Friday, October 27, 2000

Friday, October 27, 2000, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

As you may remember last year the Vermont Catamounts had the second half of their season cancelled by the University President after learning that several players on that team had provided false information during an investigation into an early season hazing incident. A lawsuit was filed by one of the hazed players, the Vermont Attorney General investigated the incident, and it turned into one ugly situation. Well the Catamounts have now put this behind them and have once again returned to the ice, but wouldn’t you know another hazing incident has surfaced to haunt another team. Seven players on the Plattsburgh State men’s hockey team have been suspended from play and face school judicial action. While it appears that these players have been forthcoming with information during this investigation another program takes it on the chin because of hazing. Hopefully this is the last time we will see this type of incident in college hockey (I’m hoping anyway). Maine head coach Shawn Walsh will return to the bench Friday night for the Blackbear’s game against Ohio State after completing his last cancer treatment. This will be the first game of the season that Walsh has been able to attend. Finally, it was reported this week that former St. Lawrence coach, Bernie McKinnon, died this past Sunday after a battle with bone cancer. Coach McKinnon was a pioneer in coaching women’s hockey.

In the CCHA Northern Michigan currently sits in first place one point ahead of second place Michigan and Michigan State. However, the Wolverines have two games in hand on the Wildcats and one game in hand on the Spartans. The only two teams not playing conference games this weekend are Ohio State and Northern Michigan so we have plenty of conference play going on this weekend. Two Wolverines earned player of the week honors after last weekend’s games. They were Josh Langfeld, who earned offensive player of the week honors, and Jeff Jillson, who earned defensive player of the week honors. Josh had two goals and a pair of assists and finished +3 for the weekend as he was on the ice for six of the ten Wolverine goals. Also, those two assists both came on game winning goals. Jeff was a big part of a penalty kill unit that killed off fourteen of fifteen Falcon power play chances. He also picked up a pair of power play goals and an assist on the weekend. Congratulations to both of these Wolverines for their CCHA player of the week honors. A final note on the CCHA pertains to the announcement this week that a new radio show, Inside the CCHA, will debut tonight on the Red Wing flagship station WXYT-AM (1270) at 8:30 pm. It will be hosted by Ken Kal (voice of the Red Wings) and will normally be broadcast on Tuesday nights and will include recaps of the previous week’s game, player and coach interviews as well as behind-the-scenes looks into the day-to-day operations of the conference and its teams. If you’re not in the Detroit area it can be heard over the internet (go to the CCHA site or to broadcastsports.com).

Let’s move on to the Wolverines who begin a key early season stretch of games that will see the team at Yost in six out of their next seven games. Let’s start with the physical status of a couple of players. Captain Geoff Koch will miss both of this weekend’s games as he struggles to recover from an ankle injury. Earlier in the week it looked like he would be ready to go this weekend, but mid-week examinations of the ankle have shown it is not yet ready for the stress of a game. Geoff missed practice Wednesday and coach Berenson now sees him as week-to-week rather than day-to-day. Sophomore defenseman Brad Fraser, who has not been able to play yet this year, will be out for several more weeks after having his knee scoped this week. Hopefully these two will get healthy quickly so we can get our full compliment of players on the ice and ready to go as the season wears on.

Tonight is parent’s night at Yost and they will be introduced prior to this evenings contest. It should also be noted that tonight also marks round two of the battle between the brother’s Ortmeyer. For those who don’t know, Sophomore Jed Ortmeyer’s older brother plays for the Miami Redhawks. Last year they both ended up on the ice at the same time and that will probably come to pass this week as well. The entire Ortmeyer family will be at Yost to see the brother’s play and in fact this will be the first time their brother’s and sister’s have seen the brother’s play against each other. The brother’s look forward to playing against each other, it adds a little extra excitement to the game. I can just imagine how it would be if it was me going against my brother – I’m going to beat that little (fill in favorite descriptive term for your brother) if it’s the last thing I do. If I remember correctly Jed had a heck of a weekend last year against Miami, let’s hope he does even better this year. One last note about parent’s night concerning freshman Andy Burnes. Apparently Andy comes from a Spartan family but dad thinks he can wear some blue for tonight’s game. Maybe we can convert these Spartans into Wolverines and won’t there be some interesting family conversations next week as the first meeting between UM and MSU looms on the horizon. Coach Berenson reached yet another milestone last weekend as the team gave him his 300^th conference win in Sunday nights contest against Bowling Green. Coach Berenson is only the second CCHA coach to attain this number of wins, Ron Mason being the first.

Finally, we get to this weekend’s games against the Redhawks from Ohio. These are the first conference games for the Redhawks and they will most certainly be looking to make a statement about how they are going to fair in the CCHA this year. Miami almost always plays Michigan tough and I expect that this weekend will be no different. Certainly Michigan can beat this team, but they have to come out and play hard for the entire game. Michigan needs to get their power play converting at a better rate than they are now. They currently convert about 20% of their power play chances and with all the penalties being called this year they really need to get this number up. The Wolverines also have to control their emotions and cut back on the number of penalties they are taking. While the penalty kill did a much better job last week than they’ve done in the prior couple of weeks you put yourself in bad situations when you give the opponent power play chance after power play chance. Sooner or later all of those penalties are going to hurt you – as they did last year. Like last weekend against Bowling Green, this weekends games against Miami are the only two games we will play the Redhawks in the regular season. As I stated about last weekends games against Bowling Green I see these two games as must win games for Michigan. I know it’s early in the season, but let me try to explain. These are the only two games we play and this is a team we should beat. Last year we dropped some early season games against teams we should have beaten and it hurt us at the end of the year in our RPI rating (impacting our tournament seeding). Additionally, Michigan has to win these types of games especially when on their home ice. When you take this, along with the fact that the other two early season front-runners in the CCHA have already lost games to teams they should have beat, Michigan has a golden opportunity to build a little cushion in the CCHA race at a very early point in the season. Last year when we had some chances to put some distance between ourselves and the other teams we ended up loosing a game and the chance to build that cushion; this year we need to take advantage of this situation. If you look at the schedule for the next few weeks you see that Michigan can really take early control of the conference and it all starts this weekend. We have these two games against Miami, both winnable, but both games will probably be hard fought, close scoring games. Next weekend we have only one game and that is against the Spartans on Saturday night. This will also be the only time the Spartans come to Yost this season. The following weekend we have a home and home series against Ferris (also the only two times we play the Bulldogs this year). We wrap up conference play in November with a two game home stand against Alaska-Fairbanks (one of the should of beat teams that beat us last year). So over the next four weekends we start and finish season series against three conference opponents and play our first cluster game. By the end of this period of time we will have played a total of four teams for the first and last time this season and played only one cluster game. This means we have a lot of cluster games coming in the second half and if you didn’t notice our cluster this year is extremely strong. Michigan needs to get through this stretch of games, winning them all. This would give Michigan a little breathing room as we then prepare for a tough stretch of games leading up to the Christmas break. It doesn’t get any easier from here. Michigan has the opportunity to make a statement to the conference and they must take advantage of this opportunity. That’s all the ramble I have until game time, Go Blue, beat the Redhawks.

This game started out with the Redhawks really flying around; it was obvious they came to play. Both teams sped up and down the ice in the first five minutes of this game. They each got a shot, but there were no goals scored. In fact half way through the first period it was obvious that Miami was effectively disrupting Michigan’s offense. The Wolverines have been getting nearly 20 shots on goal in the first period this year and as we approach the mid-point of the first period I think they have about three. Also on our approach to the mid-point of the period I thought Michigan was going to break this scoreless tie. There was a great pass up the ice to Mark Kosick who broke in on the Miami goal. Mark got a real good luck at the goal, but he was unable to get the puck in the net. With about nine minutes to go in the period we had our first penalty of the game and it went against the Redhawks putting Michigan on the power play. Michigan had been working the puck around the Redhawk zone looking for a shot when, with about 1 ½ minutes gone in the power play, Miami cleared the puck and sent it down to the other end of the ice. With the puck about as far from their goal as it could get they went for line changes. Blackburn saw this happening and quickly got the puck back up to the Miami blue line where Andy Hilbert was waiting. Hilbert got the puck, spun, and let fly with a shot at the Miami net. The shot appeared to hit the goalie (or something on the ice), took a little hop, and wound up behind the goalie in the net and Michigan took a one to nothing lead. This was a power play goal to Hilbert with the lone assist going to Josh Blackburn. With 4:28 remaining in the period matching penalties were handed out and the teams skated four-on-four – no goals scored by either team. The period came to an end with Michigan clinging to their slim one to nothing lead. They also held the edge in shots on goal with an 8 to 4 count.

The second period continued in much the same manner as the first period. Both teams working the puck up and down the ice, both teams getting an occasional shot, and neither team able to score. With 14:49 left in the period Michigan took a penalty, giving Miami their first power play chance of the night. Michigan was able to kill off this penalty without suffering any damage and in fact kept Miami from getting a shot on goal during the power play. Play continued for three or four minutes after the end of this Miami power play when, with 8:28 left in the period, Michigan picked up another penalty. This time Miami did not waste the opportunity as they picked up the tying goal while on the power play. A couple of minutes later, with 4:23 left in the period, Michigan picked up their third penalty of the game to give Miami their third power play chance of the period. With 1:17 left in this power play Miami picked up a penalty to end the power play and setting Michigan up for a short power play of their own once that 1:17 ticked off the clock. Now things started to get interesting. With 2:56 left in the period Jillson was skating down into the Miami zone with a Miami player all over him. I honestly thought Jillson had twisted a knee or something; from where I was sitting it looked like his legs buckled and he almost went down on the ice. Much to my surprise the referee whistled play down and called Jillson for holding (I still don’t know where that came from). Needless to say neither Jillson nor the crowd agreed with this call. Jillson made his displeasure known very vocally and ended up getting a ten-minute misconduct penalty tacked on as well. Now, not only were we not getting our short power play, we were suddenly killing off a Miami power play (fourth of the period) and we lost our number one defenseman for ten minutes. The crowd had been somewhat quiet up to know, but this little sequence of events stirred the dozing Yost fanatics and things got very loud from that point on. Michigan killed off the Miami power play and we got to the end of the period without giving up any goals – setting the stage for a decisive third period. The period ended with the score all tied up at one goal apiece. Miami did outshoot the Wolverines in this period, but Michigan continued to hold the edge in shots on goal for the game with a 14 to 12 count.

The third period got under way and what a difference a little controversy can make. The crowd was into the game, the team was into the game, and Michigan was getting their best pressure of the night on the Miami goal. With 16:51 left in the period Miami got called for a penalty to put Michigan on the power play early in this final period. Michigan was working the puck around the Miami zone very nicely when Cammalleri slid the puck across the zone (up by the blue line) to a waiting Komisarek. Komisarek let a shot fly from the blue line that went top shelf and put Michigan back in the lead. This was Komisarek’s first collegiate goal and the assists went to Cammalleri and Hilbert. With 14:06 left in the period matching penalties were handed out and the teams skated four on four. With 12:06 left in the period (right as these matching penalties expired) Miami was hit with a bench minor for too many men on the ice and Michigan was again on the power play. The face off was in the Miami zone. Michigan took the puck off the face off, slid it left to right (from my seat it was left to right) across the zone to Komisarek who got off a shot. This time his shot clanged off the post, but the rebound came out in front of the goal. Hilbert couldn’t quite get there, but Kosick was waiting, picked up the puck, and put a backhand shot into the goal for Michigan’s third power play goal of the night. The lone assist announced for this goal went to Komisarek – once the youngster started picking up points he didn’t want to stop! With 11:11 left in the period Miami picked up another penalty. This time Michigan wasn’t quite as crisp working the puck and they were unable to notch a goal. I believe this was the first time all night that Michigan did not score while on the power play. With 9:34 left in the period we finally got Jillson back. I’m not sure why he had to wait until this time, I thought he would be back with about seven minutes gone in the period. Anyway when he came out of the box the crowd gave him a big welcome. With 8:50 left in the game Miami racked up another penalty, just seconds after the previous penalty had expired, and UM was back on the power play. Michigan again failed to convert on the power play opportunity, but we were under seven minutes in the game and we had a two-goal lead. Michigan pretty much controlled play for the next several minutes and then things once again got interesting. With just under three minutes to go in the period there was a face off in the Michigan zone to Blackburns left. Right from the face off Miami took a shot that looked to be coming in low. Blackburn went down to stop it when the puck was deflected, causing it to rise up and sail over Blackburns shoulder. Suddenly Michigan’s lead was down to one goal and there were almost three minutes left in the period. This goal gave Miami a little jump and they were suddenly on the attack instead of reeling from the Michigan onslaught. With 1:19 left in the period Miami pulled their goalie to get the extra attacker. While they came close to tying the game a couple of times, ultimately they couldn’t get the puck past Blackburn and Michigan hung on for the 3 to 2 win. Michigan ended the game with a 23 to 16 advantage in shots on goal.

Well I can’t say I’m overly surprised by the outcome of this game. I expected Miami to give Michigan all they could handle, as they usually do. Michigan had a pretty good game on the special teams in this game scoring on three out of five power play opportunities and giving up only one power play goal. On the down side we were unable to pick up a goal when skating even strength. I have to give some credit to Miami on this. They came into Yost with the obvious belief that they could skate with Michigan and they did; though they did appear to run out of gas in the third period. They made nothing easy for Michigan and had some chances to come away with a win. They did a lot of things to take Michigan out of their game and we’ll have to see if we can solve this before Saturday night’s game. Of course Friday night was parents night so the guys got an exciting win in front of their respective families. I look for another close contest Saturday night, but I still submit that it is a game that Michigan has to win. They can’t give a win away on their home ice, but you can bet the Redhawks are going to take their best shot at the Wolverines. Until tomorrow night, C-ya.