Friday Notebook 3.1.24
Sweeping ND and looking ahead to the Gophers, Pacioretty ties Berenson, WoHo back to Nationals, Pletzke and Lapointe on senior night, and Brindley's torrid form
Last weekend, the University of Michigan men’s hockey team swept Notre Dame at Yost Ice Arena for the first time since 2012. Perhaps even better than the sweep itself was the way the Wolverines secured it. With a 4-0 win Friday and 2-1 win Saturday, Michigan held their guests to just a single goal for the weekend, a positive indicator that the team is playing an appropriate kind of hockey for the moment it’s reached in the season with a performance that brought the team’s NCAA Tournament outlook from bleak to manageable.
When asked Wednesday about how to carry forward the momentum generated by that success, coach Brandon Naurato said, “You’re doing everything you can to try to, and it’s not just saying it one time but through multiple conversations or showing video—individual clips, team clips, or whatever—just to get ‘hey, it’s gonna be hard. We have to do it this way.’”
“I think this series this weekend was playoff hockey, and next series is going to be playoff hockey,” said senior captain Jacob Truscott after the Saturday night victory. “We’re all gearing up for playoffs, and everyone’s fighting for points and spots…Here on out, it’s gonna be that type of hockey—hard, fast-paced, desperation, stuff like that.”
To that end, though Michigan just dispensed with its perennial kryptonite in the Irish, the road from here doesn’t get any easier. For the regular season’s final weekend, the Wolverines will travel to Minneapolis to take on Minnesota. If Michigan can sweep (with at least one win coming in regulation), they can slip past the Gophers for third place in the Big Ten (meaning they would host Penn State instead of Notre Dame in the first round of the conference tournament).
After a slow start to the season, Minnesota has lost just three games in regulation in the second half of the year. Justen Close is delivering another strong season for Bob Motzko in net with a .923 save percentage and 2.33 goals against average in 31 games played. Meanwhile, even with former linemates Matthew Knies and Logan Cooley in the NHL, Jimmy Snuggerud is still scoring, with a team-high 19 goals in 32 games played. Blazing freshman Oliver Moore has also been a boon to Motzko’s team with 29 points in 32 games played.
“They’re just looking to attack, and they have good players that can make plays,” said Naurato of the Gophers, whom he described as “extremely dangerous off the rush.” “So if you’re not hard on them, it’s gonna be a long night.” He added that Michigan’s priorities heading into the weekend will be forechecking hard to extend possessions in the offensive zone and making sure forwards are tracking back responsibly to curb Minnesota’s rush offense.
Though the stakes of each game this time of year continue to climb, Naurato also noted that he doesn’t want to over-complicate things from a game-planning perspective. “One thing we’re trying not to do is overload them with information or do anything crazy different than we have done, so it pulls us out of our routine,” he said. However, Naurato has found that players are especially eager for extra feedback at this point in the season, saying, “Now’s one of my favorite times to meet with individual lines or individual players because their eyes and ears are wide open…They just want to do what they can to help the team win.”
Pacioretty Ties Berenson’s Scoring Record for UM Alums in the NHL
On Tuesday night in Detroit, Max Pacioretty (who spent the 2007-08 season in Ann Arbor, putting up fifteen goals and twenty-four assists for thirty-nine points in thirty-seven games) tied his former coach Red Berenson for the all-time scoring record for U-M alums in the NHL at 658 points. The 84-year-old Berenson was not in the building to witness the moment, because he had his own men’s league game to play in.
One of Pacioretty’s teammates on that ‘07-08 Michigan team was Naurato. When asked what he recalls of Pacioretty as an eighteen-year-old freshman out of New Canaan, Connecticut, Naurato replies that—despite playing in the NHL by nineteen—Pacioretty was “kind of a late bloomer, as crazy as that sounds” but nonetheless “just a man amongst boys” during his lone season in Ann Arbor. He adds that Pacioretty was “before his time” in terms of his attention to sports science and care for his body, a trait that’s allowed him to overcome major injuries and remain productive late in his career.
Naurato gave his old teammate a call the morning after Pacioretty set the record and reports that he was a bit down because equaling the record came in a game he lost 8-3. To this, Naurato consoled Pacioretty by saying that after this record, “Now you can hug your kids and tell them Dad’s still cool.”
Pacioretty will have his first chance to claim sole possession of the record tonight, when the Capitals host the Flyers. However, with his career winding down, there are a few active Wolverine NHLers threatening to take that mantle from him in the coming years. The biggest immediate threats are Dylan Larkin (490 career points) and Kyle Connor (465). When asked, Naurato said he’d put his money on Connor to be atop the leaderboard five years from now.
WoHo Clinches ACHA Nationals Return Trip
Last weekend, the University of Michigan women’s hockey team—its regular season complete—played in the CCWHA Tournament at Crystal Field House in Burton. Though they were knocked out in the tournament’s second round, the Wolverines did enough to secure their passage to ACHA Nationals for the second consecutive season.
The weekend began in dramatic fashion Friday night against Miami. Michigan built a 3-0 lead in the second period on the strength of goals from Allison Fleszar, Lucy Hanson, Keegan Gustafson. However, midway through the third, the Redhawks answered with a three-goal run of their own to tie it up. The game went to overtime, where it took just 40 seconds to find a winner, with Samantha Carr doing the honors off assists from Tess Buchsbaum and Menani Gordon.
The following day, the Wolverines fell 4-0 at the hands of Indiana Tech, but despite that setback, Michigan’s résumé was strong enough to clinch the ninth seed at Nationals. This year’s field features Liberty, Midland, Adrian, Minot State, Maryville, McKendree, UM-Dearborn, Indiana Tech, and Arizona State, in addition to the Wolverines. The tournament will be hosted by Lindenwood at the Centene Community Ice Center in Maryland Heights, Missouri (also home of the St. Louis Blues’ practice facility) between March 13th and 17th. Michigan visited that rink earlier this season, when in November they drew with then defeated Lindenwood on consecutive days.
At the start of the season, coach Jenna Trubiano said, “There’s a lot of excitement. I’m excited to see the support for our team and how that’s going to continue to grow. From my perspective, we need to win, we need to perform, so really looking forward to…showcasing that.”
In clinching their return to Nationals, this year’s Wolverines have justified that pre-season excitement and matched the historic results of last season. Now they will have a chance to improve upon them once they get there.
Lapointe and Pletzke Reflect on Senior Night
As the final home game of the regular season, Saturday was senior night for Michigan’s unique class of 2024. It’s a group that’s seen six early defections to pro hockey in Thomas Bordeleau, Brendan Brisson, Owen Power, Erik Portillo, Matty Beniers, and Kent Johnson, and it’s a group that began their careers at Yost with no fans in the stands because of COVID. Along the way, they’ve picked up five additions via transfer. Noah West joined them after their freshman year, then Andrew Albano, Jake Barczewski, Marshall Warren, and Chase Pletzke jumped on as graduate transfers this season.
At the core of that group stand Truscott, Steven Holtz, and Phillipe Lapointe—the class’ three four-year players. “You’ve got transfers coming in and they’re part of our class, and they’re our brothers as well, but there's just a special bond between me, Trusc, and Holtzy,” Lapointe said Wednesday. He added that fielded calls from their departed classmates all weekend.
Meanwhile, for Pletzke, who arrived at Michigan having played four years at Miami where he was roommates with current MSU rival Red Savage (with whom he remains in touch and whom he describes as a “brother for life”), the weekend’s celebration “offered a different perspective.” “It’s an emotional weekend and also a night where your friends and family are coming to watch, but I think what makes it so special is the season you share with these guys every day,” he said.
Pletzke—a Bay City native—describes U-M as his dream school and says the chance to play at Yost remains “very surreal for me.” He recalls the moment he found out that dream would come true: “I was going into an exam for Econ, and I got a call from Nar, and I’ll never forget that.” He admits that the call might have had an impact on the ensuing exam, but clearly, it’s worked out. “My head was maybe elsewhere,” he says with a smile. “I was thinking about other things at the time, that’s for sure, but we did all right.”
On senior night, Naurato noted that he could imagine Lapointe following up his playing career by moving into coaching, because of his clear communication with teammates and the way he’s grown to understand all five players’ roles on the ice to better do his own.
Lapointe is focused on what remains of his senior season for the time being, but he appreciates the compliment. “I haven’t really thought about it much,” he says, when asked about Naurato’s suggestion. “Me and Nar have a great relationship, and I feel like we think alike in a lot of ways. Those comments are great to hear, and I love the game, I love hockey, so when I’m done playing, maybe there’s a chance of staying in it, whether that’s the coaching side or business side or development side. We’ll see where life takes me.”
Brindley on Second Half Tear
Throughout the second half, it’s been impossible to watch this Michigan team without your eye inevitably wandering to and remaining fixed on Gavin Brindley. Since coming back from winning gold with Team USA at the World Junior in Sweden, Brindley has 24 points in 13 games. He has six multi-point games, six one-point games, and he’s been held scoreless just once; that looks an awful lot like his old line mate and last year’s Hobey Baker winner, Adam Fantilli.
It’s looked this way since he got to Ann Arbor, and the points have come in bunches since about halfway through his freshman year. As Naurato puts it, scoring like this “is just him. It’s not like he’s just on a hot streak. We expect him to do that.”
What continues to distinguish Brindley’s play is his unique combination of elite talent with an indefatigable motor. He is the rare player who is at once a top line driver of offense and a spark plug by virtue of his relentless energy.
“He’s a guy that has high-end skill, but even as a sophomore and an assistant captain, he drives our style of play and everything that’s hard away from the puck or with the puck, he’s just a hockey player,” gushes Naurato of the sophomore. “When he’s backtracking, when he’s running guys over that are 60 pounds heavier and six inches taller, it shows everyone else that they should be doing that too.”
Pletzke sees Brindley generating the same effect, saying “It definitely feeds the rest of our team seeing a guy that can produce at such a level and he does the little things right. It just speaks for itself.” Meanwhile, Lapointe stresses that the impact of Brindley’s energy extends beyond two games each weekend, noting “He can be our best player every single night. He’s a workhorse, he does everything for our team, and he’s a great guy off the ice. He’s an emotional leader.”
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