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Saturday, September 30, 2000
Saturday, September 30, 2000, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Tonight is the second and final game of Michigan’s exhibition season as the Wolverines host the Golden Hawks of Wilfred Laurier. This is the second and perhaps third year that the Golden Hawks have played the Wolverines in Michigan’s pre-season. It was confirmed that Langfeld did get hit with a slap shot on Friday night, but was ok to go in this game and would play. However, Kosick and Koch both slightly aggravated groin pulls on Friday night and were held out of Saturday’s game as a precaution.
I had no delays in getting to the game on time this evening and that was good because the action started early. While there was lot’s of action in this period there was as much bad action as there was good action. The festivities began with just 1:45 gone in the first period when the Hawks were whistled for a penalty giving Michigan their first power play chance of the night. While they cycled the puck fairly well they did not manage to get a score. A short time after that penalty was over there was a delay penalty call against the Hawks. As soon as that delay call became evident Blackburn came off the ice and Michigan got about a minute of power play time with the goalie out of the game. When the Hawks finally got the puck the penalty was called and Michigan went back on the power play. With 1:29 left in this power play another penalty was called against the Hawks and Michigan suddenly found itself with a 5 on 3 advantage for a minute and a half. After about a minute of the two man advantage had gone by Michigan was called for a penalty that cut their two-man advantage to one man. The first Golden Hawk penalty expired and both teams skated at even strength. With just 13 seconds left in the last Golden Hawk penalty the Hawks got the first goal of the night when a shot hit Blackburns pads and dribbled past him into the goal. The puck took a strange little bounce off Blackburns pads; otherwise it looked like he had stopped the shot. This goal came with just under seven minutes gone in the period. The teams traded penalties and power plays for the next eight or nine minutes. With 5:14 left in the period and both teams skating at even strength John Shouneyia broke down the ice and went top shelf to get Michigan on the board. Assists on this goal went to Jed Ortmeyer and freshman Andy Burnes. With around four minutes to go in the period all kinds of confusion broke out on the ice. First, after play had been stopped it appeared from where I was sitting that a Golden Hawk ran Hilbert into the boards, but it was announced that Hilbert had been called for diving. Then after some discussion among the officials it was announced that Hilbert had really received a ten-minute misconduct and Jay Vancik had received a hooking penalty. The end result was a power play for the Golden Hawks, but all was not lost for the Wolverines. About fifteen seconds into the Hawk power play Matzka deflected a pass to pick up a short handed goal and put Michigan ahead for the first time. The lone assist on this goal went to Bill Trainor. The period ended with Michigan leading by a score of 2 to 1. Michigan also ended the first period with a commanding lead in shots on goal with a 22 to 2 count.
The second period started pretty much the same way the first one started. With less than a minute gone in the period the Golden Hawks were called for their first penalty putting Michigan on the power play. Michigan was unable to capitalize on the early power play opportunity, but a short time after the first Golden Hawk penalty had expired they were called for another penalty putting Michigan back on the power play. This power play was ended when Michigan was called for a bench minor (too many men on the ice). With 5:35 gone in this period Michigan once again found itself on the penalty kill and once again they were able to take advantage when Josh Langfeld got Michigan’s second short handed goal of the night. The lone assist on this goal went to Jeff Jillson. This was a nifty little wrap around goal as Langfeld came around the back of the net and just stuffed it into the net as he came around the goal. About two minutes later with the Golden Hawks still on the power play Michigan got their third short handed goal of the night when Scott Matzka got the puck past the Golden Hawk netminder. This goal was unassisted and was the final goal of the second period. The second period ended with Michigan leading Wilfrid Laurier by a score of 4 to 2. Michigan also extended their lead in shots on goal as the period ended with Michigan holding a 39 to 7 edge.
There were no goals scored in the third period and it took 6 minutes and 15 seconds before the first penalty was called, but once those penalties started coming they didn’t stop. Both teams trading penalty after penalty, and a game that had become, shall we say chippy in the second period was, beginning to get ugly. The penalty action continued until the game was finally over. The contest ended with Michigan getting the win with a score of 4 to 1. The Wolverines out shot the Golden Hawks 15 to 3 in the third period to end the game with a 54 to 10 edge in shots on goal.
This was certainly a different environment than Friday night’s scrimmage. The players were moving faster and seemed to be hitting harder (at least once they got going). They seemed to start a little tentatively, but as the hitting got their attention they started to get into the game. The freshmen made an impression in this game as well. While they are small in number they showed they aren’t afraid to stick their nose in there and mix it up. While the score of this game looked close the game itself was never really in doubt. Blackburn came a strange bounce away from getting a shut out, but the Golden Hawks were slower and smaller than the Wolverines and they really never had a chance. For Michigan the results of the night are mixed. They certainly know where the goal is as they pick up 54 shots on goal. However, they only got four goals, but credit to the Golden Hawk goaltender. He had an outstanding game and really kept his team in the game. There were far to many penalties in this game for both teams. Michigan was called for 17 penalties for a total of 42 minutes. Not to be outdone the Golden Hawks were called for 20 penalties for a total of 50 minutes. This is certainly something that Michigan doesn’t want to get in the habit of doing. They were able to survive all of the power play chances the Golden Hawks had, but against other teams we might not be so lucky. Of course on the up side you have to like the penalty kill. It didn’t allow a single power play goal. On the other hand we didn’t score a single power play goal in this game either and we had even more chances than the Golden Hawks. The defense was pretty darn solid, as was the goaltending. Kind of hard to tell where the Wolverines are with all the penalties and the resulting slowness of the game, but so ends the exhibition portion of the Wolverines season. Next week is the Ice Breaker tournament and Michigan starts out against the Red Raiders of Colgate. This is the same team that we beat in over time in last year’s NCAA tournament to advance to the quarterfinals so this should be a good game. I’ll have more on the Ice Breaker later in the week, until then C-ya.
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