Saturday, March 10, 2001

Saturday, March 10, 2001, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

While the extent of the injury to David Huntzicker is not yet known it was serious enough to keep him out of tonight’s game, giving Brad Fraser the chance to play in this years post season. The Bulldogs, aware that their season was on the line, came out with plenty of fire in this game. They kept the pressure on the Wolverines for the entire first period and got a couple of scoring chances right at the outset of the game. Blackburn had to come up with some great saves to keep the Bulldogs off the scoreboard, one of them without his stick. It looked like Michigan might get a chance to take an early lead, that they hadn't really earned, when Geoff Koch was presented with an empty net, but he was unable to convert.

The first ten minutes of the game were a little out of control as each team seemed to pick up penalties just as they seemed to be settling into the game. There weren’t that many penalties called in this period, but they seemed to come at all the wrong times in the initial ten minutes. For the remainder of the first period both teams would see some scoring chances, but both goalies came up with some great saves to keep the game scoreless. The first period came to an end with the score all tied up at zero. Ferris ended the first period with a slight edge in shots on goal with a 10 to 8 count.

The second period started out much the same way as the first one ended, with both teams really playing hard. The first break of the game would come with 3:55 gone in the second period. Chris Kunitz from Ferris and Bob Gassoff of Michigan would get tangled up and penalties would be called. Kunitz would be called for slashing penalty and then both Kunitz and Gassoff were called for hitting after the whistle (these two penalties being coincidental). The end result of this was to give Michigan a power play opportunity and it wouldn’t take the Wolverines long to take advantage of this chance. The Wolverines broke out of the Ferris zone as the halfway point of the power lay was approaching. Mark Kosick carried the puck over the Ferris blue line, slid a pass over to Langfeld who was skating through the right circle, and Langfeld let loose a shot that beat the FSU goalie. Both Mark Kosick and John Shouneyia received assists on this goal.

The next few minutes would see each team spend time in the sin bin, with Scott Matzka leading the way for the Wolverines. At one time Matzka had just come out of the penalty box and had barely started skating when he was called for another penalty and sent right back into the box. Even though there were a number of penalties called and power plays received neither team was able to score.

However, as the clock moved under the ten-minute mark in the second period the Wolverines would once again find themselves on the power play and they would once again take advantage. With 11:35 gone in the period Ferris was called for a penalty giving Michigan the man advantage. On the ensuing face off, which was in the Ferris zone, Cammalleri won the face off, stepped around the Ferris defense, and flipped the puck over the Ferris netminder to extend Michigan’s lead to two goals.

In the closing seconds of the second period the Ferris netminder would come up with a series of outstanding saves to keep his team close, but as the buzzer sounded in this period it was Michigan leading by a score of two to nothing. The Wolverines got things on track in this period and at the end of two they had a 22 to 13 edge in shots on goal.

Michigan would start the final period with several fine scoring chances, but in each case the chances came up dry. Hilbert missed on one when he lost an edge and went to the ice, Koch missed another when he clanged the puck off two posts, but couldn’t get the puck in the net. Both teams would move up and down the ice for the first tem minutes of play, with neither team able to come up with a score.

There were a group of penalties called between the eleven-minute mark and the sixteen-minute mark, but again neither team was able to take advantage of any chances they might have had. Blackburn came up with another outstanding save of his own with just seven minutes left in the game to keep his shut out alive. As the game moved into its final minutes Ferris looked to pull their goaltender, but Michigan kept the puck either in or close to their zone and they couldn’t get him out of the game. Finally with 1:19 left Ferris got their goaltender out of the game to give them the extra attacker, but even with the extra man the Bulldogs could not get the puck past Blackburn. Geoff Koch put the final nail in the coffin with an empty net goal with just seven seconds left in the game with the lone assist going to Andy Hilbert. The final score was Michigan 3, Ferris nothing. The game ended with Michigan holding a 28 to 18 edge in shots on goal.

Michigan got their series sweep in the first round and did it with two fairly decent nights of hockey. They may not have been the best games of hockey they’ve played, but they were solid. More importantly the Wolverines played two nights and did not get lazy and let a game slip away. With Miami begin knocked out of the playoffs Michigan will go to Joe Louis next weekend as the number two seed and will play in the 8:30 game Friday night. At this time the identity of that opponent is unknown as two key series have gone to a third game and won’t be decided until Sunday night. This should give the Wolverines a much-needed boost in confidence as they go into the final weekend of CCHA tournament play. It could very well be that the CCHA’s automatic NCAA tournament bid could be decided by a fifth game between the Wolverines and Spartans next Saturday night. That won’t be decided for another week, but if that were to happen it would almost certainly be a classic finish to this years CCHA tournament.