Friday, January 14, 2000

Friday, January 14, 2000, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

There have been some interesting things going on around the country and in the conference this week. As usual I will save the conference stuff for last and review the information from the national scene first. With their win last week over the Spartans from MSU Michigan made a move in the national polls. In all the national polls Michigan switched positions with Michigan State. The Wolverines now sit in the number five spot with the Spartans at number six. The top four spots are held by the same four teams. They are generally listed as number one New Hampshire, number two North Dakota, number three Maine, and number four Wisconsin. One poll has New Hampshire and North Dakota switched. The Wolverines and Spartans hold spots five and six in each of the three polls I look at. Spots seven and eight are held by Northern Michigan and Boston University in two of the polls, while the third has these two teams switched. Positions nine and ten are held by Rensselear and Ferris State in two of the polls while the third poll has these two teams switched. Yes, all you CCHA fans are correct, that is Ferris State ranked in the top ten in giving the CCHA four of the top ten spots in the country as we start down this seasons home stretch.

Since reference was made to tournament time – see seasons home stretch, read drive to the tournament lets talk about the NCAA tournament for just a minute. The University received word this week that they have been selected to host the 2002 and 2003 West NCAA regionals. As you remember the West Regionals were held at Yost back in 1998 when Michigan pulled off one of their greatest wins against then number one North Dakota and went on to win the National Championship; this in a year when no one, including myself expected them to reach the frozen four, it was a rebuilding year – yea right! Besides the recognition and just plain excitement that the Regionals bring to the University, since Michigan is hosting the Regionals if our hockey team makes the tournament in those years they will play in the West Regional. Refer back to win over North Dakota two years ago – being able to play the regionals on your home ice with the home crowd is a definite plus for the team. Unfortunately the last time the regionals were in town I was out of the country on business. I remember going to work in the middle of the night, hitting the internet, and listening to all the playoff games, including their win in the National Championship game. I think the yell I let loose when they won that game in overtime is still echoing off the office walls. Anyway the point here is that the Regional games are great for Michigan and they are great for the fans. I am really looking forward to these games – in fact I can’t wait, this is really exciting!

In CCHA news the conference has decided to end its experiment with the four man officiating crews for this year. They had permission to use the four man crews for a total of 25 games this season and have ended it after 16. From what I hear it was getting difficult to rotate the officials around with the extra man required for these games. It will be reviewed again for future use, but if it becomes a permanent change you can expect to see some additional officials brought in to make it possible. Even though he played only one game last week, his first back on the ice since October, Josh Blackburn received defensive player of the week honors from the CCHA for his performance against the Spartans. Great game Josh and it’s great to you have back between the pipes. Some real interesting events took place in the CCHA last night making this weekends series against Miami even more important. First, Northern Michigan skated to a 2-2 tie against Notre Dame last night. This brings Northern into a three-way tie with Michigan and Michigan State for first place. The REAL BIG event in CCHA play involves the Spartans. The Mavericks from Nebraska-Omaha beat them at home by a score of 4-3. This was an overtime game, but it gives Michigan a crack to skate through to take over sole possession of first place in the conference. All teams skate tonight, if all win then going into tomorrow nights game we will still have a three way tie for first. However, on Saturday night Michigan is the only team of the three to play, so if we sweep the weekend the worst we can do is take a two point lead in conference play. To me the loss by MSU was quite astounding, they have not only lost two in a row, but two in a row at home – that happens about as often at MSU as it happens at UM. Given the rough road Michigan has to travel over the final 13 weeks of the regular season this is a situation that the Wolverines must take advantage of. On the injury front things are looking good – there are none. Everyone is healthy and back in the lineup. The only Wolverine not skating tonight is Bob Gassoff who is sitting a one game suspension for the fight at MSU last week. You should also expect to see the newest Wolverine on the ice tonight. Mike Roemensky joined the Wolverines after the winter break and started school this semester. He is a defenseman who comes from the Compuware junior team. He will be wearing number 23, worn for the previous four years by Dale Rominski, how’s that for weird. Mike’s addition once again gives the Wolverines eight defensemen on the roster, which is the normal number for this team. Well I think that’s all the news that is news so let’s get on with the game.

The first period started out as an all out speed skate, the Redhawks tried to skate with the Wolverines and that was not a very smart thing to do. Michigan is a faster team than Miami and in the early going Michigan was really putting some pressure on the Miami goal. That early pressure paid off when Mike Comrie got the Wolverines on the board first with just under four minutes gone in the period. Jillson hit Comrie with a great pass in the neutral zone and the Wizard took it from there, beat the Miami defenders, and went top shelf on the Miami netminder. Assists on this goal went to Jeff Jillson and Geoff Koch. Michigan continued to apply pressure, but they were unable to get another quick score. The game remained a fast paced, highflying contest for about the first ten minutes. About midway through the first period Miami settled down some, slowed the pace just a little bit, and then started to slowly apply the pressure to the Wolverine goal. While the first half of this period belonged to the Wolverines the second half of this period belonged to Miami. It appeared that the first period would end with the score 1 to nothing when Mike Cammalleri got the second Wolverine goal with under one minute remaining in the period. The puck got dumped behind the Miami goal, but Cammalleri was sweeping around behind the net following the puck. He got his stick on it first, came around from behind the net, and got a beautiful wrap around goal to give the Wolverines a two to nothing lead going into the first intermission. Miami ended the period with a one shot advantage in shots on goal with a 9 to 8 count.

Josh Blackburn picked up a penalty with about 15 seconds left in the first period so Miami started the second period still on the power play. The early going of the second period was surely interesting. Being on the power play Miami was looking to notch a quick goal and get some momentum of their own going, but this was not to be. With less than one minute gone in the period, and 47 seconds remaining on the Miami power play, a Miami player mugged Comrie at center ice and the teams were skating 4 on 4. Just as Michigan got back to full strength, having a 1:13 power play, Comrie got mugged again and suddenly Michigan had a two man advantage for 1:13, followed by a one man advantage for 47 seconds – baring any scores of course. Michigan came so close on several occasions of getting a goal, but even with this great two-man advantage Michigan was unable to get a goal. However, just as the power play ended Andy Hilbert got the Wolverines third goal of the night. It was once again the combination of Hilbert and Comrie. Comrie brought the puck all the way down the ice and as the Miami defense collapsed on Comrie he dumped the puck off to Hilbert who got the wrist shot past the Miami netminder. Both Comrie and Peach picked up assists on this goal. After this early period flurry of activity the rest of the period pretty much belonged to Miami. The scrapped and scrapped and looked like they would score on several occasions, but Blackburn in goal was a steel wall. Blackburn made save after save, some of them simply amazing. At one point in the period a Miami player made a great move to steal the puck in the Michigan zone. He was all alone coming in on Blackburn and made a great move to deke Blackburn. Blackburn, however, was not to be deked. As we looked down the ice Blackburn was spread out flat on the ice, doing the splits in front of the goal, he was stabbing over with his glove, and no one thought he could possibly stop the puck. In fact some people behind me were saying what a great move the Miami player made to get the score. But you know what, there was no score; I don’t know how, but Blackburn came up with the puck and Miami still had a goose egg on the scoreboard. Blackburn was nothing short of fantastic in this period, keeping the Wolverines out front with a comfortable lead. It looked like Michigan might notch a goal with about three minutes left in the period. UM had just killed off a Miami power play chance (Comrie was in the box). Comrie came out of the box all-alone behind everyone. UM got the puck up ice to Comrie who came sailing in all alone on the Miami goal. As Mike approached the goal and was getting set to take a shot a Miami player caught up with him and crosschecked him into the Miami goal. Needless to say that ended that particular late scoring chance. Michigan appeared to be getting a little bit of momentum back in the late going of this period after Miami controlled most of the period. The second ended with Michigan holding a 3 to nothing lead. Miami continued to lead in shots on goal with a 22 to 19 count.

Andy Hilbert was called for a penalty at the end of the second period; it was a delay call that was never called, so Miami started the third period with a full power play. It didn’t take them long to take advantage. Just 22 seconds into the period Miami scored their first goal of the night with a power play goal. About thirty seconds later Michigan was again called for a penalty, putting Miami back on the power play. It appeared that Michigan was going to kill of this penalty when Miami notched their second power play goal of the period with just seconds remaining in the power play. Just like that with less than three minutes gone in the third period a comfortable lead was gone, Miami was back in the game, and they were really pumped up (as you can imagine). The next few minutes were intense, as Miami was looking to even the game up and Michigan was looking to get back on stable ground. With about 6 ½ minutes gone in the period the Wolverines got a little more breathing room. Langfeld fired a cross-ice pass to Matzka who got past the Miami defense and went to the Miami goal. He actually got off two shots, but both were turned away by the Miami netminder, but Mark Kosick, who always seems to be in the right place these days, got the second rebound and jammed it into the net. Just three minutes later while again trying to kill off a penalty the Wolverines picked up short-handed goal to regain their three shot lead. Cammalleri got the puck, raced up the ice, and beat the Miami netminder to finish the Wolverines scoring for the night. An assist was given to Jed Ortmeyer on this goal. That ended the scoring in this game as the final 10 minutes of the game saw both teams going up and down the ice. It did get a little chippy in the late going as Miami’s frustration started to boil over. They did apply a lot of pressure in this final period, but they were unable to find any more cracks in Blackburns defense of the goal. The game ended with Michigan winning by a score of 5 to 2. Miami ended this game with a clear advantage in shots on goal with a 39 to 30 count.

Wow this game was everything I expected it to be. Miami is a really good team and could have easily won this game. I know the final score doesn’t look like it, but they could have – maybe should have. The only reason Michigan ended up on the winning end of this game was Josh Blackburn. Josh kind of went to sleep in the first three minutes of the third period when Miami picked up those two quick goals, but other than that he was outstanding. For most of the night I thought Michigan’s passing and puck handling was fairly poor. They missed passes or when the passes were on the mark the receiver of that pass would bobble the puck. The puck did seem to be bouncing a little weird for UM tonight, but with an outstanding performance in goal by Blackburn the Wolverines were victorious. Michigan’s power play, which looked so promising at the start of the season, has become one big stinky mess the last couple of months. At one time this year their power play percentage was around 23%. It is now down to 17.2%, fourth in the conference and falling if last night is any indication (they started the night at 19%, but went 0 for 7 last night. You can bet that Miami is going to come out firing on all guns Saturday night, so Michigan had better pick up their play in the weekend’s last game.