Saturday, January 29, 2000

Saturday, January 29, 2000, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Michigan’s strange schedule for the month of January as they play their third one game weekend of this month. Tonight is the fourth and final meeting between the Wolverines and the Buckeyes of Ohio State. Last week’s game was marred by the usual extreme number of penalties racked up by both of these teams when they hit the ice together. There was a little more than the usual penalty box appearances last week as both teams have a player sitting out this game due to disqualification’s given for a fight midway through the third period of last weeks game. There were some, shall we say, less than politically correct things said in the press following that game and that could help fuel the fire in tonight’s contest. We’ll get back to the CCHA and Michigan’s game after covering some national items.

I had heard this way back at the start of the season, but hadn’t seen or heard anything about it since until this week so I’ve decided to mention it in today’s article. While it is still NOT absolutely certain to take place Michigan is looking to host the Ice Breaker Tournament next year. This is a pre-season tournament and if it takes place it will happen on the weekend of October 6-7. Coach Berenson was heard to say that it is a 95% done deal, but there are still some things to work out. This tournament would be played at Yost and in true Michigan form they are looking to bring in a lineup of some of college hockey’s premier teams. This year the tournament was hosted by Denver and included Providence, Union, and Notre Dame. The lineup floated for this tournament next fall at Yost would include Michigan (hosting at Yost), Colgate, New Hampshire, and North Dakota. These are all perennial national powers in the college hockey world and would be quite a weekend of college hockey if the deal can be finalized. Let’s hope it can be made to happen.

Let’s take a quick look at the national picture as it stands on this chilly Saturday morning. Michigan sits at number four in the PairWise rankings behind New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Maine. I still find this hard to believe, but Michigan is the only CCHA team currently listed in the top ten of the PairWise. The next best CCHA team is Ferris who sits at number 12. Michigan State clocks in at number 15 and Northern Michigan sits at number 19. This is a truly strange turn of events. In the national polls (regular polls, not PairWise rankings) Michigan nudged up one more position to number three. New Hampshire has consolidated it’s hold on the number one spot receiving every first place vote. Wisconsin sits at number two, North Dakota, the previous number three, slipped into the number four spot previously held by the Wolverines. The remainder of the top ten remains unchanged from last week (basically the only change in this week top 10 was the switch of positions between Michigan and North Dakota).

A little non-hockey story before moving back to the CCHA and the Michigan Wolverines. On Monday night there was a Mock Rock event held at the Michigan Theater. This was an event designed to raise funds for the Jeff Reese Scholarship Fund. For those of you who don’t know Jeff Reese is the Michigan wrestler who died two years ago while training for a meet. This event, organized by former Michigan swimmer Andy Potts, was a fun event for both the athletes who participated and the students who attended. Did I forget to mention that the performers at this event were indeed Michigan athletes from a variety of Michigan sports giving their best lip sync performances? The athletes are trying to get the Jeff Reese Scholarship endowed for $100,000. From all accounts the contest was extremely close with the evening ending in a dead heat between the Backstreet Boys and Nothing But Spandex. The final winner of the event was decided by crowd applause and the Backstreet Boys received the loudest ovation. While this little story isn’t really about hockey it does have a hockey connection. The Backstreet Boys consisted of John Long and Brad McFarlane from the tennis team and Sean Peach, Kevin Magnuson, and Bill Trainor from the hockey team. Word has it that the Boyz didn’t come just to lip sync, but pulled out all the stops with a precision dance show and of course the perfect hair. Hayden Epstien was quoted as saying that the Backstreet Boys were the best, but Nothing But Spandex was the funniest. It is also rumored that Kevin Magnuson also flashed a BSB tattoo on his chest at the end of the show. I wonder if it’s still there and if he’ll show it off to the crowd at Yost tonight? Anyway, to me this just embodies what I find so great about college athletics in general (at its best) and Michigan in particular. Student athletes putting on a fun show for the student body to raise money for a great cause and trying to make something good out of an undeniably tragic event. With all kidding aside I applaud the efforts of all the athletes who participated and supported this event as well as the students who showed such great support by packing the house.

Well let’s get back to the purpose of this article and that is hockey. I have to tell you right off that we got some help again last night from other teams in the conference. Both Michigan State and Northern Michigan played last night and neither one of them did all that good. As you probably know these are the other two teams currently battling with Michigan for the regular season CCHA title. Western Michigan hosted Michigan State and skated them Spartans dead even as the game ended in a 2-2 tie. It wasn’t an easy game as the Spartans did take a 2-0 lead and it did go to overtime, but the Spartans pulled even with Michigan in games played and only picked up a single point (leaving Michigan with a three point lead). Northern on the other hand got absolutely spanked around by Bowling Green as the Falcons came away with a 7-4 win. This game was played at Bowling Green where we have to play a game at the end of the season. Northern is now only one game behind Michigan and Michigan holds a four-point lead over the Wildcats. In other games Ferris and Nebraska also skated to an overtime tie, Lake Superior beat Miami, and Notre Dame beat Alaska. The win by Bowling Green over Northern is all the better because it puts some space between them and Ohio State. Ohio State is fighting for the final playoff spot right now and the team they need to overtake is Bowling Green. If Michigan can complete the season and finish up at number 1 and OSU were to get in at number 10 these two teams would have to play each other in the first round of the CCHA playoffs. I don’t think I would like to see that, not because I have doubts about Michigan, but because of the way these games have gone between these two teams this year. I don’t want to see Michigan get into a knock down drag out physical battle in the first round of the conference championships, especially against the Buckeyes. We could end up with DQ’s coming out of that first round which could seriously hurt us at the Joe. This is all speculation of course since there is still a full month of hockey to play, but hey it’s time for speculation to begin. Of course Jillson is out because of the DQ he received after last weeks game (Jean-Francis Dufour for OSU is also out with a DQ), Kevin Magnuson will take Jillson’s place in the lineup. Craig Murray is sick and will be replaced by John Shouneyia. Other than those two changes the team is at full strength. My keys to tonight’s game start with Michigan scoring first. They need to come out and take advantage of home ice and what will undoubtedly be a pumped up Yost crowd. The second point would be for Michigan to play their game. They can’t let OSU drag them into the retaliation game. When the Buckeyes start slashing and hacking they have to grit their teeth, let the Buckeyes take the penalties, and make them pay with power play goals. The last point is the defense. While I expect Michigan to skate past the Buckeyes once again the UM defense allowed far to many shots to get through to Blackburn last weekend. The defense in front of Josh has to tighten up and skate those players off the puck before they can put a shot on goal. Well that’s all I have before the game and it’s time I start to get ready to make my way to Yost. Don’t forget tonight is Maize Out, everyone attending the game wear MAIZE! I hope to have some good things to say about the game after returning from the game so until then GO BLUE!

The game started out the way I expected it to with Michigan looking to apply quick pressure on the OSU goal. What didn’t go as I had thought or hoped was the Wolverines inability to convert that pressure into points on the board. After an initial flurry of activity and a couple of quick shots on goal the Wolverines offensive pressure cooled off until about midway through the period. About midway through the period, after making nothing of a power play opportunity, the Wolverines once again turned up the offensive pressure. They got a number of shots on goal when Senior Captain Sean Peach finally got the Wolverines on the board. With just over 8 minutes remaining in the period took a pass from Geoff Koch to the left of the crease and slid the puck under OSU netminder Aho. Michigan smelling a little blood continued to put pressure on the OSU goal, but the Wolverines were unable to crack the OSU net again in this period. OSU did puck up a penalty with 45 seconds left in the period, but Michigan was unable to pick up a later period power play goal. The first period ended with Michigan leading by a score of 1 to nothing. After one period Michigan held a commanding lead in shots on goal with a 14 to 6 count.

The second period was nothing to write home about. The Wolverines seemed to be out of sync the entire period. Unable to mount any offense and providing a number of cracks in their defense, but Blackburn was able to turn away all the shots that got through to him. Some of those saves I must say were quite amazing. Of course Michigan started this period on the power play, but really did nothing with it. Michigan picked up their first penalty of the game with just over 5 minutes gone in the second period. That’s right in a game against OSU Michigan played 25 minutes and 13 seconds of penalty free hockey – one of the high points of the night. Michigan picked up a couple more penalties in this period, one for interference and one for too many men on the ice. Ohio State was the aggressor in this period and Michigan was in some respects lucky to end the period still leading on the score board. The period ended with Michigan still holding the 1-0 leading, but the Buckeyes really took it to Michigan in the shots on goal category. After two periods Michigan still led in shots on goal, however, by the slim margin of one with a 20 to 19 count.

Since the Wolverines were leading after two periods their very long unbeaten string was now on the line. Going into this game that run stands at 117-0-4. Ohio State did end the second period with another penalty with less than one minute to play in the period. Since Michigan was unable to get a goal at the end of the second, they started the third with just over a minute of power play time. Once again Michigan was unable to do anything with the power play opportunity. The other interesting or perhaps strange thing that I noticed during this third period was in the lines being used. Michigan seemed to have changed up their line combinations in the third period. With a little over five minutes gone in the third period Matzka got called for a roughing penalty that again put Ohio State on the power play. This was one of those stupid retaliation penalties that could have and should have been avoided. About one minute into this power play OSU got the tying goal when Meloche beat Blackburn to even the game at one apiece. Once again a penalty that should not have been taken cost the Wolverines a goal. As it turns out this was a particularly painful goal. Even thought the Wolverines turned up the heat more and more as the game clock ran down they were unable to get the puck into the OSU net. Regulation time ended with the game all tied up at one goal apiece. Michigan had a slightly larger lead in shots on goal at the end of regulation with a 20 to 25 count.

After a short (2 minute) rest a five-minute sudden victory overtime period was started. There was a sense of desperation on the part of the Wolverines as they tried and tried to get a goal past Aho. There was a sense of determination on the part of OSU as they had played Michigan to a tie after getting beat up all year by the Wolverines. While there were chances on both sides for scores neither team was able to put another goal on the scoreboard and the game ended in a 1 to 1 tie. OSU got 3 shots on goal in this overtime period while Michigan only managed 2. Michigan ended the game with a 32 to 28 advantage in shots on goal.

Well what can I say? This had to be one of the most disappointing ties I’ve seen in a while. Michigan played well at times tonight, while at other times seemed unable to even make a pass let alone handle the puck with any consistency. The power play which had been showing some signs of life in the last couple of weeks once again went stone cold. While Michigan only gave up one goal the defense still let to many shots get through to Blackburn as the Buckeyes again approached the 30 shot count. Perhaps the worst thing of the night was that Michigan got tied by the eleventh place team in the conference on home ice. With the schedule they have remaining Michigan simply cannot tie or loose to teams at the bottom of the conference and they certainly cannot squander home ice games like this. They have to win at home, because winning on the road is going to very hard given the opponents in their remaining road games.

Well I’ve listed pretty much all the bad points for tonight’s game, but before everyone gets overly depressed let’s look for some good things (if we can). First, the unbeaten streak continues. Perhaps it wasn’t the way we wanted it to continue, but Michigan’s record now stands at 117-0-5 when leading after two periods (still an impressive feat). Michigan did have a number of chances to win this game in both regulation and overtime. They had several looks at wide-open nets, but were unable to put the puck in the net. Yes, these were proven goal scorers who just didn’t seem able to find the net tonight. Teams have off games and I knew going into the second half that it was unlikely for Michigan to win every game. So let’s just say this game was one of those games where those little bits of luck you need in games like this just weren’t coming the Wolverines way. If we had to have a game like this, better against OSU than MSU or NMU. Penalties in this game were a relief. There were only five penalties called against either team for a total of 10 minutes per team. When compared to last weeks penalty filled extravaganza this was utterly amazing. I’m hoping that this was the teams off game for the rest of the regular season and that it refocuses them for the remainder of the stretch run.

Let’s take a quick look around the country and nation before ending this weekend’s game wrap. While the tie doesn’t exactly help Michigan in the rankings or polls it might not hurt them as badly as I first thought. Results from Friday night’s action were listed at the top of this article so you know we got a lot of help from around the conference on Friday night. That help continued into Saturday night as Western Michigan came through and beat MSU in overtime by a score of 3-2. Northern Michigan did win, but they only gain one point on us so that’s not as bad as it could be. In other CCHA games Nebraska beat Ferris 5-2, Lake State beat Miami 3-1, and Notre Dame tied Alaska 3-3. All in all in the CCHA there were two overtime games on Friday and three overtime games on Saturday. Who says things don’t heat up as playoff time approaches? That does change a few things in the CCHA standings. Michigan still sits alone at the top, but Northern now sits alone in second place while the Spartans find themselves in a tie for third with Lake State. We have a three-point lead over Northern and a four-point lead over MSU. We are even with MSU in games played, while Northern has one game in hand. Where the real help came was on the national scene. Current number one New Hampshire got swept by current number six Boston University this weekend while current number nine Boston College was sweeping current number five Maine. Wisconsin didn’t play this weekend, while current number four North Dakota thumped a hapless Michigan Tech 5-0 on Friday and 11-1 on Saturday. We should expect a reshuffle in the national polls, but since several other top five teams had losses this weekend Michigan’s tie may keep them fairly highly ranked. We’ll just have to wait and see how all of this works out, but Michigan should stay in the top five somewhere. Well that’s it for this weekend, next up is Ferris next Friday at Ferris. Provided there are no more illnesses we should be at full strength next weekend for the first time in a while. Until then, C-ya!