Friday, March 17, 2000

Friday, March 17, 2000, Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan

The last weekend of the CCHA season is here as we prepare for tonight’s semi-final game between Michigan and Nebraska-Omaha. Nebraska is the Cinderella team in this year’s tournament while Michigan looks to add the tournament championship to their regular season championship. Let’s start, as usual, with a look around the country.

Let’s start with the PairWise this week rather than the national polls. Michigan still sits at number ten in the PairWise rankings unable to move anywhere with wins against a sub .500 team last weekend. The next closest CCHA team continues to be Michigan State at number twelve. After that we have to go all the way to number twenty where we find Ferris, then Northern Michigan at twenty two, and the last CCHA team in the PairWise is Lake State at twenty three. From the standpoint of the PairWise rankings Michigan would be looking at a fairly low seed in the NCAA tournament. There was only one national poll that changed this week and that saw Michigan slide down one spot to number six. They basically traded places with Maine. I don’t know why this was, they both swept first round playoff series, Maine had to go to overtime one night to do it, but for some reason the pollsters advanced Maine and dropped Michigan. Wisconsin continues to have a stranglehold on first place and for the third or fourth week in a row Boston University and North Dakota traded places with Boston now at number two and North Dakota at number three. New Hampshire still sits in the number four spot. If we jump over Maine and Michigan the top St. Lawrence, Boston College, Michigan State, and Colgate round out ten in spots seven through ten respectively. As you can see the top ten, like the PairWise is heavy with teams from the East with only two CCHA teams and two WCHA teams.

In keeping with national news lets look at the tournament a little bit. I have mentioned this before, but the NCAA has finally made it official. This past Monday (March 13) the NCAA released a statement announcing that the East Regional would be held in Worcester, Massachusetts and the West Regional would be held in Ann Arbor, Michigan for both the 2002 and 2003 seasons. Worcester’s Centrum Center will also be hosting the East Regional in 2001. The dates for the East Regional are March 23-24, 2002 and March 28-29, 2003. The dates for the West Regional are March 22-23, 2002 and March 29-30, 2003. These should be outstanding games and I am really looking forward to it. As a side note the West Regional for 2001 will be in Grand Rapids, Michigan at Van Andel Arena. For the next three years, provided the Wolverines can get to the West Regional, they will be playing either on home ice or in an arena just 2 hours from home. Our chances of watching the Wolverines up close and personal as they play frozen four berths are great (remember the North Dakota game from 1998). The frozen four tournaments in 2002 and 2003 will be in the New St. Paul Arena, St. Paul, Minnesota (2002) and the Marine Midland Arena, Buffalo, New York (2003).

Moving back to the CCHA we have a little bit of additional news. The CCHA awards banquet was held Thursday night and while I won’t provide the full list of winners at this time I will provide the Wolverine winners. As mentioned in last week’s articles Mike Comrie and Dave Huntzicker made first and second team all conference, while Andy Hilbert was named to the all rookie team. On Thursday night Jeff Jillson picked up the Best Offensive Defenseman award and Captain Sean Peach was awarded the Terry Flanagan Memorial Award. This is the first time that a Wolverine has won either of these two awards. Jillson won his award by leading all CCHA defensemen in scoring with 23 points (in conference) and ended the season at +12. The Terry Flanagan Memorial Award is given to a player who is both active on campus and in the community and has overcome some personal adversity. Sean is active on campus and in the community and overcame a series of concussions in his first two years that could have ended his career, to become the team Captain and teams best defenseman. Congratulations to all the Wolverines who have picked up CCHA awards.

Scott Matzka picked up CCHA offensive player of the week honors for the second consecutive week for his performance last weekend in the first round playoff series against Western Michigan. While ex-Wolverine Mike Knuble was named to the North American Hockey League’s all-time list.

That brings us to tonight’s match up in the semi-finals between the Michigan Wolverines and the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks. On paper you have to look at this game between the number 1 seed Wolverines and the number 7 seed Mavericks as a game tilted heavily in Michigan’s favor. However, when you look at what Nebraska has done in the last three games you have to wonder just what is happening with this team. Starting in February Michigan’s record was 5-2-3 while Nebraska’s was 3-4-1. Nebraska picking up more losses than wins, but Michigan has those three ties. Then you look at the playoffs from last weekend where Michigan swept Western Michigan, but did it ugly. Michigan didn’t play very good Friday night, but were just to good for the Bronco’s. They played a better game on Saturday, but still had some things to improve on. Michigan did these things on their home ice. Nebraska on the other hand went on the road to Northern Michigan to take on the Wildcats and came away with a series win. Not trying to knock the Mavericks, but I did not see them going to Northern and coming away with a series win. They then went back home and beat Bowling Green in the Tuesday night play in game to earn a trip to The Joe in their first year in the CCHA. This year is the first time in over a decade to have a number seven seed in the championship finals. Anyway, the Mavericks are on a role right now and Michigan, while winning, has been struggling a little bit. Now that we are in the win or go home phase of college hockey, and a possible first round bye in the NCAA tournament at stake, I expect the Wolverines to put their doldrums behind them and really come out blazing Friday night. The Mavericks will likely put up a tough battle, but I have to go with the numbers, which favor Michigan (and it doesn’t hurt that I, like all of us, am a Michigan fan). I did this lead in portion of the article early Friday afternoon and then had to wait for the game. Circumstances beyond my control kept me from attending, watching, or listening to this game until the final minutes of the third period (imagine my surprise). I have recapped the game using information from other sources.

This game started with Nebraska blazing and the Wolverines sleepwalking. Nebraska seemed to carry all the play in this period, checking and cutting off passing lanes. They kept Michigan on their heels and gave them very little chance to move the puck up the ice. For most of this period the Wolverines looked dazed and confused and certainly didn’t look like the regular season champions we have come to expect on the ice. Nebraska took all that early game energy and put the first goal of the game up with just over seven minutes gone in the contest. It was about 5 ½ minutes later when the Mavericks would strike again to extend their lead to 2 to nothing and there was still over 5 minutes left to play in this period. Even with the poor play Michigan managed to get some life back in their legs when they picked up a goal late in the first period to cut the Maverick lead in half. With just 48 seconds left in the period Matzka redirected the puck behind the Nebraska netminder to give the Wolverines a little breath of life. Assists on the goal went to Koch and Jillson. The period ended with Nebraska leading by a score of 2 to 1 and holding a slight edge in shots on goal with a 9 to 8 count.

While the wolverines got a little life with that late first period goal they also ended the period on a bad note. About 15 seconds after picking up the goal Ortmeyer was called for crosschecking putting Nebraska on the power play. While they did not score a goal at the end of the first, they still had 1 ½ minutes of power play time to start the second period and they didn’t take a lot of time in taking advantage of that opportunity. With just eleven seconds gone in the period Nebraska extended their lead to 3 to 1 with a quick power play goal. To make matters worse Comrie picked up a cross checking penalty of his own with just over a minute gone in the period. Nebraska again took advantage of this opportunity when the scored their fourth goal of the night just 30 seconds later. While Michigan started to show some signs of life as this period played out the second period came to an end with Nebraska holding a 4 to 1 lead. The shots on goal were all tied up after two with each team having 14.

The third period started with Michigan needing an awful lot of offense, but once again it was the Mavericks who jumped first. This time it took them just 31 seconds to get the period opening goal as the Mavericks extended their lead to 5 to 1. Not long after that it appeared that Mike Cammalleri had picked up a goal for Michigan, but that goal was waved off. Finally, Michigan got once again beat the Maverick netminder when Sean Peach got a shot in the net from the high slot. This goal came with almost three minutes gone in the period and assists were given to Shouneyia and Jillson. So with 17 minutes left in the period Michigan was still down by three goals. Play continued up and down the ice for the next 12 minutes with neither team scoring a goal. I tuned into the game to hear that there was 5:17 left to play and Michigan was pulling their goalie (I knew something bad was happing without even hearing the score). Michigan had the sixth attacker on the ice and was working looking for a goal. They had gotten off a couple of shots that were turned away and with 4:05 to go Nebraska iced the puck to relieve the pressure. A minute later and still with no goals scored Nebraska again iced the puck to relieve the offensive pressure being applied by Michigan and with 3:03 left in the game the face off came in the Nebraska zone. Off the face off Michigan lost control of the puck and with 2:53 to go in the game Nebraska picked up a short handed goal to move ahead by a score of 6 to 2. At this time UM brought Blackburn back into the game to protect against any further empty net goals. With Blackburn in net and 2:21 left in the game Comrie picked up a goal to get the score back to 6 to 3. A short time later with 1:51 left it looked like there might have been a Michigan goal, but all the activity around the goal was because it had come off the posts and play was stopped. We moved under one minute to go in the game and Michigan still needed three goals just to force an overtime period. Michigan finally got another goal when Kosick got one into the Nebraska net to pull back within two with 44 seconds left in the game. Michigan again pulled Blackburn to get the extra attacker, but it all came to nothing. Nebraska picked up another empty net goal and the game ended with Nebraska whipping the Wolverines by a score of 7 to 4. While the Wolverines put 22 shots on goal in the third period, ending the game with a huge edge in shots on goal with a 36 to 20 count; they simply couldn’t get the goals they needed.

Congratulations go to the Mavericks as they advance to the CCHA tournament finals and the Wolverines go back to Ann Arbor to watch it on TV. This was the worst loss by Michigan in a CCHA tournament game and will do one of two things for this team. It will either shake them to their very core leading to an early NCAA tournament exit or it will wake them up and refocus them on the job at hand. I am personally shocked that Michigan didn’t come to play this game. Not only was this Michigan’s worst playoff loss it was the first time since 1996 that they have allowed an opponent to score seven goals (granted two of those were empty netters). I’m just not understanding how they could be that unprepared to play in a playoff game. They do have a second chance after this loss as they do have an NCAA bid in their back pocket (thankfully or they might not get one after this loss), but starting next week there are no second chances. A couple of weeks ago I didn’t pay much attention to the loss to Bowling Green. I thought they deserved a night off, basically playing in the first game all year that didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t particularly worried that they didn’t look sharp and didn’t look ready to play, like I said I thought they deserved a night off. Now I’m beginning to wonder if that night off cost them their edge or focus if you will. They did not play two nights of good hockey last weekend, they played good enough to win, but they weren’t particularly sharp. Now this weekend when you have to win to advance and you have a possible first round bye in the NCAA tournament at stake you don’t show up. I expected a very focused Michigan team, ready to make a statement to the conference and to the country that they were ready to make a run. Now it would seem the only statement they have made is that they don’t know what they want. I don’t know if they took Nebraska lightly or simply weren’t ready to play, but either option is not good. Michigan will probably see nothing better than a fifth or sixth seed in the NCAA tournament and could very possibly end up in the East Regional this year as the selection committee looks to spread all the Eastern teams out a little bit. They will play again and hopefully this loss will be the wake up call needed to refocus the Wolverines as they go into the NCAA tournament. From this point on, if you loose your season ends, maybe that’s the reality this year’s team requires in order to get into playoff form. Let’s hope they get themselves back under control, I’m sure they will. They cannot be happy with Friday’s effort (or lack thereof), I have to believe that this group of Wolverines will want to regain some respect for themselves when it comes to tournament play next weekend. Until next week, C-ya!