Since Red Berenson took over as coach of the Michigan hockey team in 1984-1985 he has had a habit of playing goalies for four straight years, bringing them in as freshmen, putting them between the pipes, and winning or losing as they played. During that time there have been a series of outstanding goalies at Michigan.
Many of the Michigan players from the last fifteen years were missing from the official NCAA record books. They have been added as of the 2006 record book (at least that's the first one I've seen them listed in). You can check out all of the college hockey records by going to the NCAA.org site.
Starting with the 1987-1988 season (the first season I can get reasonable verification
of the goalies) the goalies and their years between the pipes have been:
Warren Sharples (1987,1988,1989,1990)
Steve Shields (1991, 1992, 1993, 1994)
Mary Turco (1995, 1996, 1997, 1998)
Josh Blackburn (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002)
Al Montoya (2003, 2004, 2005)
Noah Ruden (2006)
Billy Saur (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009)
With the early departure of Al Montoya the goalie spot was wide open with no goalies really scheduled to come in until the following year. The coaches went to work, contacting Billy Sauer about accelerating his high school class work and entering Michigan to compete for the starting goalie spot. Billy finished off his high school career a year early and entered Michigan in the Fall of 2005, becoming Michigans second straight 17 year old goal tender. His yearly records are 2005-2006 (11-6-4), 2006-2007 (25-14-1), 2007-2008 (30-4-3), and 2008-2009 ().
The first year of the Billy Sauer era started out well, but didn't exactly go according to plan for him or for the team. Billy finished the 2005-2006 hockey season with an 11-6-4 record after splitting time with Senior goal tender Noah Ruden. Billy started out fairly well, playing an outstanding game against visiting Boston College early in the season and continued to play solid through the first couple months of the season. Things started to go bad during the College Hockey Showcase as the Wolverines dropped both contests for the third or fourth year in a row. From that point forward the coaching staff would either start Billy or Noah, usually going weekend to weekend, depending on who seemed to play better in practice that week. As the year wound down Ruden took over the starting job and started the last few weeks of the season, including the playoffs. Billy had trouble staying focused on the game, often giving up one or two soft goals in a game, but at the same time he would show flashes of his athletic ability, making seemingly impossible stops. With a very young team in front of him, it was perhaps to much pressure to put on the shoulders of a seventeen year old.
His 2006-2007 campaign was certainly better than his previous year. He established himself as the number one goalie, starting all but one game. He had his ups and downs over the course of the season, but he finished strong as he seemed to gain confidence and hit his stride through the second half of the year. Another new goalie is scheduled in next year, but the job should be Billies to lose. Much will depend on his maturity and confidence, but if he can get his head on straight he could become the type of game changing goal tender Michigan has lacked for the last couple of years.
The 2007-2008 season started with an expected competition between Sauer and incoming goalie, Bryan Hogan. However, things didn't go as planned, with Hogan falling with mononucleosis. The third goalie on the team, Shawn Hunwick, also was ill for the first couple of weeks of the season. That left Sauer as Michigans only real option in goal to start the season. In the end this turned out just fine Michigan started the season 18-2-0 with Sauer having a record of 16-2-0 after the GLI tournament. Hogan had the other two wins, getting a couple of starts late in the first half to get him some ice time and so the coaches could see what they had in a backup. Sauers solid play in goal continued through the season and into the playoffs. The Wolverines reached the Frozen Four for the first time in four years in no small part because of the play of Sauer. Things went terribly wrong in Michigan's semi-final game against Notre Dame when Sauer simply melted down giving up three goals in quick succession in the first period to put Michigan down early. While they fought back to force overtime, the early hole and confidence it gave the Irish was simply to much to overcome. Michigan failed to reach the finals in a tournament that they seemed poised to win for the first time since 1998. To be fair the entire team played poorly in that opening period so the problems of that single game cannot be entirely laid at Sauers feet, but he's the goalie and like a quarterback in a football game he tends to get to much credit when the team wins and to much blame when the team loses.
There is no doubt that the 2007-2008 season was a break out season for Sauer. This seems to be a combination of two things. First he reached the ripe old age of 20 early in the second half of the season and from all accounts he is a much more mature person that he was when he entered Michigan at the age of 17 (not an unexpected thing). The second thing that happened is that Josh Blackburn returned to Ann Arbor in the summer leading up to this season and took over as the Wolverines goalie coach. He not only helped Billy with his technical game, but since he was here during the week he was in a much better position to help Billy with the mental aspects of the game as well, including how to prepare for and handle the big games. Depending on who you talk to Billy's career year was either due to his natural maturation or it was due to the influence of Blackburn. I tend to believe it was a combination of the two. We will see how things go in his final year. There will certainly be competition going into the year since Hogan should be healthy going into the year (hopefully no more mono). Hogan looks to be a capable net minder, who if given the opportunity could take over the job, especially if he is there competing right from the start. On the other hand if Billy can put that last game out of his mind, putting together a final year like the one just past, he should finish his career as the starter and get close to 100 wins for his career. That would put him someplace in the NCAA top ten.
Ruden was the Senior backup to Billy Sauer during the 2005-2006 hockey season (Sauer's first, Noah's last). Noah only makes this page because of the difficulties that Sauer encountered in that season. Noah ended up splitting time in goal with Sauer, with the goalies splitting the games almost evenly. By the end of the season Ruden had become the regular starter, finishing off the season and the playoffs between the pipes for Michigan. While his overall record wasn't really any better than Sauer's he tended to be more consistent in goal.
The current man (when I started this page) in the Wolverine mask is Al Montoya, a goalie that came in with much fanfare as the next "great" Michigan goalie. He was seventeen when he started school at Michigan (having accelerated through High School) and remained seventeen through about two thirds of his first hockey season. For his age he was poised, mature, and living up to the hype as that next great goalie. His yearly records were 2002-2003 (30-10-3), 2003-2004 (26-12-2), and 2004-2005 (30-7-3). Montoya was the first goalie in the Berenson era to leave school early for the NHL, signing with the New York Rangers, forgoing his Senior season at Michigan. If Montoya had stayed and managed another thirty win season he would have reached 116 career wins, not enough to beat Turco, but enough to move into second place. We'll never know if he might have moved to the top of the NCAA record list for most wins by a goaltender, but his 86 wins will put him in the top 10 among all time goal tenders once the NCAA record books are updated.
It fell to Josh Blackburn to follow Marty Turco as the new Michigan net minder. The shadow, however, was a bit larger than just Marty's. Not only was he following the current record holder for career wins, but Marty was the second record setter in a row to play at Michigan. The comparisons were inevitable - is Blackburn as good as Turco or Shields? Will he set a new record? Blackburn did not set a new record, but was, by pretty much any measure, except perhaps a Michigan hockey fans measure, a very good goal tender. His yearly records were 1998-1999 (25-10-6), 1999-2000 (14-4-4), 2000-2001 (26-13-5), and 2001-2002 (27-11-5). His career record was a solid mark that would have had him starting at most any Division 1 school. He probably would have gone over the 100 win mark if his second year hadn't been cut in half by a mysterious incident that supposedly involved a Buckeye nut and a refrigerator. The injury, no matter how it happened, and the jury is still out on that one, left him with an injured foot for half the season. If not for Shields and Turco his win totals, even with the shortened second year, would have broken the pre-Shields record for most wins in a career. Not a bad career for a goalie that a lot of Michigan fans didn't think very highly of.
Following up Shields was Marty Turco, the man between the pipes from the 1994-1995 season until the end of the 1997-1998 campaign. Turco had to follow up a record setting career by his predecessor, something that is never easy to do, but he rose to the challenge in convincing fashion. His records for his four year run at Michigan were 1994-1995 (27-7-1), 1995-1996 (34-7-1), 1996-1997 (33-4-4), and 1997-1998 (33-10-1). His career record would set a new NCAA record for career wins, just four years after a seemingly unbeatable record had been set. All that's left to see is how long it takes someone to break Turco's record of 127 wins.
After Sharples came Steve Sheilds, who guarded the Michigan net from the 1990-1991 season, through four years, with his final season 1993-1994. His yearly records were 1990-1991 (26-6-3), 1991-1992 (27-7-2), 1992-1993 (30-6-2), and 1993-1994 (28-6-1). His 111 wins, set an all time NCAA Division 1A record for most career wins, shattering the previous record of 88 (Gary Kruzich, Bowling Green, 1984-1987). Since the gap was so large between the previous and now new NCAA wins record, it was thought that this record would stand for a very long time.
I could find just one year of actual statistics for Warren so I don't have his career won/loss record. His final year as Michigan's net minder was the 1989-1990 season. His record in his final campaign was 20-10-6.