Friday, February 11, 2000

Friday, February 11, 2000, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Since I’ll be attending both games (barring the unforeseen circumstance) at Yost this weekend I thought I’d get a jump on my Friday ramble tonight (which is Thursday). Big weekend of hockey coming up for the Wolverines this weekend; I know I’ve been saying that for the last month, but they are all big now. As usual lets take a look at the national scene before getting into specifics regarding the CCHA and Michigan’s weekend in particular.

What a strange weekend it was last week. Michigan split, Michigan State split, some other teams won, and some other teams lost. The end result is that Michigan has moved back into the top ten in the PairWise rankings, from number eleven to number eight (as of Thursday night, Tuesday I swear they were at number nine). Michigan continues to be the highest-ranking member of the CCHA with Ferris next at number fifteen. Northern Michigan and Michigan State round out CCHA representation at numbers seventeen and eighteen respectively. There are now two teams in the country that have reached the twenty-win plateau – our very own Michigan Wolverines and the Badgers from Wisconsin. The biggest looser in the national polls was North Dakota who dropped two places to number four after a tie and a loss. In one poll Michigan dropped one place from number five to number six, but in another they held firm at number five. The third poll I look at didn’t get updated this week. Again Northern Michigan and Michigan State are the only other CCHA teams in the top ten at number seven and number ten respectively (both polls). Just two weeks ago New Hampshire had a stranglehold on the number one spot, receiving every first place vote. After the last two weeks Wisconsin now holds the number one spot and three different teams have received a portion of the first place votes. Isn’t the run up to the playoff’s fun!

Steve Reinprecht from Wisconsin is now the countries scoring leader (has been for several weeks) with 47 points. Shawn Horcoff from Michigan State has sole possession of second with 45 and Michigan’s Mike Comrie is at number three with three other players, each with 41 points. Comrie does lead the CCHA in points with thirty-five while Shawn Horcoff sits in second with thirty-four. If you needed proof you don’t have to look any farther than the conference scoring statistics to see that Michigan has been in a scoring slump. A month ago we had, if memory serves me correct, four different players in the top 10 in CCHA scoring. As of tonight that is down to two, the others are close, but they are no longer in the top ten.

Andy Hilbert received rookie of the week honors last week for his play in the series against Ferris. Andy also leads all freshmen in the conference in scoring. Since being paired with Comrie he has scored a point in his last nine games. Andy has been playing very good hockey since the second half of the season began and that is a very good thing to see. The final word isn’t in, but hopefully Michigan will back at full strength this weekend (of course the last time it looked like this would happen a rash of injuries and DQ’s left us very short handed). Geoff Koch has been troubled by back spasms and Mark Kosick sprained a knee in the last OSU game. Both of those players returned to practice this Tuesday so it looks like they are ready to return to the lineup. I did not know this last week, but Andy Hilbert has also been bothered by back spasms. Andy has been able to continue playing at it looks like he will be ready to go this weekend as well. The injury that kept Josh Langfeld in the press box last Saturday was a sprained ankle, suffered in Friday’s game in Big Rapids. Josh has not been able to practice this week (at least Tuesday and Wednesday) and his availability for this weekends games probably won’t be known until tomorrow (game day). It appears that the knee injury suffered by Dave Huntzicker won’t keep him out of the lineup. He spent what I think was about a minute on the ice last Saturday after ramming his knee into the boards, the ice, or another players knee (I’m not sure which). I was afraid that it would stiffen up on him once he cooled down after the game, but he has practiced all week and should be ready to go. The big question right now appears to be Langfeld and that will be answered by 7:35 PM tomorrow.

Some things will start to sort themselves out over the next two weekends in the CCHA. Michigan clings to a one-point lead in the conference with Northern Michigan breathing down their neck. Michigan State and Lake Superior are tied for third, just four points back and Notre Dame currently holds the number five spot eight points back. With the CCHA playoffs expanded to 10 teams this year the top five spots will get home ice advantage for the first round. Miami, Nebraska, Ferris, Western, and Bowling Green currently hold the next five spots (in that order). There is a total of five points separating number six from number 10 with every team in that second five looking for every win they can get to either insure their position in the playoffs or move up into the top five. Both Michigan and Northern Michigan have clinched playoff berths, but you know they both want to finish at number one. While Michigan’s series against Western is important for the Wolverines, perhaps the biggest series in the CCHA this weekend is up in East Lansing where the Spartans will host the Wildcats from Northern Michigan in a pair of games. On the one hand I’d like to see Northern sweep MSU, but when you look at this from a Michigan perspective it might be best if these two teams split. If they split and Michigan can sweep they will open up a little breathing room between themselves and Northern and retain their lead over the Spartans. It’s going to be quite a series up in East Lansing followed by an equally big series next weekend. That series will see the Wolverines travel to Marquette to play the second place Wildcats over two consecutive nights. Like I said, some things will start to sort themselves out over the next two weeks as the top three teams play games against each other. Northern still has a game in hand over the Wolverines, which they will hold until the last weekend of February when Michigan takes on Michigan State. While the Wolverines and Spartans will play two games that weekend only the Friday night game is a conference game, the Saturday night game is non-conference (blame the cluster system). Even with big games looming on the horizon Michigan must focus on the Bronco’s this weekend. They have to win these two games and simply cannot afford a loss or a tie; the conference race is simply to tight. When you look at these games on paper Michigan should win them, but if they are not focused they could find themselves on the short end of the score. Michigan has only four home games left; they MUST win them all. This weekend is a little scary because Western has been playing good hockey the last month or so and they have given Michigan all kinds of trouble the last couple of years. With the really big games the following two weekends I’m hoping the Wolverines don’t forget to take care of business this weekend. In my opinion the keys for Michigan in this weekend’s series are to forget about anything except these two games staying intensely focused on the Bronco’s. With most if not all players back and the regular lines back together Michigan must put points on the board. They have missed way to many scoring chances in the last few games; they have to finish scoring opportunities. Finally, I think they need to relax a little and have some fun. The guys have seemed a little tight the last few weeks, perhaps trying to make things happen a little to hard. They have to remember they are a TEAM that plays TEAM hockey. Stay within the Michigan system playing team hockey, take advantage of the good scoring chances, have some fun out there, and things will work themselves out. Well I guess that’s all for the pre-weekend ramble, it should be a good weekend of hockey and we’ll see where things stand Sunday morning – C-ya in the barn and GO BLUE!

Work related things kept me from seeing the first period and since WTKA seemed to be a low ebb broadcast wise last night I only heard the last seven minutes of the game as I was making my way to Yost. I do, however, have the following information from the first period. Langfeld was in fact out of the lineup causing Michigan to change up their lines again. UM moved Ortmeyer onto the Comrie line with Hilbert and moved Koch onto the Kosick line with Matzka. The game started with a quick penalty to the Bronco’s just 32 seconds into the contest as they tried to throw Comrie off his game early. The Bronco’s didn’t help themselves at all by taking a second penalty just 28 seconds later to give the Wolverines an early two-man advantage; this penalty was also committed against Comrie. Just 48 seconds later Michigan took advantage of that two-man advantage as Mark Kosick scored his 15^th goal of the season to put the Wolverines up by a score of 1 to nothing. Assists on the goal went to Shouneyia and Mink. This is really what Michigan needs to do, if other teams are going to go after Comrie and pick up penalties Michigan has to make them pay on the power play. The remainder of the period saw Michigan really in control, but there were no further scores in this period. The first period ended with Michigan leading by a score of 1 to nothing. Even though they controlled the first period of play Michigan only put 9 shots on goal to Western’s 4. Good, but I would have expected a few more shots in a period where you control play.

Michigan was called for a penalty with less than one minute to play in the first so Western started the second period on the power play. Now the Bronco’s might have thought this was going to be a great opportunity for them to draw even after getting outplayed, but this was not to be. There was a goal on this power play, but it was the Wolverines picking up a short-handed goal with just 9 seconds left in the WMU power play. Koch and Matzka broke out late in WMU power play with a two on one advantage. Matzka drove the puck deep, passed it off to Koch, who buried it in the net. Both Matzka and Vancik picked up assists on the goal. This was really a great play and happened right in front of me, what a way to settle into my seat at Yost. Just over five minutes into the period WMU took another penalty and Michigan was looking to draw blood again. They got off a couple of decent shots, but none of them were real great scoring chances. Needless to say WMU killed off the penalty and the score remained 2 to nothing in favor of the Wolverines. Not long after missing on this power play chance the Wolverines took a penalty to give WMU a power play chance. This time the Bronco’s were not going to throw the opportunity away and they did score a power play goal to cut the Michigan lead to 1. They scored this goal with about 7 minutes left in the period and this really put some spring in the Bronco’s legs. For the next three minutes or so they really had Michigan off balance and put a tremendous amount of pressure on the Michigan goal. That all changed with 4 minutes left in the period when Michigan got a couple of goals that you probably don’t expect to get. The first one came from Matzka as he let loose a shot from out by the Michigan bench. It was on net and deflected off a Bronco stick and ended up in the net. An assist was given to Trainor and it just goes to show the advantage of simply putting the puck on the net – sometimes good things happen. With less than two minutes to go in the period and a face off to the right of the WMU goal the Wizard struck again. Comrie was in to take the face off; he got the puck and kind of floated it back between the WMU player’s legs as he stepped around the Bronco. He then picked up his own pass and found himself all alone against the goalie and he buried the shot. Comrie, unassisted off the face off, I’m sure these things happen in hockey, but I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever actually seen it (again right in front of me). The period ended with Michigan leading by a score of 4 to 1. Michigan continued to lead in shots on goal with a 21 to 15 count.

At the end of the second period some penalties were called against both WMU and UM and last night I didn’t understand what was going on. They announced penalties against both teams, but only the UM penalty went on the board putting Western on the power play to start the third period. After reviewing the game stats this morning I finally understand what happened. While they did call a roughing penalty against a Bronco, they called a double minor against Peach (both for roughing). The two penalties cancelled each other (coincidental) and the second minor against Peach went on the board. Anyway the end result was Western on the power play to start the third period. Just as Michigan got an early two man advantage in the first period, Western was going to get one in this period. With just over a minute gone in the period Jillson picked up a penalty to give WMU a two man advantage for about 50 seconds. While they didn’t score a goal with the two-man advantage they did pick up a power play goal, just as Michigan got back to four men on the ice. This power play goal cut the lead to two and once again gave Western a big lift as they skated with great energy for the next several minutes putting a lot of pressure on the Michigan net. Once again this pressure continued until Michigan once again stretched the lead to three goals. About 6 ½ minutes into the game Michigan was breaking out of their zone, when Kosick made a beautiful up ice pass to get Michigan ahead on the break. The end result was a goal by Mink to stretch the lead back out to three goals. Assists on the goal were given to Kosick and Koch and it did two things. It gave Michigan a lift and took the wind out of the Bronco sails. The teams would skate back and forth for the next several minutes trading shots. Finally with about eight minutes left in the period Michigan drove the final nail in the Bronco coffin as Comrie got off an amazing pass to Ortmeyer who buried the puck and gave Michigan a four goal lead. Hilbert and Comrie had worked the puck into the WMU zone and Comrie ended up with the puck in front of the Bronco goal, a little to the goalies left (as he looked at the ice). As expected the Bronco’s swarmed to the puck and Comrie. Mike kept the puck moving using his stick, his skates, and for all I know simple willpower. As soon as a sufficient number of Bronco’s were around him he slipped a pass over to Ortmeyer who snapped off the shot to get the goal. It was really another amazing bit of puck handling by Comrie and it should be noted that Michigan was on the power play because of another WMU attack on Comrie. Well it was at this time that this game got ugly, this goal came at the 12:09 mark. Starting at the 12:17 mark a total of 10 penalties were called. Needless to say there wasn’t much flow in the last eight minutes of play, but there sure were a lot of interruptions. We saw 4 on 4 hockey, 4 on 3 hockey, 3 on 3 hockey, but I don’t think we saw 5 on 5 hockey for the remainder of this game. One of the last penalties was again an attack on Comrie giving the Wolverines a late power play. For the third time in this game Michigan would take advantage of a power play to score a goal. Michigan was working the puck around the Bronco zone when they got it to Matzka. Matzka worked the puck around, went behind the net, looped back out, and scored a beautiful wrap around goal to notch Michigan’s seventh goal of the game. The lone assist on this goal when to Mark Mink. Then really bad things happened, as all of these penalties were happening perhaps the scariest moments in Yost this year for any hockey fan were had with just under 3 minutes left in the game. Michigan was working the puck around the Bronco zone when J.J. Swistak went into the board’s headfirst (right where the Zambonie’s come onto the ice). J.J. dropped to the ice and did not move at all for what seemed like a minute. He was finally helped to his feet and into the locker room, but he looked real wobbly (even with a teammate on each side of him). From where I was sitting it looked like a deliberate and vicious hit by the Bronco’s, but maybe it was just my Maize and Blue eyes. Merrick went after the Bronco who hit Swistak and I was sure we were going to see a WMU DQ, but not only was there no DQ forthcoming, there was no call of any kind against Western. They gave Merrick a 10 minute misconduct and WMU the power play. Well anyway I still don’t understand all of this, it looked like a clear penalty on WMU, but it was not to be. Western was unable to do anything with the power play and the game ended with Michigan winning by a score of 7 to 2. Michigan ended the game with a slight edge in shots on goal with a 30 to 28 count.

Well this was a pretty good game for Michigan on most fronts; there were still a couple of problem areas, but all in all a good game. First, lets get the problem areas out of the way. I still think the defense let to many shots through to Blackburn. Blackburn stopped all but two, however, if they are going to let Northern or MSU take 28 shots at Blackburn I’m not so sure we’re only going to see two goals against. The other bad thing, penalties of course; Michigan continues to rack up penalties at an astounding rate. They logged another 30 minutes of penalty time last night and again I don’t think you want to be taking that many penalties when your playing the likes of MSU and NMU (but that’s in the future, let’s get back to the present). I thought the power play looked pretty good last night as UM went 3 for 8 on the power play. They also picked up a short-handed goal. The only down side to special teams play was that the penalty kill gave up two power play goals (the sum total of Western’s goals). Hilbert continues to play solid hockey and with his assist in last nights game has picked up at least one point in his last 10 games. Last night was the best offensive output by Michigan since last November and it was real good to see the offense have a break out game. The new line combinations looked to be very good as the Kosick line accounted for 4 goals and 3 assists and the Comrie line accounted for 2 goals and 2 assists. On the player side of things Langfeld will not play this weekend and Swistak’s status is unknown. J.J. seemed to be ok after the game, but UM will wait to decide on his playing status until Saturday.

The big series in East Lansing started out with a MSU overtime victory to give Michigan back a little breathing room at the top. NMU still has a game in hand against Michigan, but Michigan now has that extra point so when the games even up they can still be ahead of NMU. OSU lost in overtime to Lake State (regulation ended in a 0-0 tie), all but ending OSU’s season. If Lake State sweeps the weekend and Bowling Green should sweep their weekend you can all but say bye-bye to the Buckeyes. Ferris beat Alaska and Nebraska beat Notre Dame. With this win Nebraska moved into a tie with Notre Dame for fifth place. Whoever wins the game between Nebraska and Notre Dame tonight will sit all alone in fifth. Why is that such a big deal you ask? Outside of the fact that Nebraska is a young team and a first year team in the CCHA, the top five spots in the conference get home ice advantage in the 1^st round of the CCHA playoffs. That’s what is at stake in South Bend Saturday night as the Mavericks and the Irish clash. Well that’s it for tonight. The Wolverines and the Bronco’s tangle again Saturday night at Yost and Michigan needs to stay focused and close this weekend with a sweep. Until tomorrow, C-ya!