Friday, November 10, 2000

Friday, November 10, 2000, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The first period got under way with a bang as there was a complete breakdown on the defense and FSU got a clean break on the UM goal. While they got a good shot at our goal Blackburn came up with a terrific save to keep the Bulldogs from taking a very early lead in this game. Perhaps that shoot out in the Ice Breaker tournament came in handy after all. With 17:22 remaining in the period the first penalty of the night was called against the Bulldogs. While this would have been a good chance for Michigan to jump out early things did not work out. With forty seconds left in the power play Hilbert took a penalty to end the Michigan power play and set Ferris up for a power play of their own. To make matters worse Hilbert took exception with the call (it did appear to be a little weak) and the referee took exception to Hilberts exception. Andy got hit with a 10-minute misconduct and settled into the sin bin for a prolonged stay. UM killed off the penalty and the action continued up and down the ice for about six minutes before we had our next penalty. This one came with 11:31 left in the period and again went against the Bulldogs. The first power play was a little bit disorganized; hopefully this one will be better. They have come close on some goals off rebounds, but it was looking like they would not get a goal. Then with some nice passing up the ice they hit Matzka with a pass. Matzka just blew past the defense and punched the puck into the net to put the Wolverines on top by a goal. It was a great goal, just making it into the corner of the net. The assists went to Shouneyia and Roemensky. With just under five minutes left in the period there was a set of matching penalties given out and the teams skated four on four. With 2:47 left in the period another set of penalties were given out as tempers begin to flare just a little bit. Each player in this last scuffle was given a double minor, but everything was coincidental and the teams continued to skate at even strength. The first period came to an end with Michigan holding the one to nothing lead. Michigan also held a slight edge in shots on goal with a 7 to 5 count.

Michigan is playing with a little more zip to start the second period and they are putting some better pressure on the FSU goal. With 16:10 left in the period Ferris picks up their first penalty of this period and Michigan again finds itself on the power play. The power play finally pays off as the Wolverines notch a goal with 1:14 remaining in this power play. This was a great goal as Ferris had cleared the puck out of the Wolverine zone and went for line changes. Cammalleri was sitting on the FSU blue line and Blackburn saw the opportunity and sent the puck all the way up the ice with a long pass. Cammalleri took the puck and drove it uncontested into the FSU zone where he deked the FSU netminder and scored the goal. The only assist went to Blackburn. The next penalty of this period would go to the Wolverines with 14:38 remaining in the period. Michigan was able to kill off the penalty and both teams skated the next five or six minute’s penalty free. With about 8:15 left in the period it looked like Michigan would take a three goal lead off a face off, but Craig Murray’s shot clanged off a post. Just seconds later Michigan got off another shot that was blocked by the FSU goalie. However, he did not cover up the rebound and this time Murray was right there to poke the puck into the net. The lone assist on this goal went to Joe Kautz (his first point of the season and his career). There was one additional FSU penalty in this period, but no further scoring would take place. The second period ended with Michigan sitting on top of a three to nothing lead. Michigan had also extended their shots on goal margin with a 19 to 8 count.

There was a penalty called against FSU right at the 20:00 minute mark of the second period so Michigan starts the third period on the power play. With about 1 minute gone in the power play all heck broke out on the ice with an all out brawl involving the players on the ice. After what seemed to be pretty close to a ten minute break to sort out all of the penalties the end result was four game disqualification’s; two to the Bulldogs and two to the Wolverines. Jed Ortmeyer and David Huntzicker will both be ineligible to play in tomorrow night’s game. FSU picked up a second two-minute penalty and since Michigan was already on the power play the Wolverines were now looking at one minute of a two-man advantage. Even with the extra man advantage Michigan was unable to score another goal and all penalties were all killed off. With 14:39 left in the period Michigan took a penalty and this time FSU made them pay for it. With just 14 seconds gone in the power play Ferris scored a power play goal to cut the Michigan lead to two goals. This goal put all kinds of jump into the Ferris players and they are really banging their way around the ice. With 12:02 left in the period FSU takes another penalty putting Michigan back on the power play. Ferris had killed off all but 35 seconds of this power play when they picked up another penalty giving UM a short two-man advantage and then prolonging the power play time. Ferris again got the penalty time down pretty low, this time to 31 seconds, when they picked up their third straight penalty to continue the Michigan power play. Even with a prolonged period of power play time Michigan has failed to pick up another goal; that’s not exactly what you want to see when you get this much power play time. At this time UM called a time out to sort out what they wanted to do with this power play. Michigan still hadn’t scored when, with 54 seconds left in this power play, Ferris picked up yet another penalty. This time Michigan finally took advantage of the power play and notched their fourth goal of the game. The goal went to Koch and the assists went to Matzka and Murray. With just under six minutes to go in the period Michigan picked up a penalty, but the Wolverines were able to kill this penalty off. With about 3:40 left in the period there was a bunch of bodies flying around the UM goal and FSU got off a point blank shot, but Blackburn came up with one of the greatest saves I’ve ever seen him make. He was falling back and down when he speared the puck with his glove to end the Bulldog scoring threat. A matching set of penalties were called, but there would be no further scoring in this game. The game came to an end with Michigan winning by a score of 4 to 1. They also ended the game with a bit more than double the shots on the goal with a 32 to 15 count.

The Wolverines started this game a little bit slow, perhaps suffering a little hang over from last Saturday’s game. By the second period they were starting to get into the flow of the game and continued this through the third period. Staying true to form these two teams accumulated a large number of penalties and of course both teams will be without two players in tomorrow nights contest. I’m not looking forward to that game as things could get really ugly up in Big Rapids. Michigan has to stay cool in what will undoubtedly be a very hostile environment. We can probably count on a good number of power play chances if we don’t let the Bulldogs get under our skin. We’ll find out in less than 24 hours so until then, C-ya.

Week in review, past and future

I mentioned a few weeks back (at least I think I did) that the NHL had closed the loop hole that allowed Mike Van Ryn and Mike Comrie (among others) to leave school early, play a year of major juniors, and then declare free agency in the NHL. The OHL was the reason why this was considered closed by stating that any player listed on a team roster, as an overage junior must have played in the OHL the previous year. This is all good except the WHL and QMJHL have yet to declare the same rule. We will see if this loophole stays closed. For anyone who is interested Van Ryn is playing in the AHL with the St. Louis Blues affiliate in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is also not having a good year – it doesn’t appear that playing a year against smaller, weaker opponents did Mike any good. Comrie is playing in the WHL with the Kootenay Ice where is tearing it up, tallying 24 goals through 15 games. It remains to be seen whether his year of playing smaller, weaker opponents will pay off the way he believed when he left Michigan.

The MAAC, which received an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament this year, may not be around for very long. Several teams in that conference are talking about joining Hockey East or the ECAC to resolve issues with the number of scholarships they can give. We’ll have to keep an eye on these developments over the next few years. We will also have to wait and see if the NCAA will finally expand the NCAA Ice Hockey tournament to 16 teams. It’s overdue and will be a welcome change once it finally happens.

Going into this weekend we have a three-way tie at the top of the CCHA. Michigan’s loss to the Spartans allowed MSU to pull even with the Wolverines in points while Northern Michigan kept pace by taking three points from Bowling Green last weekend. The loss to MSU not only caused Michigan to give away it’s slight lead in the conference it also cost them in the national polls as they drop two spots in both polls to number three. Certainly not the end of the world, and in some respects it may be good. Whoever plays Michigan gives them their best shot. The number one rank just adds fuel to an already raging fire. I’d rather float around the top five all year and get that number one back in April. Perhaps the biggest surprise in the CCHA so far this year is the Bronco’s of Western Michigan. They are the lone unbeaten team in the CCHA. They continue to score lots of points and beat everyone that comes their way.

That gets us to this weekends home and home series against the Bulldogs of Ferris State. I don’t know what it is about this Bulldog team, but over the last few years they have consistently given Michigan trouble. These two teams split the season series last year and I think the year before. One thing you can count on from Ferris is a physical game. They generally don’t have as many skill players as the Wolverines, but they make up for it by knocking people all over the ice. These two teams have also developed quite a dislike for each other. Over the last couple of years they have racked up some serious penalty minutes in at least one game per weekend. A few times it’s looked like they have come close to all out brawls. You can probably expect more of the same this weekend from the Bulldogs. While they are not as skilled they are big and physical and I’m sure they will try to take Michigan out of their game. Michigan has to learn to take the abuse when playing this team and then making them pay with power play goals.

Speaking of the Wolverines we will see if they can get things back together after that frustrating loss to the Spartans last weekend. They outplayed MSU in last weekend’s game, but simply could not score any goals even though they had several golden scoring opportunities. In an attempt to address the scoring problems suffered by the Wolverines last weekend there will be some line changes this weekend against Ferris. Geoff Koch will move to the second line with Mike Cammalleri and Jed Ortmeyer in an attempt to add some size and leadership to the line. Mark Kosick, who was previously on that number two line, will move up to the number one line with Josh Langfeld and Andy Hilbert. This will hopefully help Mark get more scoring opportunities. Scott Matzka who was on the first line will move to the third line with Mark Mink and John Shouneyia. This will add more speed to this already fast line. Hopefully this little mix up in the lines will revitalize the Michigan scoring punch.

Once again this weekend’s series is the first and last time we will see this CCHA team unless we meet again in the playoffs. It is still my opinion that these are must win games. Ferris is a team that Michigan should beat; they will undoubtedly make it tough, but Michigan should win these games. The home ice contest on Friday is obviously the most important one to win, but we really need to win both games to keep pace in the conference race. Things are so tight this year that if we get even a handful of points behind the conference leader it may be difficult to make those points up. To that end Michigan needs to do a couple of things to win this weekend’s games. First, they must use their speed and skill to advantage. Secondly, they must not let Ferris get them into a physical game. Ferris will come out physical, but Michigan needs to be ready to take the hits, turn the other cheek (so to speak), and then take advantage of power play opportunities. If they do this they should be in good shape.

Tonight will see associate coach Mel Pearson handle the coaching duties as coach Berenson will be in Toronto taking part in a ceremony honoring the 1972 Canadian hockey team at the Hockey Hall of Fame. This is the team that played the Russian team in the Summit Series – a seven or eight game series in Russia that saw the Canadians come away with a series win.

One final note from last weekends game against MSU or at least something that happened after the game. Forward Jason Ryznar committed to the maize and blue. Jason is a 6’ 4", 200 pound forward who is currently a member of the U.S. National Team Development Program. He joins teammates Dwight Helminen and Eric Nystrom as members of the class of 2001. Welcome to Michigan Jason, Dwight, and Eric!