Friday, November 26, 1999

Friday, November 26, 1999, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Tonight is the first of two games in that Michigan will play this weekend in the College Hockey Showcase. Wisconsin will play tonight at Michigan State and then tomorrow night the visiting teams will change venues. Wisconsin is one of the highest ranked teams in the nation and could be the hottest team in the nation right now. Minnesota is having some trouble, but they are a good hockey team and should prove a difficult test for the Wolverines. Before we get into tonight’s game lets take a quick look around the league and the nation.

Michigan currently sits third in the CCHA with Michigan State leading the league and Northern Michigan holding the second place spot. Six points separate us from the Spartans, while we stand three behind the Wildcats of Northern. The top teams flip flopped at the top of the polls with Maine once again holding the top spot while North Dakota fell to number two. Wisconsin, Michigan’s Saturday opponent, now sits in third while Michigan State fell one place to fourth. Rensselaer has settled into number five while Michigan has fallen two spots to number six. Colorado College, New Hampshire, Colgate, and St. Lawrence round out the top ten. Northern Michigan is the next team with points, on the verge of entering the top ten, while Minnesota, Michigan’s opponent tonight, is the last team listed that received at least one point in the voting.

On the Michigan front we have signed three new players for next years team. They are all defensemen and will bring both some size and toughness to this area of Michigan’s team. Andy Burnes a 6-foot, 185 pounder from Battle Creek, Michigan comes from the same team that gave us Dave Huntzicker, Mark Mink, John Shouneyia, and J.J. Swistak. Michael Komisarek a 6 foot 4, 230 pounder from Isliip Terrace, New York comes from the National Team Development Program, the same program that gave us Andy Hilbert. He is considered to be the best defensive prospect in the country. The final player signed (at least so far) is the 6 foot 180 pound Reilly Olsen from Grand Prairie, Alberta (Canada). This trio of players should go a long way toward shoring up our current thin defensive core.

Once again circumstances beyond my control are keeping me from attending this weekends games – games I might add that I was looking forward to attending. I will provide a wrap up of the games from information gathered from other sources.

For the third straight game in Yost Arena the opponent was the first to score. With just over five minutes gone in the first period Nate Miller beat O’Malley to give the Gophers the early lead. Just two minutes later while on the power play, Erik Westrum struck while on the power play. Less than 30 seconds later Minnesota’s Stuart Senden stole the puck from Sean Peach and slid it past O’Malley. With barely eight minutes gone in the game Michigan was in a three to nothing hole and things didn’t get any better from there. After giving up this run of goals O’Malley was replaced with L.J. Scarpace in goal. Whether it was the change of goaltenders or just a generally tightening of defense or a combination of the two there were no more goals scored against Michigan in this period. Unfortunately Michigan didn’t score any goals either. The first period ended with Minnesota holding a three to nothing lead over the Wolverines. Once again while getting beat on the scoreboard Michigan was winning the shots on goal battle with a 13 to 6 count.

The second period was mainly a defensive period; a period where it appeared that Michigan was starting to gain some momentum as time started to run out. Then bad things once again happened and the Wolverines were even farther behind. With less than three minutes left in the period Erik Westrum scored his second goal of the night while on the power play. He skated around Geoff Koch and lifted the puck over Scarpace to get the goal. Less than thirty seconds later Aaron Miskovich got a pass around a sliding Jeff Jillson to Nick Anthony who beat Scarpace. Just like that, with less than three minutes to go in the period, the Wolverines were suddenly down by a score of five to nothing. There was no further scoring in the period and that’s the way it ended, Minnesota 5, Michigan 0. Michigan still held the edge in shots on goal with a 26 to 21 count.

Early in the third period the Gophers drove the nail in the coffin when Pat O’Leary took a pass from Dan Welch on a breakaway and beat Scarpace to give Minnesota the six to nothing lead. Michigan was able to get on the board and avoid the shutout when Mike Cammalleri skated around a Gopher defenseman, fed the puck to Andy Hilbert off to the right of the goal, and Hilbert got it past the Gopher netminder to finally put Michigan on the board. While this was a power play goal, it was much to little, and much to late. This goal came with less than two minutes to play in the game. The contest ended with Minnesota whooping the Wolverines 6 to 1. Michigan for the third straight loss won the battle for shots on goal by a 37 to 28 count.

Michigan has been having a pretty tough time of it the last couple of weeks. They have had their chances to score, but seem to have forgotten how to find the net. This is difficult to take since it had appeared that Michigan had a much-improved offense from the previous year. But it is not all the offenses problem. The defense and goaltending has to improve greatly. They started out the season quite well, but seem to have developed a great many holes of late. Michigan has already allowed more goals in November than they did in the entire month of October (and this was before tonight’s game in which they gave up six goals). If Michigan wants to get back on the winning track their defense has to tighten up and their offense has to remember how to get the puck in the net. Tonight’s game was the easier of the two and Wisconsin won’t take it easy on Michigan because they are in a bit of a slump. Come on Michigan, let’s get it back on track. Until tomorrow, C-ya!!