Thursday, March 1, 2001

Thursday, March 1, 2001, Munn Arena, East Lansing, Michigan

Michigan started this game taking very few chances, but they did get some scoring chances early in the contest. While the Wolverines got some decent chances at the goal, Spartan goaltender Ryan Miller was up to the challenge. At the other end of the ice Wolverine goaltender Josh Blackburn was also up to the challenge as he made several huge saves during this first period to keep the Spartans off the board. Each team would get one power play chance in the first period, but neither team was able to take advantage of the man advantage. The first period ended the way it started, with the score all tied at zero. Each team put ten shots on goal in the period.

The first ten minutes of the second period looked very similar to the first period, as neither team was able to score a goal. That would all change just as the mid-point of the period was passed, again because of a Michigan penalty. At the 9:24 mark of the period Koch went off for cross checking to put Michigan State on the power play. Just 41 seconds later, with 10:07 gone in the period, the Spartans would get a power play goal to take the lead in this game.

It would only take the Spartans another five minutes to once again put the puck in the net to extend their lead to two goals when Troy Ferguson found pay dirt at the 14:50 mark. Michigan was simply unable to bring any of their offensive weapons to bear in the remainder of this period as the second period came to an end with Michigan State leading by a score of 2 to nothing. Michigan State also out shot the Wolverines in this period to have a 23 to 21 advantage in shots on goal at the end of two.

It would once again be penalties that would prove costly for the Wolverines early in the third period. At the 2:11 mark Vancik went into the sin bin for tripping putting Michigan State on the power play. About one minute later, at the 3:03 mark, Scott Matzka would be sent to the box for holding giving the Spartans a two man advantage on the power play. Just 32 seconds later the Spartans would score their third goal of the night, their second on the power play to take a three to nothing lead.

When he was called for the penalty that gave the Spartans the two-man advantage Matzka was very vocal in showing his disapproval with the call with the referee. This vocal disagreement earned Matzka a 10-minute misconduct along with a game misconduct and he was gone for the night. With a team already missing two of its top forwards, the loss of Matzka certainly hurt the Wolverines. It’s also the kind of the thing you expect not only a senior, but an assistant captain to avoid.

Michigan managed to avoid the shut out when Mike Cammalleri got the puck past Miller with just over five minutes remaining in the period, but it was to little, to late. The game came to an end with the Spartans earning the 3 to 1 victory. The Wolverines out shot the Spartans for the game tallying 32 shots to the Spartans 31.

This loss will further erode the Wolverines NCAA playoff position and ends what is perhaps their worst season ending stretch in recent memory. Generally at this time of year the Wolverines are hitting on all cylinders. This year they are doing anything but that as they have managed to win just three games out of there last nine. This loss gave the Spartans a 3 to 1 edge in this years series against the Wolverines and the eleven regular season losses by Michigan are the most since the 1989-1990 season when they had twelve. Once again, in a game that had fairly significant implications on playoff position, Michigan comes up short. They simply made to many mental errors and committed to many penalties to compete against the methodical Spartans. The Wolverines will get the weekend off, but will begin preparation for the first round of the CCHA playoffs at the start of the week. How the Wolverines play over the next two weeks could go a long way in determining where they play in the NCAA tournament. The Wolverines can only hope that they get the ship righted over the next week.

Week in Review

The Wolverines dropped another spot in the Pairwise rankings, from number five to number six. While this still has them solidly in the NCAA tournament field they are now beginning to flirt with the prospect of being sent to the East Regional. With all the teams in the West that appear to be headed for this years tournament it might make sense to send Michigan East rather than a Minnesota, Colorado College, or Nebraska-Omaha. The Wolverines would probably have greater drawing power in the East than some of these other teams out of the West.

The Wolverines continue to struggle against teams that they should be beating. The latest team to victimize the Michigan hockey team was Lake Superior. While the Lakers are a good team, they shouldn’t be able to pull off wins against Michigan, at least not at this time of the year. At you have to do is look at the results of the two games between these two teams to know that Michigan can and should beat the Lakers. On Thursday Michigan goes down 2-1, in a game marred by mental errors and penalties on the part of the Wolverines. On Saturday night they beat this same team 5-2 in a game that saw fewer penalties and a more focused Michigan team. The Wolverines have long since gone past the point where the standard response of not being ready to play means anything. With playoff positions up for grabs Michigan was still only able to get their minds into one of two games this weekend. The last four or five weeks of Michigan hockey have been disappointing to say the least.

Michigan goes into this week with a single game left that being against the Spartans of Michigan State. The Wolverines currently hold second position in the CCHA, but if they don’t take care of business against the Spartans they can easily find themselves being the third or fourth seed in the CCHA tournament. They have clinched home ice, but the lower their starting seed the more difficult the opponent will be in that first round. If they can hold onto the second seed it still appears that they will host Alaska-Fairbanks in a best of three series at Yost starting March 9. If they drop to a three or four seed they could end up facing Western, Northern, or Ferris. All of these teams have given the Wolverines problems during the season this year (of course so has Alaska).

As has already been mentioned Michigan has secured home ice for the first round of the CCHA playoffs. All that remains to be seen is what seed they receive. The other CCHA team to secure home ice for the first round was Nebraska-Omaha, in only their second year of conference play. There are a large number of spots that are yet to be decided for this years post season tournament, including a couple of home ice spots. It should be noted that Michigan has finished no lower than second for the past eleven seasons. No other team in the country can boast such a record of success.

No Wolverines were named as players of the week in the CCHA; however, a couple of Wolverines did receive notable performer honors. The first was Josh Blackburn who stopped a total of 48 shots last weekend against the Lakers, while giving up four goals. The second was Craig Murray who extended his career best scoring streak to three games after picking up a goal on Thursday. He also scored a goal and had an assist on Saturday night against the Lakers.

This Thursday will see Michigan wrap up its season against the Spartans in Munn Arena in East Lansing. This will be the fourth meeting between these two teams this year and so far Michigan State holds the edge, winning two of the previous three games. This will be senior night for the Spartan seniors and it should be noted that this group of seniors holds a 9-4-2 record against the Wolverines. That’s the kind of statistic that does not bode well for the Wolverines going into this Thursday night’s contest.