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Saturday, October 28, 2000
Saturday, October 28, 2000, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Tonight is the second game in a two game series against the Miami Redhawks that will complete the season series with this team. With Miami being out of Michigan’s cluster in the CCHA (like Bowling Green last week) we play the Redhawks only twice this year. The Wolverines look for the weekend and season sweep over this team after last nights close 3 to 2 win. I continue to look at this game as a must win game for Michigan for two reasons. First, we must beat the Miami’s and Bowling Green’s of this conference if we want to contend for the conference championship. While both of these teams could beat Michigan (both did beat Michigan last year), Michigan is clearly the more talented team and should win this game. Second, this game is on home ice. We must win our home games; while we have to pick up our share of road wins the home wins are essential to the season. Last nights game was very close as I expected and I expect tonight’s game to be just as close. Miami always seems to give Michigan trouble and after they came close to beating the Wolverines last night I’m sure they will come ready to play tonight.
The first period saw both teams start out playing very hard. Unlike last night Michigan was pushing the puck towards the net with more authority. While Miami was giving them some trouble with the clutch and grab style Michigan was using their speed to better advantage at the start of this game. Michigan went five minutes without a penalty, but with 14:51 left in the period Michigan picked up the first penalty of the game to give Miami the first power play chance of the night. While Michigan was able to kill off this penalty they didn’t do it the easy way. There were several bad passes made when Michigan was trying to clear the puck that gave Miami some quick looks at the UM goal. Most of these errors in judgement were committed by freshmen, but we managed to survive. With 11:52 left in the period Miami picked up a penalty to give Michigan their first power play chance of the night; after last night’s power play performance everyone in the house anticipated a big push by Michigan. However, this was not to be as Miami effectively shut down the Michigan power play. Yet Miami couldn’t get through the entire power play without throwing Michigan a bone. With just three seconds left in the power play Miami picked up their second penalty to keep Michigan on the power play. Then with 9:18 left in the period and 1:25 left in the Michigan power play Miami picked up their third penalty of the period to give Michigan a two-man advantage. Unfortunately for Michigan, Miami was able to kill off all of these penalties without giving up a goal. With 5:27 left in the period Michigan picked up another penalty to give Miami another power play chance, but the Wolverines killed this Miami power play as well. Late in the first period, about two minutes left, Miami got off a big shot that clanged off the goal post giving the Wolverines a scare. Then with 1:34 left in the period Miami picked up another penalty to put the Wolverines back on the power play. This time Michigan took advantage of the opportunity, when with 1:10 left in the period (1:37 left in the power play), Michigan scored their first goal of the night. This was a power play goal scored by Kosick with assists going to Langfeld and Hilbert. Miami didn’t give up though as they again came close to scoring a goal in the final minute of the period, but a defenseman scooped the puck out of the crease after it had gotten behind Blackburn. The first period came to an end with Michigan holding the one to nothing lead. Michigan also held the edge in shots on goal with a 13 to 6 count.
The second period started up right where the first period ended, Miami picking up a penalty just 21 seconds into the period. This was a golden opportunity for Michigan to extend their lead early in this second period. For most of this power play Michigan had trouble getting things set up and moving the puck around the Miami zone. However, with 17:58 to go in the period Michigan picked up their second power play goal of the night with just 20 seconds left in the power play. Suddenly, after all the trouble they had been having moving the puck, they got the puck in the neutral zone and broke into the Miami zone. The goal went to Langfeld with assists going to Shouneyia and Ortmeyer. Seconds later, with 17:23 left in the period, Michigan picked up a penalty to put Miami on the power play for the first time in this period. Michigan killed of this power play and what a great penalty kill this was, as Miami hardly entered the Michigan zone during the entire power play. With 14:17 left in the period a Miami player dumped Blackburn on his backside and was whistled for the penalty. However, Michigan did not get the power play since Blackburn retaliated with a slash and picked up a penalty of his own. The teams skated four on four for two minutes with neither team scoring. They then battled back and forth for a couple of minutes, but with 10:22 left in the period Miami dragged Jillson to the ice and was hit with another penalty. During this power play Michigan again had trouble setting things up and they were unable to convert on the power play opportunity. With 7:15 left in the period Miami picked up another penalty to give Michigan yet another power play opportunity. Despite numerous power play opportunities Michigan had so far only converted on two of those chances; this was not to change during this power play. With 3:51 left in the period a set of matching penalties were called and we were once again skating four on four. This led up to the start of tonight’s controversy. With 2:29 left in the period (32 seconds in the power play) a Miami player just hammered Blackburn driving him into the net. While the Miami player picked up a penalty it was only a two-minute roughing penalty. I thought it should have been a minimum of 5:00 minutes as it did not look to me like the Miami player even attempted to miss Blackburn – he just skated right into him with the intent to do just that. It did put Michigan on the power play, skating four on three, but this was not to last very long. With 1:49 left in the period Michigan picked up a penalty right in front of the benches. Tempers were running a little hot and some players started to mix it up a bit. The end result was one Miami player in the sin bin along with two Wolverines. Additionally, Komisarek picked up a double minor for his trouble. The end result was to put both teams back to skating four on four for a period of time, but then Miami would move to the power play. With just 1:11 left in the period Miami scored a goal to get back within one and then the real fun started. As usual the student section got into their "ugly parents" chant when the Miami parents cheered for the goal. Taking exception to this a Miami parent headed up into the student section – not the smartest thing in the world to do. While nobody hit anybody the police did end up escorting a couple of students out of the arena along with the Miami parent (although the Miami parent did return prior to the third period – the students did not (as far as I could tell)). The second period came to an end with tempers running hot and Michigan holding the 2 to 1 lead. Michigan extended their edge in shots on goal as they finish the period with a 24 to 14 shot advantage.
There were two points of interest at the beginning of the third period. Miami started the period with 11 seconds of power play time and Michigan had a new goaltender. Apparently that hit on Blackburn, late in the second period, caused an injury that Josh could not play through and L.J. Scarpace moved in between the pipes for the final period of this hotly contested game. With 17:09 left in the period Miami tied the game up as they got a clean shot past Scarpace. For several minutes after this the teams again battled up and down the ice. However, with 13:00 minutes left in the period Miami picked up another penalty to put Michigan on the power play. Michigan was moving the puck on this power play a little better, but with time running out they had not yet scored. Then with just 10 seconds left in the power play there was a face off to the right of the Redhawk netminder. Michigan controlled the puck off the face off and got it out to the point, near the blue line, where Vancik let fly with a shot that beat the Redhawk goalie to put Michigan back into the lead. The lone assist on this goal went to Hilbert. It looked like Michigan might extend their lead around the mid-point of the period when Cammalleri got loose all alone in front of the Miami net, but he just missed the shot. With 7:37 left in the period Michigan got the puck up the ice to Hilbert at center ice. Hilbert rushed into the Miami zone and just blasted the puck past the Miami netminder to extend Michigan’s lead to two goals. Assists on this goal went to Matzka and Langfeld. With 4:40 left in the period the teams again mixed things up in front of the benches and I thought they were going to call bunches of penalties. They actually only called two penalties, one against each team and we were once again skating four on four. With 3:37 left in the period Miami got called for another penalty and Michigan was once again on the power play, this time skating four on three. Michigan was unable to capitalize on these Miami penalties and the power plays were killed off. With a two goal lead and time running out it looked like Michigan was going to be able to cruise to the win, but with 1:10 left in the period Miami pulled their goaltender to get the extra attacker. With 1:03 left in the game Michigan filled the empty net with the puck to extend their lead to three goals. Ortmeyer picked up this goal with an assist going Matzka. Even after Michigan picked up the empty net goal Miami continued to keep their goalie on the bench. This proved to be a bad decision as Michigan again put the puck in the empty net with just 31.3 seconds left in the game. This goal was an unassisted goal that went to Komisarek. Komisarek got the puck deep in the Michigan zone, spun around, and lifted the puck into the air, I believe just looking to clear it out of the Michigan zone. The puck did clear the zone, but it slid right into the Miami net and Michigan’s lead was suddenly four goals. After this goal Miami put their goalie back into the game, but it was over. The game came to an end with Michigan completing the weekend sweep by a score of 6 to 2. Michigan finished the night with a decent edge in shots on goal as they out shot the Redhawks 39 to 24 for the game.
Even though Michigan won this game by four goals it was really closer than the score might indicate. There were the two empty net goals right at the end of the game and the game was tied early in the third period. Miami played a real tough series as expected and I think it might be a good thing that we got them early in the season. Miami is going to be a problem for a lot of teams in the CCHA this year as the season goes on. During the game I didn’t think Michigan was taking advantage of the numerous power play chances, but they did finish the night 3 for 10 on the power play (30% conversion rate) – that’s not to bad. They also kept Miami from scoring a single power play goal so the special teams play once again came down in Michigan’s favor. A couple of words about a couple of players from this weekend’s games. Josh Langfeld continues to play extremely hard in this, his final year as a Wolverine. If he continues to play like this all year he is going to have a fantastic year (one of the keys to this team having success this year). As good a weekend as Langfeld had Andy Hilbert had an even better one. Andy picked up three points on Friday night, as he was involved in all three of the Wolverines goals. Andy picked up an additional three points in tonight’s contest and taken together this moves Andy ahead of Langfeld as the team point leader. There are a lot of other players who are playing some pretty good hockey this early in the season, but these two seem to be off to a particularly good start. This gets us to next weekend when the Wolverines play just one game. That game will be Saturday night at Yost Arena and will be against Michigan State. This will be the first cluster game for Michigan this year and it will also be the only time the Spartans come to Yost this year. Because the Spartans already have a conference loss Michigan now sits all alone at the top of the CCHA. This game against the Spartans is another one of those must win games. Not only is it on home ice, but if Michigan picks up the win next weekend we can stretch our lead in the conference over the second place Spartans. If the Spartans should win this game we will end up tied for first – I vote for the Michigan win. Probably the biggest question mark for Michigan next weekend is the status of goaltender Josh Blackburn. At this time all I know is that it was an injury to his shoulder – hopefully we have more information later this week. Next weekend should be a great game as we move into the month of November, so until then C-ya.
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