Saturday, October 30, 1999

Saturday, October 30, 1999, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor Michigan

A very late schedule disruption is keeping from attending this evening’s game against the Yale Bulldogs. So I’m starting this article early Saturday afternoon. I’ll take care of some housekeeping and then add a game wrap from some other source later.

Last weeks split with the Alaska-Fairbanks Nanooks caused the Wolverines to take a tumble in the national polls. The feel three spaces from third to sixth after dropping their first game of the year. This seemed a bit strange. Since the hockey teams play so many games in a year a loss here and there usually doesn’t cause such big moves one way or the other, but in this case it did. North North Dakota, Michigan State and New Hampshire were the beneficiaries of the Wolverine fall as they all moved up one position. Clarkson moved up two from number nine to number seven while Colorado College dropped one to eighth. Rensselaer gets into the top ten for the first time at number nine and Northern Michigan rounds out the top ten at number ten (down from eighth). CCHA teams Ferris and Miami each received points in voting.

A little closer to home, the hockey team home that is, things are looking up on the Wolverine injury sheet. Everyone is healthy enough to play except goalie Josh Blackburn. Blackburn did have surgery last week (just prior to the Alaska game). If I remember correctly he has three screens in his foot and a cast holding everything still. So far things are looking good, but it’s still quite early in the recovery process. They expect him to be in a cast for about a month and then we’ll see if the rehab is still on schedule ore not.

Coach Red Berenson goes for his four hundredth win tonight while Michigan tries to end the month of October by getting their sixth win of the season.

Yale plays in the ECAC and finished in the middle of the pack last year. They are a team that will come and play hard the entire game and should give the Wolverines a contest. They were in the NCAA tournament two years ago, playing in the West Regional hosted by Michigan at Yost Arena. They are looking to return to the tournament this year and a win against Michigan would give them a boost. Michigan on the other hand wants to get this win to stay undefeated against non-CCHA teams. While they don’t mean a lot right now come March when tournament teams are selected they do factor in your non-conference schedule. What teams you play, from what conferences, overall strength of the opponent, etc… all factor into those tournament bid decisions. Of course I don’t believe the Wolverines will require an at large bid as they should nail down an automatic, but you want to take care of business against non-conference opponents.

Wow reading the wrap ups from last nights game its not going to take long to finish this article up. Yale opened the scoring in the game last night by picking up a power play goal just 1:27 into the game. However, it didn’t take long for Michigan to respond. Just over four minutes into the period Michigan got a goal on their first power play of the night. Cammalleri found the puck loose in front of the Yale net and chipped it in over the Bulldog netminder. Assists on this goal went to Shouneyia and Ortmeyer. Just over three minutes later Kosick moved the Wolverines into the lead when he took a pass from Comrie and picked up his fifth goal of the season. Langfeld and Comrie both picked up assists on this goal. About thirty seconds later Merrick picked up his first goal of the season with an unassisted goal. So just like that in a span of four minutes the Wolverines went from being down by one to leading by two. About twelve minutes into the period Yale picked up their second goal of the period. This ended the scoring for the period and the first period was over with Michigan leading by a score of 3 to 2. They also had a large lead in shots on goal with a 15 to 6 count.

As it turned out they could have ended the game right there. All the scoring for this game was done in the first twelve minutes of the first period. After that it was pretty much a defensive struggle. However, I should point out that Michigan could have and probably should have scored at least two more goals. They really outshot the Bulldogs in this game. They outshot them 12 to 4 in the second period and 11 to 6 in the third to end the game with a 38 to 16 advantage in shots on goal. In addition, they went only one for six on the power play. With that many shots on goal I would have expected to see the Wolverines with at least one or two more goals. Oh well, its early in the season, things are bound to be a little rough around the edges, and besides they won the game.

Red picks up his 400^th win of his coaching career with this Wolverine victory and the Wolverines pick up their sixth win of the month and year against only 1 loss.

Around the league some interesting some not so interesting things happened this weekend. Nebraska gave Northern all they could handle Friday night and played them to a 4 to 4 tie on Saturday night. This gives Nebraska their first CCHA point. Northern, a team that came out of the gates screaming has certainly cooled off as the month has gone by. Notre Dame gets a conference win, but has to settle for a tie in their second contest against Miami. Michigan State swept Ferris while Western and Lake Superior split their weekend series. Bowling Green swept Alaska-Fairbanks while Maine swept Ohio State. It would have been nice to see the Buckeyes a least get a split against the Blackbears, but they seem to be struggling mightily down in Columbus right now. With all of that said Michigan State now sits alone at the top of the CCHA with Western holding down second place. Northern and Bowling Green are next in the standings tied for third. Michigan and Ferris are next tied for fifth. Miami, Alaska-Fairbanks, and Lake Superior are all tied at seventh. Notre Dame, Ohio State and Nebraska round out the conference in spots 10, 11, and 12 respectively. I know it looks bad right now sitting down there in fifth place, but fear not. We’re only one point behind Northern and Bowling Green while Michigan State has played two more games than we have and Western has played four more.

This coming weekend we have a two game series against the Buckeyes of Ohio State. This is a home and home series with the Buckeyes coming to Yost on Friday night and the Wolverines traveling to Columbus on Saturday. Let’s hope the Buckeyes don’t pick next weekend to work out their problems. Michigan needs to start the month out strong to make sure they don’t give up any more points to the front runners. So until next weekend, C-ya!!