Saturday, December 30, 2000

Saturday, December 30, 2000, Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan

Michigan gets one last shot at redemption this weekend as they take on the Eagles from Boston College. This will be the first time these two teams have met since Michigan beat them at the Fleet Center in Boston for the 1998 National Championship. I’m sure the Michigan seniors would like to duplicate that win tonight, while I’m equally sure that the Eagle seniors want a little pay back. This will be only the eleventh time these two teams have played, with Michigan holding the series lead 8-2. When playing at neutral sites Michigan is 4-0-0 against Boston College. After last nights debacle I hope we see the real Michigan team, otherwise I will have to put pictures of the missing team on telephone poles and trees around Ann Arbor to see if we can’t locate them.

There were some changes made to the starting line up for tonight’s game as Koch, Murray, and Ortmeyer will be the starting line. The defense remains the same with Burnes, Jillson, and Blackburn in goal. As the game gets underway the Wolverines seem to be playing with a little more intensity as they are hitting any Eagle that gets within striking distance. With just 35 seconds gone in the game we get a pair of matching penalties and the teams will skate four-on-four for the next two minutes. Michigan seemed to carry the puck most of this time, but neither team is able to score and the penalties expire. With 15:49 left in the first period it appears that tempers are already starting to flare just a little bit as some players eye each other during a stop in the action. With 15:00 minutes left in the period Michigan looses a battle in front of the net and BC gets the first goal of the night to take the early lead. Everyone got tangled up in front of the net, including Blackburn, and the Eagles just slipped it into the net to Blackburn’s left. With 13:09 left in the period Boston College picked up a penalty for high sticking and Michigan will get their first power play chance of the night. Just 29 seconds into this power play Mink fanned on a shot and BC got the puck around their own blue line. They broke straight down the ice and beat Blackburn through the five hole to pick up a short-handed goal and suddenly Michigan is down by two. This was the second straight goal that really should have been stopped. With 51 seconds remaining in this power play Michigan got off a shot that was blocked, but the puck came right down in front of the goal line. All Michigan had to do was poke it into the net to get a goal, but the BC net minder got their first and ended that scoring threat. We did get something out of it as Mink picked up a charging penalty to end our power play and set the Eagles up for a power play of their own. When all was said and done the Wolverines were able to kill off the BC power play and the teams returned to even strength. It looked like Michigan might finally get a goal as we moved under the ten-minute mark of the period, but the shot hit a post and bounced away. Following this the Eagles got the puck down into the Michigan zone and were just all over the Michigan goal. Neither Blackburn nor the defense could get control of the puck and with 7:44 left in the period BC scored their third straight goal to take a commanding first period lead. Following a couple of big open ice hits involving Ortmeyer Michigan finally got a pass up ice to a streaking Matzka. Scott took the puck right to the BC net and beat the goalie to finally get Michigan on the board. Assists on this goal went to Trainor and Swistak. With about 4 ½ minutes to go in the period BC got the puck clear of their zone and had a lone skater breaking into the Michigan zone, but this time the defense was where they needed to be. However, instead of tying up the BC player and waiting for a little help Gassoff went for the big hit, which he missed, allowing BC to take the puck right to the Michigan goal and score their fourth of the period. About a minute later it appeared Michigan might get back within two when a Wolverine got loose all alone in the BC zone, but this time Michigan was unable to beat the BC goalie and the Eagle lead held at three goals. With 12 seconds left in the period BC was called for a penalty to put Michigan on the power play. Michigan was unable to score and the period ended with Boston College holding a 4 to 1 lead. The Eagles also finished the game with an edge in shots on goal with a 17 to 13 count.

The second period starts with Michigan on the power play for 1:48 and they stick with Blackburn in goal. I would have seriously considered going to Scarpace at this point, it really couldn’t have gotten much worse could it? With 19:18 to go in the period, 1:07 in the Michigan power play, BC picked up a second penalty to give Michigan a two-man advantage. This was a great opportunity for Michigan to really close the gap early in this period, but they only managed to get half way there. With 18:30 left in the period, 19 seconds in the original penalty, Michigan scored a power play goal to get back within two. They passed the puck well through neutral ice and got it to Koch who slipped the puck through the BC goalies five hole. Assists on this goal went to Shouneyia and Ortmeyer. With 17:34 left in the period, 16 seconds in the Michigan power play (the second BC penalty), Matzka picked up a penalty to end the Michigan power play and set BC up for a power play of their own. Boston College almost notched a quick goal, but it hit the crossbar and bounced away (referee immediately waved it off). Michigan killed this BC power play off and both teams returned to full strength. With 14:42 to go in the period an Eagle trips Langfeld to keep him from breaking in clean on their goal. With 1:47 left in this power play Michigan had a perfect setup for a back door goal, but they simply waited to long to shoot the puck. By time they got around to shooting it the BC net minder had recovered and the shot was blocked. Boston College went on from there to kill the penalty off and return to full strength. As we neared the mid-point of the period Jillson bought two minutes in the sin bin for elbowing. With 1:22 left in this BC power play Matzka got loose and looked like he was on his way to get a short handed goal, but the BC defense caught up and broke up the charge. With 10:08 to go in the second, 36 seconds in the BC power play, the Eagles got the puck behind the Michigan net. The player with the puck was tied up, but a second Eagle came sliding behind the net, they passed the puck off to him, and he put a nice little wrap around shot in the goal to once again move Boston College out to a three goal lead. With 8:16 to go in the period Roemensky takes an Eagle, trying to break clean into the Michigan zone, to the ice. This puts him in the sin bin and puts Boston College back on the power play. With 1:42 left in this power play, much like the prior BC power play, it looked like Michigan might pick up a short handed goal, but they again came up short as Gassoff’s shot is gloved by the BC goalie. With 5:13 left in the period BC broke through the defense and got in clean on Blackburn, but this time he was up to the challenge and stopped the scoring threat. With just over one minute to go in the period, after missing on a couple of shots, Michigan gets their third goal of the game as Jillson bangs the puck into the net. Assists on this goal went to Shouneyia and Mink. With about 39 seconds left Michigan just missed picking up a late goal, but to insure that Michigan accomplished something late in the period Wyzgowski was called for charging to put BC back on the power play. The Eagles were unable to score on this power play and the period came to an end with Boston College leading by a score of 5 to 3. Michigan out shot the Eagles in this period to take a one shot lead in shots on goal with a 26 to 25 count.

Boston College started the third period with 1:24 of power play time and they did not waste it. With just 10 seconds left in the power play the Eagles get past Koch and bang a shot into the net to Blackburn’s wide side. A couple of minutes later, 17:44 to go, Kosick got loose in the BC zone, but he got knocked a little off balance and was unable to send his shot home. With 17:01 left in the game Michigan passed the puck quickly out of the neutral zone and got it to a wide-open Langfeld. Josh carried the puck right to the BC goal and punched it past their goalie to get another Michigan score. Assists on this goal went to Kosick and Wyzgowski. With 15:58 to go in the game Michigan turned the puck over in their zone and gave BC a free shot at Blackburn. Blackburn stops the shot, but does not cover the rebound and Michigan is unable to get control of the puck. They pass the puck behind the net, then out front, and they take a shot that just sails right past Blackburn. I’m still trying to figure out why they are staying with Blackburn; he’s been as bad tonight as he was last night. With 12:54 to go in the game BC is called for a penalty to put Michigan on the power play, but the Eagles kill the penalty off in business like fashion. With 8:53 left in the game Wyzgowski broke out of the Michigan zone clean and looked like he was on his way for a one on one showdown with the Eagle goalie. However, he didn’t move down the ice very fast and an Eagle caught up with him and poked the puck away. I guess he took exception to that because he cracked the guy across the shield with his stick and earned himself two minutes in the sin bin for a high stick and a ten-minute misconduct. We not only lost Wyzgowski for the rest of the game we had to put another player in the box to serve his two minutes. Just 50 seconds later it was Boston College scoring their fourth power play goal of the night. This happened with 8:03 remaining in the game and while it took eight goals we finally put Scarpace in goal. With 5:46 remaining in the game, following one of the few solid runs of good puck handling and passing Michigan was able to score their fifth goal of the night with a shot from in front of the goal. Shouneyia scored the goal with an assist going to Matzka. I have to mention here that I thought it looked like some lines had been mixed up somewhere along the line, but there had been so much special teams play it was hard to tell. It does appear that Matzka was moved onto the line with Mink and Shouneyia, while Koch was moved onto the line with Kosick and Langfeld. The other lines look basically the same. With 2:44 left in the game BC was called for another penalty to give Michigan a late power play chance. With 1:55 left in the game we pulled our goalie. With one minute left in the game we brought our goalie back in. Through all of this Michigan was unable to come close to scoring a goal and BC killed off the Michigan power play. For the second night in a row a game came to a merciful end as Boston College blasts Michigan by a score of 8 to 3. Both teams managed nine shots on goal during this final period allowing Michigan to end the game with a one shot lead with a 35 to 34 count.

I just don’t know what to say about this game tonight, they certainly didn’t play like the number four team in the country. That, unfortunately, isn’t something they will have to worry about again for a while, as they will be lucky to stay in the top ten following these two losses. The team did seem to play with more intensity, but they also continued to make a fairly large number of mental errors. Quite frankly the biggest hole in this game was the goaltending. For the second night in a row Blackburn was as bad as he can be. He is such a hard one to figure out; at times he can be nothing short of brilliant, at other times he is nothing less than bad. I can’t put the whole game on Blackburn’s shoulders, there was plenty of bad play to go around, but I can’t help wondering how things might have turned out had we changed goalies after that third BC goal. The seven goals we gave up against Tech last night were the most goals scored against Michigan all year. The eight goals scored by Boston College are now the most goals scored against Michigan all year. It’s a good thing we have a week of practice before our next set of games, because we have an awful lot to work on. While these two losses aren’t exactly the way I would have liked to see Michigan start the second half, they don’t count in the CCHA. They might hurt in March at tournament selection time, but right now they just leave a bad taste in the mouth. The Wolverines return to CCHA play next weekend with two games against Lake Superior. These two games, like all CCHA games from now until the end of the season, are must win games. If Michigan wants to contend for the regular season CCHA championship they have to play an awful lot better than these last two games. Practice should be very interesting this week. Don’t forget that the second game this coming weekend is being played on Sunday, January 7th. Until next weekend, C-ya!