‘22-23 Roster Preview, Pt. 3: Goaltending and Special Teams
‘22-23 Roster Preview, Pt. 3: Goaltending and Special Teams
We think through Michigan’s goaltending situation between the well-established Erik Portillo and his backups, as well as what to expect from Michigan’s reloaded PP and PK Units
Greetings and welcome to the third and final installment in our roster preview series. If you missed part one, covering the forward group, you can find it here. If you missed part two, covering the blue line, head right this way. Today, we will be discussing Michigan’s goaltending and special teams for the upcoming year, relying on the same format of a gloss followed by three questions.
The best news of all is that we are now just three sleeps away from (exhibition) Michigan men’s hockey returning on Saturday evening against Windsor. Consider this edition of the newsletter our gift to you, an effort to help you power through the final miserable hockey-less hours before the season gets going.
We won’t be doing much by way of a direct preview of this weekend’s game, it being an exhibition matchup with a U Sports opponent. It’s the first game of the season. What we’re watching for is…well, the team. How do the lines look? Who’s playing where on special teams? Which freshmen make an early impression?
According to Brandon Naurato, fans will likely have to wait until at least the Lindenwood series the weekend after this to see Luke Hughes and Frank Nazar. Naurato’s response to being asked about their status for Windsor hinted at the cliche that, if it were the postseason, both may be available. As such, it would seem well within the realm of possibility that they will feature against Lindenwood.
For now, though, enjoy the following musings on Michigan’s goaltending and special teams and take comfort that hockey looms immediately on the horizon.
A Gloss on These Groups
Our most common refrain throughout this roster preview has been the repeated reminder of the talent that does not return to the ‘22-23 team. The good news is that on the goaltending front we can finally invert that narrative.
After last season ended, it appeared likely that Erik Portillo would forgo his final years of eligibility in Ann Arbor to begin his professional career with the Buffalo Sabres (for whom goaltending is a glaring need). Instead, Portillo opted to return for at least one more season with the Maize and Blue, a decision that also sets him up for free agency should he choose the NHL at the end of his junior campaign.
At media day on Tuesday night, Portillo mentioned that part of the reason he opted to return was to feel “over-prepared” for the NHL, believing an extra year of preparation in the NCAA would best set him up to arrive to the league with confidence.
Simply put, Portillo was a star in net for the Wolverines a year ago. Entering the season, it was easy to imagine a situation in which Portillo—then an unproven sophomore, playing behind the most talented skater group in the history of collegiate hockey and replacing a beloved veteran in Strauss Mann—would wind up a scapegoat should the season slide off the rails.
Portillo assuaged those doubts and then some, finishing the year with a .926 save percentage, 2.14 goals against average, and 31-10-1 record. Per College Hockey News, Portillo was even stingier in tight games with a .936 save percentage when games were within a two-goal margin.
Even with all of the talent departing from the skater group this season, Portillo’s return is enough to vault the Wolverines into the national title conversation. There is a reasonable scenario in which Michigan’s offense regresses from the heights of last season, but an atop-his-game Portillo carries them through the tournament. Such is the nature of a small sample size sport.
Meanwhile, on special teams, the same impact performers we discussed as now in absentia from the forward group and blue line will be missed on both units. A year ago, special teams were a major strength for the Wolverines. The power play finished the season 40/149, a 26.8% clip that was the best in the Big Ten and third in the country. The penalty kill warded off 129 of its opposition’s 155 opportunities, good for 83.2%, third in the Big Ten and seventeenth in the nation.
The Wolverines’ forty power play goals came from ten different goal scorers. Of that group, seven will no longer wear maize and blue when the season begins, accounting for all but ten of those goals. The three returning power play scorers are Mackie Samoskevich (four), Luke Hughes (three), and Dylan Duke (three).
That number from Hughes is particularly intriguing. As we discussed a week ago, Hughes set a record for freshman defenseman at Michigan with his seventeen goals last season. That just three came with the man advantage comes as something of a surprise. Michigan’s other top scorers from last season did a much greater percentage of their damage on the power play with Matty Beniers scoring ten of his twenty goals and Brendan Brisson netting six of his twenty-one in that setting. It wasn’t as though Hughes suffered from any significant shortage of power play ice time, but he should have even more of a green light to shoot the puck this year.
Unfortunately, many of the same Wolverines who played a starring role on last year’s sterling power play also featured on the penalty kill. Stars like Beniers, Thomas Bordeleau, and Kent Johnson were staples of last season’s penalty kill, and Garrett Van Wyhe and Jimmy Lambert also need to be replaced.
Michigan has serious work to do in terms of repopulating both special teams units, but between Brandon Naurato’s expertise and the incoming talent, that doesn’t need to cause panic amongst Wolverine fans.
Three Questions
*Knocks furiously on wood* What is the backup plan in net?
If all goes according to plan, Erik Portillo will start every game for this year’s Wolverines, as he did a year ago. Portillo’s sophomore workload was titanic; he played 2,499 of Michigan’s 2,542 minutes and faced 1,113 of the 1,128 shots the Wolverines conceded. As we highlighted above, Portillo was spectacular in the cage and at his best in the season’s biggest moments—earning the Big Ten Tournament and Allentown Regional’s Most Outstanding Player honors. As good as the Wolverines were a year ago, their high octane, warp-speed offense did not exactly make life easy for its goaltender, yet Portillo was never fazed between the pipes.
The nightmare scenario for Brandon Naurato’s team is if Portillo has to miss any extended time this year, whether due to injury or a sudden dip in form. With respect to backups Noah West and Tyler Shea, no team can weather the loss of its star goaltender without some kind of backslide.
To his credit, in the event of such a nightmarish circumstance, West has some solid collegiate experience. As a freshman in 2020-21, the Pittsboro, Indiana native posted an impressive .915 save percentage and 2.66 GAA while playing for Robert Morris University. West transferred to U-M as a sophomore, assuming the back-up duties behind Portillo and making two appearances (totaling thirty-one minutes) over which he registered a .917 and 1.95. Between those two campaigns, West boasts a commendable track record, albeit with quite variable workloads.
Meanwhile, Shea, a true freshman, arrives from the BCHL’s Wenatchee Wild. For the Wild, Shea played forty games a year ago, surrendering 2.98 goals per game with a .904 save percentage (18th best in the BCHL). In all likelihood (and again, if all goes according to plan), 2022-23 will be a development season for Shea.
In sum, Brandon Naurato can enter the season with supreme confidence in his starting goaltender. Devastating though it would be to lose Portillo for any prolonged period, Naurato can carry confidence in his experienced backup, West. Meanwhile, in Tyler Shea, Naurato and new goaltending coach Jeff Salajko (whose hiring was announced Monday) have a longer-term project.
In theory, Michigan’s PP should have the most carryover from a year ago (since it was already under Brandon Naurato’s direction). Will this year’s unit function similarly to its direct predecessor, despite heavy personnel turnover?
A year ago, then-head coach Mel Pearson held no secrets about the brains behind the Wolverines’ lethal power play: Brandon Naurato. Given that the power play was the one piece of the ‘21-22 team controlled run by Naurato, it would stand to reason that the unit will adopt similar tactics to the ones we saw a year ago, albeit with myriad new faces running things.
One unusual strategic decision from Naurato was his choice to balance power play minutes across two effective units, rather than leaning on a single, loaded one for the majority of each opportunity. This decision—presumably a byproduct of Michigan’s ridiculous glut of talent—allowed a larger number of Wolverines to see significant ice time on the man advantage. It will be interesting to see whether Naurato keeps that practice in place this year.
Meanwhile, as you can see plainly in the above goal, the Wolverines’ hallmark on the power play was their passing and puck movement. U-M didn’t just assemble a fearsome power play by trotting out its talent; it made life miserable on opposing penalty killers with its fluidity.
If the Wolverines had a single preferred play, it was probably setting up Brendan Brisson’s wicked one-timer from the right circle.
However, even with that reliable option, Michigan made a point of iterating on that approach and confusing penalty kills by taking advantages of players versatile enough to set up shop in different spots across the offensive zone. Take this power play goal in South Bend against Notre Dame as an example:
It begins with Brisson in his familiar spot on the right flank, but the Irish, wise to the Wolverines’ preferred pattern of play, seal off any passing lane between Brisson and Owen Power, who has the puck along the point.
Rather than forcing a pass to Brisson, Power sneaks a shot through. The scramble for the ensuing rebound destabilizes the Irish penalty kill, while Brisson and Matty Beniers swap places.
As Power surveys his options again, Beniers is free of Irish checkers, Power finds him, and Beniers converts with a wired one-time shot.
Sure, it helps to have three future pros running things, but the goal also illustrates the value of Michigan’s puck and player movement.
As Naurato breaks in a new crop of talent, with even returning power play contributors like Hughes and Samoskevich liable to assume much larger roles this season, it seems a safe bet that the Wolverines power play will continue to place a serious premium on fluidity once again.
Which forwards will step up in penalty kill duty? Can the Wolverines replicate last year’s power kill?
Once again, the penalty kill is one more area where Brandon Naurato will have to lean on some new faces. A year ago, Michigan employed an aggressive “power kill”-style PK a year ago, and, for their troubles, the Wolverines finished second in the nation in short-handed goals with eight.
(As a brief historical aside, Michigan’s proud hockey tradition includes the NCAA’s all-time leader in shorties, John Madden, who finished his career with twenty-three. Perhaps even more audacious is Madden’s single-season NCAA record for shorthanded goals of ten, which he netted in 1995-96. For context, St. Cloud State led the nation last year with ten shorties, which is to say the ‘95-96 version of Madden as an individual would have shared the national lead in shorties for teams a year ago).
When we say “power kill,” we are referring to a penalty killing unit that leans on its top offensive players to take advantage of open space and an opponent that is not exactly focused on defending its own net. For a deep dive into what a power kill might look like, you can learn more in this excellent article from The Athletic’s Shayna Goldman (paywall).
In brief, Goldman explains that the idea of this kind of attacking PK unit dates back to research from Matt Cane of the New Jersey Devils, before Mike Pfeil coined the term “power kill” to describe these tactics. The strategy is used by NHL teams like the Hurricanes, Blue Jackets, and Lightning.
In the words of ‘Canes head coach Rod Brind’Amour, “the thought process is your best players know how to play the power play and be good killers too because really the know where the puck is supposed to go when you’re on the power play.” In other words, the same instincts leveraged by the likes of Beniers, Bordeleau, and Johnson to success with the extra man can help them understand what an opposing power play wants to do.
As the season gets underway this weekend, expect to see Michigan’s top offensive contributors make cameos on the penalty kill, with eyes toward turning those high-leverage minutes into unlikely offensive opportunities.
Odds & Ends
Bordeleau talks life in the show with The Athletic
With San Jose Sharks camp newly underway, Thomas Bordeleau sat down with The Athletic’s Corey Masisak to talk about his brief experience with the Sharks a year ago and his prospects for the coming season (again, paywall).
The Quebecois Houstonian spoke about the whirlwind experience of arriving in the NHL and the sensation of growing acclimated by measuring himself against some of the league’s best players.
Bordeleau said “You skate with NHL guys in the summer, but it’s never the same. Playing in games against great NHLers like (Connor) McDavid, (Leon) Draisaitl, (Patrick) Kane, after those games I saw like, ‘OK, I belong here.’ It’s just a matter of how mentally prepared I am to play because I’ve always been a confident player. I’ve always known what I can bring for a team. Now it is time for me to really show it.”
Michigan fans might be pleased to know that Bordeleau also carries a distinct fondness for the familial atmosphere he experienced playing college hockey. In relation to returning to some former teammates at the World Juniors in August, Bordeleau noted “After college, I turned pro and it was more like business, business, business, so just being with those guys, some of them are still in college, so it was fun to kind of get that vibe back again for a couple weeks.”
Sharks coach David Quinn, whom Masisak points out recruited Bordeleau as a collegiate prospect while Quinn was still coaching at Boston University, said that “if [Bordeleau] plays well, there will be room for him” on the Sharks opening night roster.
In other news, the Sharks will play a pair of games with the Nashville Predators in Prague in the NHL’s first trip to Europe since COVID set in. Bordeleau lived in Bern, Switzerland for ten years as a child, while his father Sebastian played for SC Bern and then EHC Biel-Bienne. For two of those seasons, as Masisak points out, one of the elder Bordeleau’s teammates was current Nashville captain Roman Josi. Said the younger Bordeleau “I’m just hoping to make the trip.”
If any of this has piqued your interest, be on the lookout for our essay on the subject of Bordeleau and company’s ascent to the NHL last Spring, which will drop on Friday.
WoHo Wednesday
In addition to speaking with Coach Jenna Trubiano, we were fortunate enough to attend last Sunday’s intra-squad scrimmage for Michigan’s women’s hockey team. One of the things Coach Tribs pointed to is the value of role models for aspiring women’s hockey players, as well as the connection she is establishing between her program and youth hockey in Ann Arbor.
One notable moment came late in the scrimmage when senior forward Jordan Eliason went to the penalty box. After a brief and good-natured conversation with a heckler, Eliason spent her two-minute sentence connecting with several young girls, at least one of whom was wearing an Ann Arbor youth hockey sweatshirt. If you needed any more evidence of the value of role modeling in the development of girls’ and women’s hockey, the Michigan women were kind enough to provide it.
We joked on Twitter about the way prominent figures in women’s hockey always seem to have multiple jobs and advanced degrees, while men’s players…don’t always seem to have the same non-hockey pursuits. Coach Tribs is the perfect example: working a full-time job and pursuing a master’s degree from Eastern Michigan in addition to coaching.
The Michigan women’s team will be in action tomorrow night for a scrimmage with the Belle Tire Senior Women at Yost, before the regular year gets underway with a trip to Mt Clemens Ice Arena to face Michigan State.
Media Day Roundup
On Tuesday night, Michigan hosted its media day via Zoom, and your friendly neighborhood Michigan hockey newsletter was fortunate enough to receive an invitation. Nolan Moyle, Erik Portillo, and Brandon Naurato all spoke with the assembled press.
Unsurprisingly, the issue of team culture came up more than once in the context of Mel Pearson’s departure and Brandon Naurato assuming head coaching duties. Both Moyle and Naurato spoke on the issue, directly and indirectly, during their availability.
Both emphasized the tight-knit nature of last year’s locker room, with Moyle highlighting the way he and his teammates held one another accountable. In talking about the new-look coaching staff, the captain pointed out that one of its major strengths was transparency and good communication. Without wishing to suggest this was Moyle’s implication, it was difficult not to interpret that description as standing in contrast to the outgoing head coach.
Naurato said “our culture in the locker room was unbelievable. That’s a credit to Nick Blankenburg and the other seniors” (emphasis mine). Once again, what isn’t being named here (e.g. workplace culture for staffers or culture as it trickled down from the head coach) feels notable.
In lighter news, Naurato also suggested that star freshman Adam Fantilli could shoot like Brendan Brisson, play both ends of the rink like Matty Beniers, and had the hands and vision of Thomas Bordeleau. It was anything but managing expectations for the projected lottery pick in this Spring’s NHL Draft.
When we asked Erik Portillo which teammate he’d least like to face on a breakaway in practice, Fantilli’s name came out straight away. When we asked which teammate he felt confident he could stuff, the Swede laughed and said he had a few names in mind but declined to reveal them.
Thank you for reading! Thank you to @MichiganOnBTN on Twitter for this week’s preview image. If you loved this week’s newsletter, you can support us by subscribing or by donating to our operation with KoFi.