also assist UD by scoring goals for them. With 6 minutes left in the period UM finally got their first shot on goal when Jillson drove into the UD zone and pulled a nifty wrap around shot, but it didn’t go in (but hey, it was a shot on goal). There was no further scoring in this period and it ended with UD holding the 1 to nothing lead and a big advantage in shots on goal at 13 to 1. While Michigan played about the worst period of hockey of the year they were only down by 1 goal and you were going YEA!! We survived it!!

After that lackluster period I was expecting to see a much different UM team in the second and at the outset I didn’t. They continued to play as poorly in the first half of the 2^nd period as they did the entire first period. Less than a minute into the 2^nd period UM gets called for another penalty and puts UD on the power play. You must keep in mind that as badly as Michigan is playing these power plays are frightening. UD ended the season with the 2^nd best power play in the country, scoring on 25% of their power play opportunities. Michigan did kill this one off and in fact with just 3 seconds left in this power play UD got called for a penalty meaning both teams skated 4 on 4 for 3 seconds and then UM would have the man advantage. Even with the man advantage Michigan continued to play poorly and UD easily killed this power play off. All in all Michigan continued to suffer from rotten passing and they continued to give the puck up in their own zone. This would eventually lead to Denver’s second goal of the night. Michigan again trying to move the puck out of their zone made a horrible pass across the ice that UD intercepted. This happened right in front of the net and UD blasted a shot that beat Blackburn giving UD the 2 to nothing lead. Less than a minute later things really got ugly as UD got their third goal of the night. Like I said earlier this was the February Michigan team. They couldn’t do anything right and in fact they may have been playing worse than in February (at least in a lot of those February games Michigan didn’t play bad, they just couldn’t score). At this point in the game UM was simply being man handled by UD. They couldn’t pass, the couldn’t shoot, and they continued to give up the puck in front of the net providing UD with point blank shot after point blank shot. Frankly I’m surprised that UM was only down 3 to nothing. Now it is worth noting that here, at the midpoint of the 2^nd period, UM is down 3 to nothing and is being outshot by UD 17 to 1 (shots on goal), keep these numbers in mind as we proceed through this game. This third UD goal came with about 10 minutes gone in the 2^nd period and at this time Red called a time out. He pulled the team over to the bench and gnawed on them some. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Red show that much emotion behind the bench in my life (maybe he does in the locker room, but never on the bench). He got right after them and it seemed to have some effect. After getting chewed out the UM team came out and they were skating a bit harder and they were actually putting some hits on the UD players. They weren’t playing the best UM hockey yet, but they looked like a team waking up out of a 100-year sleep. Finally after some good hard work and some good passing around the UD net, Kosick fed the puck to Crozier, waiting in front of the net, and Crozier finally got UM on the board. This goal came with about 8 minutes left in the period and it seemed to put a little more zip into the UM players. Assists were given to Kosick and Matzka. With 7 minutes left in the period Peach was called for a penalty putting UD back on the power play, but for the fist 30 seconds of this power play UM was attacking the UD net. UM killed off the penalty and this seemed to add a bit more zip to the team. UM continues to get better as the period progresses and working very hard now. With about 4 minutes left in the period Ritchlin gets off a huge shot from out by the blue line. The shot is blocked, but UM picks up the rebound and is passing it around the net. In the meantime Ritchlin follows the shot in and is now positioned in front of the net. From behind the net Kosick sees Ritchlin waiting, feeds him the puck, and Ritchlin bangs this one home to get UM within one goal (Kosick got the lone assist on this goal). With about 2 ½ minutes left in the period UD commits a penalty putting UM on the power play. UD looks to be killing off the penalty, but as the power play time goes under 15 seconds UM gets a couple of golden scoring chances, but they just miss the net. They should have tied the game right their, but inexplicably couldn’t find the net. The period ends with UD holding a 3 to 2 lead and UD still held the edge in shots on goal at 17 to 13.

UM started the third period on fire. The just continued to build on what they had done in the second half of the second period. They applied pressure on the UD goal and looked to be on the verge of making things happen. Without about 14 minutes left in the period both teams lost players to penalties and we were skating 4 on 4. Then not far into this situation both teams lost players to penalties and we were skating 3 on 3. Just as both teams got back to 4 on 4, Huntzicker comes onto the ice on a change. UM was working the puck well around the UD zone, they saw Huntzicker all by himself (in fact the announcers said you could hear Huntz calling for the puck all the way up where they were), fed him the puck, and Huntzicker just slammed it past the UD goalie to tie the game at 3 apiece. Assists on this goal were given to Koch and Matzka. UM continued to apply pressure and Ritchlin again just misses on a back handed shot. With just under 10 minutes left in the period Rominski broke free down the left side of the ice, Jillson sees him and makes an outstanding cross ice pass to get him the puck. Rominski drives into the UD zone and gets off a huge shot that the UD goalie stops, but the puck rebounds right back toward Rominski. Rominski picks up his own rebound and drives it past the UD goalie to give UM the lead 4 to 3. The lone assist on this goal went to Jillson. Remember what I was saying about OSU in the first game, that their defensemen were hitting the ice far to often. This is exactly what happened here. As Rominski was winding up to take his first shot the UD defensman hit the ice and tried to slide in front of the shot. Rominski simply repositioned himself and got off the shot, then since the UD player was on the ice he had easy pickings on the rebound – keep on your skates! One final note for the Wolverine faithful. When Rominski scores in a game UM is 11-0-1. With about 9 minutes left in the period both teams again pick up matching penalties and we are again skating 4 on 4. Then just seconds into the 4 on 4 another UD player gets called for a penalty and Michigan now has the man advantage at 4 on 3. Even though they had the advantage they couldn’t get the power play goal and the penalties expire with no scoring by either team. However, seconds after the penalties expire Comrie picks up a loose puck in the neutral zone and breaks toward the UD zone. Kosick went right with him, but Mike Comrie went around a UD defender (who the announcers said was older brother Paul, but I couldn’t see the number), drove in on the UD goal and scored on a beautiful shot. I still don’t know how he found room between the post and the goalie to get this goal. The goal was unassisted and it was a thing of beauty. UD pulled their goalie with about 1:22 left in the game, but they were unable to score even with the extra attacker. With seconds left in the game it looked like Trainor would add a sixth UM goal when he got a shot off at the empty UD net, but he hit the post and it bounced wide. The game ended with UM winning by a score of 5 to 3 and holding the edge in shots on goal at 24 to 18.

Like I said this was an amazing game to watch. For about the first 30 minutes of the game UD dominated UM as they built a 3 to nothing lead and held a 17 to 1 or 17 to 2 edge in shots on goal. In the last 30 minutes of the game UM dominated UD as they came from behind to score 5 unanswered goals and to outshoot UD 22 to 1. Just an outstanding 30 minutes of hockey by UM – as outstanding as the first 30 minutes was horrible. Just as it looked like the CCHA was going to loose two teams and even worse that UM was going to be sent back to A2 humiliated and embarrassed the defending National Champions came to life and showed why they are defending National Champions. UM will need a full 60 minutes of the kind of hockey they played in the last 30 minutes against UD. Saturday night they face #1 New Hampshire. New Hampshire is a very talented team that has a couple of big scorers, including Hobey Baker finalist Jason Krog. Krog also leads the nation in scoring this year with over 70 points, averaging over 2 points per game. In addition, UM bounced UNH out of the tournament last year so UNH wants another shot at UM. Hopefully UM has all the bad hockey out of their system, until tonight C-ya!!