"Everybody was so Relentless, and Everybody was so Close"

Michigan falls 4-0 to Boston College, bringing an unlikely run to a painful end, but the unity forged by the difficulty of the journey portends a much less painful future

Eighty seconds into Thursday night’s national semifinal, Boston College established the tone and tenor of what would become a 4-0 shutout victory over the University of Michigan men’s hockey team.  

The Wolverines opened the game in exact accordance to plan.  Frank Nazar III won a face-off, Marshall Warren dumped the puck into the offensive zone, and the Wolverines set about forechecking, eventually creating a chance from the slot.  On the game’s second shift, they repeated the feat, setting up another extended stay in the Eagles’ end of the rink.

But in an instant, a mis-timed pinch opened up the space BC needed to launch a counter attack.  Gabe Perrault threw a cross-ice pass for Ryan Leonad that banked off the boards, opening up the Michigan defense and leading Leonard and Will Smith, the nation’s leader in points, in for a two-on-one.  Leonard played a pass across for Smith, who buried the chance, and the Eagles had a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

That was Michigan’s night.  The Wolverines didn’t play poorly.  In fact, they controlled long stretches of the game—driving play to the Eagle third of the rink and extending the sort of offensive zone shifts on which they thrive.  The Michigan penalty kill was admirable.  Jake Barczewski made the sort of ten-bell saves necessary to compete with an opponent with BC’s firepower.  But the Eagles were never far from creating danger.  

The Wolverines made surges in each period, but they couldn’t beat BC goaltender Jacob Fowler, and the Eagles’ lightning transition game—always lurking even as Michigan appeared to be mounting a threat of its own—proved lethal enough to not need many chances to be decisive.

“They’re good off the rush,” said Rutger McGroarty from his locker after the game, pointing out that the formula through which BC took the game wasn’t a complex one.  “They score goals.  They have some game-breakers that can score goals, and they beat us up the ice too many times.  Myself included, I had an absolutely horrendous turnover, and that can’t happen at this time of the year.”

After Smith’s opener, the Wolverines settled into what was ultimately a commendable first period, ending in a 9-6 U-M advantage in shots on goal and an even more considerable margin in terms of possession time.  However, the Eagles continued to remind Michigan of the danger they could pose in transition, with several quicksilver passing sequences through the neutral zone putting the Wolverines into serious discomfort as they sought to defend the blue line.

In the second, the season slipped away over the course of forty-nine seconds at four-on-four.  First, Smith threw a puck from below the goal line toward the crease, where it banked off two skates and past Barczewksi to give the Eagles a 2-0 lead.  Within a minute, BC sophomore Cutter Gauthier forced a turnover high in the Wolverines’ offensive zone and raced off for a breakaway that he converted for his thirty-eighth goal of the season, the top mark in the country.

“They have four elite, elite players [Smith, Perrault, Leonard, and Gauthier], and their top guys scored four goals, and it's the first time all year we've been shut out,” said Brandon Naurato at his post-game press conference.  “So there's no secret into how they won the game…Those guys are studs. Studs. All credit to their team. It's not taking credit away from anybody else. Those guys are special, and they won that game; they broke it open.”

Gauthier’s goal to make it 3-0 came with the clock showing 6:46 to play in the second, a margin that would hold through the end of the period.  Despite the sisyphean task that lay before them, the Wolverines played their best hockey of the night in the third, outshooting BC 17-8, but once more, that effort was met only by Fowler’s unrelenting pads and another Eagles goal in transition as Perrault rounded the net off the rush and tucked a wrap-around past Barczewski.

“Fighting for your season, we know that any game we're in, no matter how many goals we're down, we're never out of it,” said Gavin Brindley of the third period surge. “Talking in the locker room and give a good push here and just kind of see what happens. I'm extremely proud of the push we made. And, unfortunately, it didn't go our way. But it was a hell of a third period.”

“It's been our team all year, man,” added McGroarty.  “I mean, we've battled day in, day out. There wasn't a doubt in our mind, I mean, even going into the third period, down three. I mean there wasn't a doubt in our mind. We've been doing it all year. This team went through so much adversity. I mean, there was no quit in this team. I feel like we just couldn't buy one tonight.”

Given that Thursday night became Michigan’s third successive loss in the same spot, it’s easy to skip past the way the journey to the BC loss in with the disappointments of the last two semifinals against Denver and Quinnipiac.  For Naurato, there was “a different type of adversity this year with the injuries and then having to fight for it,” a tournament berth much less a run to the Frozen Four far from assured as recently as the start of the Big Ten Tournament.

“I felt like we were in the playoffs since the Christmas break. And super proud of the guys for the run that they went on and what we put together,” continued Naurato.  “All of these guys stepped up. And it's really cool to see, and that's what made them closer and everyone feels involved. So it's tough that this group is so tight and all the cliché lines of the closest teams are the ones who are going to be successful in the end. They probably deserve more, but we lost to a really good Boston College team. I feel like we were good, we weren't great. What we did in the third is probably more what we are.”

Both Nazar and McGroarty echoed that message in the post-game locker room.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been part of our team as close as us,” said Nazar of this year’s run.  “It’s insane how bad you wanna go to the rink, get there early just so you can hang out with everyone.  I love these guys so much, and just being part of a group that close makes it a lot easier to go fight for them and play your best.”

When asked what distinguished this year’s team from last in his mind, McGroarty replied, “Just the way that these guys battled every single day.  We’ve never had a doubt in our locker room at all.  Everybody was so relentless, and everybody was so close, and from Barzo in net, Marshall coming from BC, our seniors, everybody was just so close, and we did it for each other.  We didn’t do it for individual success.  Everybody did it for each other.”

The Wolverines’ effort in the third—down and out but confidence and will unshaken—embodies the spirit of a season that looked all but over in February, having already suffered through a 4-4-1 run to close out the first half in December.  On Thursday, it wasn’t enough to beat BC, but Michigan’s drive fueled a third successive trip to the Frozen Four, thanks to a togetherness forged by the fire of a playoff push far more desperate than the previous two ever had to be.

“It means everything,” said captain Jacob Truscott matter of factly, when asked what his four years at Michigan have meant.  “This is such a great program, and just attracts a bunch of great people.  It’s an honor to come to the rink every day, and battle and compete with these guys.  It’s just such a historic program that I’m so honored to be a part of and be able to lead this program.  I’m just blessed because of all these guys and this staff.”

Many Wolverines will have the option to turn pro with the season now complete—McGroarty, Nazar, Brindley, and Truscott all among them.  But, between the proximity of the bonds this season’s fight formed and the prevailing sense that there is more left to be conquered together suggests that professional futures may have to wait a while.

“I don't want to talk out of turn,” said Naurato on the subject of which players may turn pro, before providing an optimistic look to the future. We'll deal with that when the time comes. We're planning on a lot of guys coming back. I'm sure as hard as this is right now that they'll have something to prove. But who knows?”

As much Michigan hockey as I was fortunate enough to watch in person this year, perhaps my strongest impression of the team came from a video posted to its social media feeds.  It came before the puck dropped on the Wolverines’ penultimate series of the regular season, one against Notre Dame they had to have to keep their tournament aspirations within reach.

Huddled together before their off-ice warm-up, Philippe Lapointe yelled to his teammates, “It takes hard work.  It takes determination.  I love you guys.  Go Blue on three.  One, two, three” before the chorus of his teammates joined him, “Go Blue!”

The subject matter of pre-game hype speeches tends to hit upon familiar refrains, and Lapointe touched on them, but his closing was unique and illustrative of the team he helped lead.  This year’s Wolverines probably didn’t belong in the Frozen Four.  It certainly didn’t look like they could find their way back there for most of the year.  But in the season’s most important games, they fought their way back to their sport’s grandest stage, a feat they themselves never once doubted they could achieve.

They didn’t do it by conjuring up perceived doubters or on the strength of any individual effort.  Instead, Michigan’s effort was collective and born of love for one another.  And because of that, even in one more painful semi-final exit, the Wolverines season feels a triumph, an overachievement, and a love story, with the promise that this year’s pain and togetherness (inextricable from one another) can finally push Michigan on to more in the year to come.

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