B1G Semis: “We Did Exactly What We Worked on All Week”
Michigan jumps on Ohio State in just 23 seconds, then cruises to a 7-3 final to secure a second-straight trip to the B1G title game
It took but twenty-three seconds for the University of Michigan men’s hockey team to bring Yost Ice Arena to an eruption Saturday night.
Freshman Gavin Brindley capped a rush worked to perfection by Luke Hughes and Adam Fantilli. Hughes recovered a loose puck in his own end, got off the wall and laid it ahead for Adam Fantilli. Fantilli attacked the heart of the Ohio State defense with ferocious pace, then fed an open Brindley. Brindley, by his own account, “saw the D come over to [him], thought drag release, and sure enough it went in.”
“I saw the boys on the bench going crazy. That was the loudest I think I’ve ever heard Yost and a good little kick start for the boys,” Brindley added.
With the goal, the Wolverines invigorated their fans, stunned the Buckeyes, and laid claim to a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. By evening’s end, Michigan would beat Ohio State 7-3 to punch its ticket to a second straight Big Ten title game.
“It’s a huge advantage,” said Brandon Naurato, when asked about the benefits of playing fifty-nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds of a sixty-minute game with a lead. “I think every team is different, but for us, we played better tonight with the lead than we had in the past. I think that’s just getting pucks behind their team, so they have to go the full 200 feet. We did exactly what we worked on all week.”
Four minutes and twenty-five seconds after Brindley’s opener, his fellow Floridian freshman, Seamus Casey, doubled the lead. The shot itself was unspectacular, one which OSU goaltender Jakub Dobes wishes he could have back without a doubt, yet the two-goal margin reflected Michigan’s control of play.
Between the two goals, the Buckeyes had a would-be equalizer ruled out for offside. Beyond that non-goal, they hardly seemed to enter the Michigan zone, much less menace Erik Portillo’s crease.
Just before Casey’s 2-0 marker, Michigan’s fourth line of Nick Granowicz, Mark Estapa, and Nolan Moyle had hemmed Ohio State into its end for an extended spell of chaotic cycle play, hitting a note they would continue to play for the rest of the evening.
“We just got pucks in behind them, rimmed to their D a lot, and that just prevented us from turning the puck over in the neutral zone,” said Granowicz. “I think it helped us out a lot.”
Mackie Samoskevich extended the lead to three just past the midpoint of the first. He didn’t score with his trademark grace but rather by redirecting a Keaton Pehrson shot-pass to the crease, with one Buckeye draped over his back before crashing into another after scoring. The Buckeyes demanded a rugged game from Michigan, rather than an artful one, so that’s what Naurato’s team delivered.
The first period concluded with Michigan up 3-0 and the game’s texture was clear: At five-on-five, the visitors couldn’t touch their hosts. By the time the final horn sounded, Michigan outscored Ohio State 5-0 at even strength.
Jake Wise got the Buckeyes on the board 11:43 into the second off a pretty passing sequence during a Luke Hughes cross-checking minor. However, Michigan’s insatiable top line of Brindley, Fantilli, and Rutger McGroarty ensured the Wise marker wouldn’t turn into the catalyst for a Buckeye rally.
Brindley intercepted an attempted OSU clearance, then fed McGroarty, who found Fantilli in the high slot. From there, Fantilli offered one more reminder of what happens when he gets the puck with even a modicum of space in the slot: A red light illuminates. The goal put Michigan up 4-1 with 2:55 to play in the second.
After Michigan allowed Wisconsin to hang around after the Wolverines mounted a lead the Saturday night prior, Naurato relished his team’s persistence once it built a robust advantage: “We didn’t let our foot off the gas and that’s what I’m most proud of them for.”
Travis Treloar pulled Ohio State back to within two with a power play goal 1:32 into the third. However, Michigan answered within five minutes, this time on the strength of a Jackson Hallum snipe through traffic off a clean Frank Nazar faceoff win.
Needing three goals, Buckeye coach Steve Rohlik would lift Dobes for an extra attacker with almost five minutes to play. A Cam Thiesing shot, which took an unfortunate deflection off Nazar’s stick and past Portillo, threatened to make the game’s final 4:30 nervous going.
Instead, Michigan did yeoman’s work at five-on-six to ride out the Ohio State surge before Fantilli put the game to rest with an empty netter as the clock read 2:50, then McGroarty added an extra point to the Wolverine touchdown with 1:36 to play.
“We work on [5-on-6] during the week at this time of year, and they know what to do,” explained Naurato. “You have an idea from video of what Ohio State is going to do, but really the trouble comes from chaos—a shot gets blocked, it goes to somebody that’s open, guys are scrambling, and that’s when chaos ensues, so I thought we handled it well. I know they got that one that deflected off a stick and in a different direction, but we just gotta block shots and get those empty netters.”
With the victory, Michigan secured a second consecutive trip to the B1G Championship Game. Later in the evening, Minnesota did the same by beating Michigan State in the opposite semifinal, setting up a title rematch next weekend in Minneapolis.
Regardless of the outcome in that contest, Michigan assured it will be in fresh game shape entering the NCAA Tournament. “Two weeks in between games is difficult going into the tournament, so it gives us something to prep for,” offered Naurato.
With two major trophies within plain sight, it can be easy to forget that none of this success felt certain as recently as two months ago. On January 13th, Ohio State humiliated Michigan at Yost by a 7-2 final, and it was hard to escape the conclusion that Michigan was closer to the Big Ten’s floor than its ceiling.
Instead of spiraling into a free fall, the youngest team in college hockey won seven of its next eight games. After four straight losses to close the regular season (two of them to these Buckeyes), storm clouds appeared close on the horizon once again, but Michigan defied them once more—outscoring its opponents by a combined score of 20-8 along a three-game march back to the Big Ten title game.
The return trip to Minneapolis, whether it yields another banner or not, is a testament to Naurato and his staff, Nolan Moyle and the rest of the Wolverines’ leadership group, and the temerity of a bunch of freshmen who didn’t know any better than assuming center stage as the season’s lights shone brightest.
Odds & Ends
Nazar and Pehrson’s Reliability
On the surface, Keaton Pehrson and Frank Nazar don’t seem to share much in their profiles beyond footspeed. One is a soft-spoken senior defenseman, whose efficacy derives from simplicity and intelligence, and the other is an uber-talented freshman center dripping with confidence and potential, still learning to put his skills to use at the NCAA level.
However, on Saturday night, both delivered exemplary defensive performances while also finding their way onto the scoresheet.
In a game where every Wolverine seemed to play at their best, Pehrson stood out. The Lakeville, Minnesota native is seldom spectacular, but his strong skating, dependable defense, and efficient passing have earned him a spot alongside Luke Hughes on Michigan’s top defense pair. On the evening, he assisted on Samoskevich’s 3-0 goal and also Fantilli’s ENG to ice the game, while also finishing +4.
Sure, the second was just an empty-netter, but Pehrson showed tremendous poise to cut through the chaos Naurato described as essential to creating offense with the extra attacker.
After several OSU rebuffed several attempted Wolverine clearances, it was the ever-reliable Pehrson who carved a path out of the defensive zone and set up Fantilli to ice the game.
Meanwhile, Nazar’s speed, work rate, and physicality proved vital in Michigan stymieing Ohio State’s attempts to claw back into the game. Nazar has a goal and four assists in nine collegiate games since his February return from offseason surgery. While he hasn’t lit up the scoreboard, his defensive acumen as a natural centerman has been a massive boon to Michigan’s forward group.
In addition to his assist for Hallum, Nazar did admirable work on the penalty kill (he was on the ice for neither OSU PPG Saturday), while demonstrating remarkable effort and responsibility for a freshman who has yet to play his tenth collegiate game.
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