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Saturday, December 9, 2000
Saturday, December 9, 2000, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Besides Huntzicker and Fraser who are obvious scratches with their injuries J.J. Swistak and Dave Wyzgowski were also scratched from this game. St. Lawrence also came out with a different game looking to get a different outcome in tonight’s contest. Michigan will be looking for their first home sweep in over a month as they prepare for the second contest against the Saints from St. Lawrence. Let’s see how things went.
Both teams in this contest came out skating hard, but through the first five or so minutes of the game was all skating. There were no scores and there were no penalties. At least some of that would change with 14:31 remaining in the first period when the Saints were called for the first penalty of the game putting Michigan on the power play. The Wolverines worked this power play fairly well, applying quite a bit of pressure. With just eight seconds left in the power play they came as close as they had come all night to scoring when they just missed a wide open back door opportunity. The power play came to an end with no scores tallied, but to give you an idea of the pressure Michigan mounted consider this. Going into the power play the shots on goal were tied at 1 apiece. After the power play Michigan was out in front in shots on goal at 7 to 2. Following the power play both teams again continued the up and down skating frenzy as each team looked for that little crack in the others defense. As the mid-point of the period was approached Michigan put on a flurry of shots as they just missed on three or four real good scoring chances in a row. With 8:20 left in the period St. Lawrence was again called for a penalty to give Michigan their second power play chance of the period and again the Wolverines were to come up short. Like the previous power play Michigan had a couple of golden chances to score, but just couldn’t seem to get the puck in the net. With 5:30 to go in the period the scoreless tie was to be broken; it took a while, but it was well worth the wait. The puck had been pushed wide to the side of the rink and the St. Lawrence defense went wide with the puck and some with UM players going to the other side. Center ice just opened up wide as if it were a runway at an airport. Onto this runway appeared Andy Hilbert all alone ready for take off. His fellow Wolverines got the puck to him and Hilbert was off down the middle of the ice, charging hard for the Saint goal. As he closed he made his move and blasted the puck past the Saint netminder to finally put Michigan on the board and give the Wolverines the late first period lead. Assists on the goal went to Koch and Cammalleri. Yes, for those of you paying attention this is the same three who were involved in Michigan’s first goal on Friday night. With 4:41 left in the period Michigan finally went to the sin bin for the first time and it wasn’t even for hitting anyone as they were called for a bench minor, too many men on the ice. With 3:10 left in the period, 29 seconds in the St. Lawrence power play, the Saints were called for a penalty. This killed their power play and set Michigan up for a power play of their own as soon as they got their fifth player back. No further goals were scored on any power play leaving the only action for the night to Blackburn who picked up a penalty with 11.7 seconds left in the period. A St. Lawrence player ended up in Blackburn’s crease (the net actually) and was trying to get out when Blackburn just dumped him back onto the ice. Of course the referee was right there looking at it and Blackburn was called for the penalty. This was another of those really stupid penalties that Michigan takes far to many of and gave St. Lawrence a very short length of time on the power play to end the first, but more importantly they got to start the second on the power play. The first period came to an end with Michigan leading by a score of 1 to nothing. Michigan also held a decent edge in shots on goal with a 14 to 5 count.
St. Lawrence started the second period with 1:49 of power play time and they were looking to take advantage of the late first period gift. Michigan was able to kill off the penalty, but the Saints got several shots on goal (a couple of them real good). In fact to start the second period St. Lawrence had four shots on goal before Michigan was able to get their first. By the time we were down to the final twelve or thirteen minutes of the second period Michigan was once again getting some pressure on the Saint goal. We hadn’t scored again, but we were starting to get some good pressure on the goal. With 9:59 left in the period Michigan would strike again as Matzka got the puck and charged into the Saint zone and right to the net. As he got in close he let loose a shot that streaked past the Saint netminder. Of course he was coming so fast he couldn’t stop and he ended up in the net right along with the puck. This caused the Saints to try convincing the referee that the goal had come off it’s moorings prior to the goal going in and in fact they did call the goal up for review. After review it was officially marked down as a goal and Michigan had a two-goal lead. Assists on this goal went to Kosick and Vancik. This seemed to shake the Saints as the floodgates opened at this time and Michigan really took control of this game. With 9:34 left in the period, from the face off following the second goal, St. Lawrence let Mink loose with the puck. As Mink flew past the goal he backhanded the puck back to the goalies wide side and into the corner of the net for Michigan’s third goal. Assists on this goal went to Ortmeyer and Komisarek. With 8:13 left in the period and the St. Lawrence defense in disarray Michigan gets the puck in neutral ice. They get a pass ahead to a streaking Hilbert who snags his second goal of the night to give Michigan a four-goal lead. Assists on this goal went to Trainor and Cammalleri. With the 7:46 left in the period the Wolverine juggernaut was finally halted by them as they pick up a penalty putting St. Lawrence on the power play. While Michigan was able to kill off the penalty, they weren’t able to maintain their shutout through the end of the period. With just 2:03 left in the second period and Michigan getting a little lax with the puck, St. Lawrence made them pay as they scored their first goal of the night. Just a little reminder to the Wolverines that there was still some hockey to play. The second period came to an end with Michigan leading by a score of 4 to 1. Michigan still held the edge in shots on goal with a 29 to 20 count.
The third period started out with a bang as Michigan struck right off the opening face off. Michigan won the face off and they got the puck to Hilbert. Andy got off kind of a floater that went top shelf and into the net to push Michigan’s lead back to four goals. This goal gave Hilbert the hat trick, his first as a Wolverine. The goal was unassisted. There was again a long stretch of time where both teams worked the puck up and down the ice getting a shot off here and there, but no real scoring threat. With 13:47 left in the game L.J. Scarpace came in to give Blackburn a rest. Scarpace came in a little earlier, but somehow I missed it. They slipped him in there while I wasn’t looking or something, but Scarpace was in goal. With 11:24 left in the period St. Lawrence got their second goal of the night. Once again Michigan was not taking care of the puck, didn’t get control of it or clear it out of their zone and the Saints made them pay. They got several chances in a row and finally got one past Scarpace. With 10:06 left in the period it was Michigan who wouldn’t let St. Lawrence get the puck out of their zone and Michigan who would once again put the puck in the net. The Wolverines were flying and scrapping and just doing everything they could to keep the puck in the Saint zone and alive. Finally, Bill Trainor got off a shot that made it into the Saint net and Michigan was back to their four-goal lead. This was Trainor’s first goal of the year with assists going to Murray and Vancik. With 8:04 left in the period Michigan picked up a penalty to put St. Lawrence on the power play, but the Wolverines kill this penalty off. Then with 4:37 left in the period Michigan brought in O’Malley to get him some work in goal. Scarpace turned away all but one shot sent his way. O’Malley turned away each of the shots that came his way and the game came to an end with Michigan winning by a score of 6 to 2. Shots on goal were very similar to last night as Michigan ended the night with a 39 to 29 edge.
This was a real good weekend of hockey as Michigan puts two solid games together on home ice and gets their first home sweep in over a month. These two wins conclude the first half of the regular season schedule. Michigan does have one exhibition game remaining as they will host the US under-18 team this coming Tuesday. This was a great way to end the first half and go into the break. Now we need to get through the exhibition game, see a few future Wolverines, and then get some players the down time they need to heal up. I didn’t know it going into the game, but apparently Blackburn was ill prior to and during the game so what he did in goal on Saturday night was huge. The whole team played very well all weekend. We shut down the nations best power play, we kept penalties to a minimum at least on Saturday, and we played with intensity both nights. It would have been nice to see our power play be more effective as we went 0 for 8 on the weekend. However, in both games we got scores from each of our four lines. That is especially encouraging, as our next four games will probably see us without both of our leading scorers. Both Mike Cammalleri and Andy Hilbert extended their scoring streaks to eight and nine games respectively.
Some interesting things happening around the country in hockey this week. In Boston College’s first game of the week they skated to a 0-0 tie. They play Maine on Sunday and should the Blackbears win that game Michigan could jump over Boston College in the polls. North Dakota lost on Friday and had to go to overtime on Saturday to get a split against Colorado College; I would think Michigan would move ahead of the Sioux in this week’s poll. Union and Princeton, two other ECAC teams that have been ranked this year also lost this weekend. Wisconsin split the weekend series with St. Cloud, while Minnesota just annihilated Quinnipiac. In the CCHA Ferris skated MSU to a 0-0 tie on Friday night before loosing to the Spartans on Saturday. Miami swept Notre Dame to continue the Irish woes, while Northern swept Michigan Tech to further improve the CCHA’s non-conference record (especially when combined with Michigan’s sweep of St. Lawrence). Nebraska split the weekend with Bowling Green; while Lake Superior split the weekend with Alaska. That leaves Michigan State all alone in first place with 21 points, with Michigan and Miami tied for second with 15 points each. Western and Northern are tied for fourth with 14 points each, Ohio State has 13 to fill the sixth spot. Lake Superior and Alaska are tied for seventh with 12 points each, while Nebraska sits in ninth with 11, while Bowling Green holds down the number ten spot with 10 points. Ferris and Notre Dame fill in spots eleven and twelve with 5 and 4 points respectively. Now before anyone gets all wrenched out of shape remember that Michigan now has two games in hand against the Spartans. Assuming Michigan wins those two games we are now only two points out of first place with three games yet to play against the Spartans. Of course we must also remember that Western has two games in hand against us and assuming they win those they are in second place three points ahead of us. We play the Bronco’s twice, just enough to pass them in the standings. Ohio State has one game in hand against us and could move into a tie with the Wolverines assuming they win that game, we play them twice. The long and short of it is that we play all the teams we need to play, enough times to move into first place. However, Michigan’s margin of error remains zero. There is no conference game remaining on our schedule that we can afford to loose if we wish to repeat as CCHA regular season champions. If we loose a single game we put our fate in the hands of others. Come on blue, you know what to do!
One final note. There was a moment of silence at the beginning of tonight’s contest for St. Lawrence fan and booster Albert Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher suffered a heart attack during Friday night’s game at Yost and medical personnel were unable to revive him. I know the thoughts of Wolverine fans everywhere go out to the family of Mr. Fletcher and the St. Lawrence hockey program for their loss.
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