Friday, October 15, 1999

Friday, October 15, 1999, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Well it’s been a week since the Wolverines swept Notre Dame to start the season. Since those two big wins we’ve lost our starting goalie, picked a new starter (at least until Blackburn can return), and now prepare to take on UMass-Lowell from Hockey East. Umass is a middle of the pack team in Hockey East, that many say plays the game a lot like Ferris. They have some size, some skill, and they will bang you around the arena. These games should give us yet another chance to see where the team is at this early in the season. I’ll take the speed UM puts on the ice over the bigger bodies that Umass will send out. We saw the outcome of this type of match up last week against the Irish.

On the goalie front we have some news. Kevin O’Malley will get the start for Friday’s contest and probably for Saturday’s as well. He has gotten more work than Scarpace and has been in the UM system longer. Blackburn is scheduled for surgery this coming week; they had to wait for the swelling to go down in his foot before performing surgery. If all goes well they expect to have Blackburn back in for the second home game in January. Again this is the absolute best-case scenario. We’ll have to wait and see how things actually go.

Due to circumstances beyond my control I was unable to attend this evenings contest, however, I have checked some other reports and I did manage to listen to about a period of the game on the radio. So lets get to the game results.

UM, as expected, came out flying in this game. Just 1:38 into the period Jed Ortmeyer started the scoring in this game to give the Wolverines the early one goal lead. Assists were given to Hilbert and Shouneyia. Doesn’t it make you feel good to see all freshmen involved in getting goals. Shortly after this, four minutes into the period, Koch picked up a power play goal to give the Wolverines a 2 to nothing lead. Assists on this goal were given to Huntzicker and Jillson. About five minutes later Umass got their first goal (and as it turned out there only goal) of the game while the River Hawks were on the power play. With about 6 minutes to go in the period I picked up the action on WTKA. UM was putting some pressure on the Umass goal when Magnuson got the puck to Shouneyia. Shouneyia got off a shot that just missed as it hit the post. With about 4 minutes left in the period UM again goes on the power play. The Wolverines were moving the puck well around the Umass zone looking for that opening. With 45 seconds left in the power play one player from each team picked up coincidental penalties leaving UM on the power play. With just over 2 minutes to go Umass was able to kill the power play. Again as the period draws to a close UM continues to apply some pressure with shots coming from Peach and Langfeld (right at the end of the period). At the 20 minute mark penalties are called, one against UM and one against Umass. This period ends with UM leading by a 2 to 1 score and leading in the shots on goal category by a 14 to 6 count.

The second period started as the first had ended, with penalties. Just 50 seconds into the period Peach is called for a penalty giving Umass the early power play opportunity. Seconds later Huntzicker gets called for a penalty giving Umass the chance for a 2-man advantage. Since we started the period at 4 on 3 they did not get the 2-man advantage immediately. The penalties from the end of the first period expire and now Umass gets the 2-man advantage for about 38 seconds. The advantage will drop to one man, but then as penalties expire they will again get the 2-man advantage. All in all they will get about 1:28 of the 2-man advantage. Finally, UM gets a break in this nasty start and Umass gets called for a penalty. This at least does away with the 2-man advantage. Umass is still on the power play and UM will actually get a short power play at the end of all this, but right now the odds are better than they were. During this whole process Umass was making some noise in the UM zone and Jillson came up with two huge saves that went a long way toward keeping Umass from getting the tying score. All of the penalties expire with neither team able to score any goals. Now UM goes on the power play and while on the power play Umass commits another penalty giving UM their own two man advantage. Just over 4 minutes into the period Jillson slams the puck into the Umass net giving UM a power play goal. Assists were given to Kosick and Huntzicker. This was while UM had the two man advantage so even after the power play goal UM is still on the power play. Just 40 seconds later Peach gets the second power play goal for Michigan with the lone assist going to Hilbert. Barely five minutes into the period with all kinds of penalties and power plays UM suddenly had a 4 to 1 lead and they wouldn’t look back. At about the midpoint of the period an Umass player was called for a five-minute major and a game misconduct (hitting from behind). While on this extended power play Kosick picked up a goal, with assists going to Langfeld and Comrie. Comrie also picked up his first goal of the night, also on the power play with the lone assist going to Jeff Jillson. With about four minutes left in the period Comrie finished the scoring has he picked up his second goal of the night, again a power play goal. The assists on this goal went to Jillson and Huntzicker. Wow an action packed second period. All five UM goals come on the power play and Umass is suddenly down by a score of 7 to 1. UM still held the edge in shots on goal with a 25 to 12 count.

With the large lead Coach Berenson put Scarpace in goal to get him some work. There were far fewer penalties in this period and far less scoring. The only goal in this final period went to Mark Mink with the lone assist going to Dave Huntzicker. The final score for the game was 8 to 1 and UM held a commanding lead in shots on goal at 39 to 18. Scarpace stopped all six shots sent his way in this period.

Well the game started out close and stayed that way until the second period when UM just blew the thing wide open while on the power play. For the night UM was 7 of 12 on the power play, picking up 7 of their 8 goals on the power play. The goaltending looked good with both O’Malley and Scarpace up to the task. O’Malley picked up his first career win and Scarpace saw his first real work in this game. The two teams meet again Saturday night and while it would be nice I don’t expect such a big difference in the score. If it weren’t for the power play, this game would have been very close. Until tomorrow, C-ya!!