Michigan 4, North Dakota 3: Three Takeaways
On the mentality that fueled a third period comeback, T.J. Hughes' intelligence and affinity for "inside plays", and Jake Barczewski's close-out calm
Friday evening in Maryland Heights, Missouri, the University of Michigan earned a 4-3 victory over the North Dakota Fighting Hawks, setting up a rematch with Michigan State—the two sides’ sixth meeting of the season with a place at the Frozen Four in Minneapolis on the line. Here are three takeaways from Friday’s win:
I. Mentality Fuels Dominant Third
“They don’t wanna play when we’re playing fast and physical,” fifth-year Fighting Hawks forward Hunter Johannes told the ESPN broadcast during the first intermission. In-game interviews seldom yield anything interesting, but on this occasion, Johannes’ answer offered an insight into North Dakota’s approach.
The Fighting Hawks—big, fast, and physical—clearly believed their path to victory was paved by intimidation. They played with directness and poise out of the gate Friday, and through two periods, it had more or less worked. North Dakota had more of the puck, and their physicality had largely precluded Michigan from generating quality looks at Ludvig Persson’s net. Entering the third, the Wolverines trailed 2-1 thanks to an artful Jackson Blake deflection of a point shot from old friend Keaton Pehrson eight minutes and eighteen seconds into the second period.
Entering the postseason, Michigan emphasized the idea that playoff hockey was about mentality as much as tactics or talent. “Now that it’s playoffs, it’s just about 50-50 battles and who wants it more,” said Rutger McGroarty before the Big Ten Tournament began. “You can study film all you want and look at what they do, what we do, but it’s playoff hockey, so now it’s just who wants it more.” Gavin Brindley echoed that message at the time, offering “Be hard. It’s a mentality. They’re big and strong, and they’re heavy, so we just gotta be hard and win our battles, and it’ll be fun,” as the key to success in the Wolverines’ first round series against Notre Dame.
The third period Friday night provided a supreme test of that mentality. Between the Fighting Hawks’ desire for physical intimidation, the do-or-die stakes with a deficit to overcome against an opponent who entered the night 20-0-0 when leading after two periods, and the absence of Seamus Casey (who was forced out of the game due to injury with his status for Sunday’s game uncertain), it was an easy moment for the Wolverines—whose season has been defined by its turbulence—to yield.
During his interview with ESPN during the second intermission, Frank Nazar III—who at the time he spoke had the Wolverines’ lone goal—said, “Honestly just going from the start and being hard. They were getting a lot of pucks in deep and hitting us, and we decided to give it back a little more” when asked what had gone right for his team to start the second. When asked what it would take to overturn the deficit Michigan faced to start the third, he replied, “The way we started that second, we need to get back to that—getting pucks behind them and start forechecking.”
In its last two NCAA Tournament defeats—against Denver two years ago and Quinnipiac last spring in Tampa—Michigan has suffered from a surplus of neutral zone turnovers from attempting to carry pucks into the offensive zone. The result in both cases was the Wolverines’ failing to spend sufficient time in the attacking third, where it can best express the strength of its game.
On Friday night, Michigan refused to allow that to happen again, embracing the mentality Nazar advocated, dominating possession and the game itself through the forecheck, camping out in the UND third of the rink. The Wolverines put a dozen shots on Persson’s net before North Dakota tested Jake Barczewski once, and Michigan scored twice on those twelve shots to take a 3-2 lead it would soon stretch to four thanks to a Dylan Duke goal.
Through a year of inconsistencies, if Michigan can channel Friday’s third period for nine more periods (perhaps a few more than that should overtime arise), the Wolverines will be the hardest team remaining in the NCAA field to beat. We’ve known all year long Michigan has talent, and we’ve seen throughout the playoffs they can play with a defensive intensity and composure that was not always a feature of its game through the regular season. In Friday’s third period, we saw what was irrefutably a championship mindset in coming from behind to eliminate the Fighting Hawks.
II. T.J. Hughes’ Intelligence, Skill Drive U-M Attack
There wasn’t a single hero for Michigan on Friday night; the victory was a collective one. But at the center of the comeback effort was a rejiggered second line composed of Dylan Duke, T.J. Hughes, and Garrett Schifsky. They didn’t start the game together, but they went a long way toward finishing it together.
Over the course of the postseason, I’ve highlighted Duke’s supreme reliability as clutchness and the maturity that’s earned Schifsky a trust far beyond what you’d expect from a freshman, so coming out of the Friday night victory I’d like to focus on Hughes.
Last season as a freshman, Hughes emerged from relative obscurity to score 36 points in 39 games. From the moment he arrived in Ann Arbor, he was an outstanding power play marksman and facilitator, and he used his craftiness and intelligence to overcome a relative lack of foot speed and produce.
However, the best of Hughes’ game didn’t come in the postseason. He picked up three points in four B1G Tournament games, then gave three assists in Michigan’s 11-1 rout of Colgate to open the NCAA Tournament campaign, but he was held scoreless against Penn State and Quinnipiac.
Nonetheless, there can be no doubting Hughes’ playoff bona fides. In his final year of junior, Hughes scored twelve goals and gave eleven assists in 23 playoff games to steer the Brooks Bandits to the Inter Pipeline Cup as AJHL champions. In the Centennial Cup (which brings together the winners of the nine CJHL member leagues), Hughes scored six goals and provided six assists in six games to propel the Bandits to another trophy.
In Friday’s third period, Hughes—with Schifsky and Duke as his primary running mates—showed that his playoff know-how didn’t dry up with the transition from the AJHL to NCAA. He scored the go-ahead goal two minutes and twenty-three seconds into the third period, then provided the assist on the insurance marker from Duke that would prove the game-winner. Both goals showed the best of Hughes’ offensive profile.
His goal was classic Hughes—if it happened in vacuum you might attribute it to good fortune, but because he does it all the time, it is instead an example of his intelligence and anticipation.
Tyler Duke throws a puck toward the net (the theme of the game was the benefit of firing pucks on goal in hopes something good might spring from it). Hughes is lurking along the left half-wall as a one-time threat, but as he sees Duke shoot, he identifies what is coming before any UND defender. The shot doesn’t make it through to the net, instead kicking toward him. Because Hughes reacted to this development first (and in fact even foresaw it before the loose puck came his way), he wins the race to the loose puck and buries it into an open net to give Michigan its first lead of the night. Because of his smarts, he’s rewarded with a wide-open net.
About nine-and-a-half minutes of game time later, Hughes sets up Dylan Duke with another display of his craftiness in the offensive zone. This goal comes off the rush, with Schifsky carrying into the zone and pulling up. Hughes does an excellent job of playing off the heels of the Fighting Hawk defenseman (as it happens, Pehrson) to create a lane for Schifsky to work the puck inside. In other words, Hughes hides in Pehrson’s blind spot to create the space he, Schifsky, and Duke will need to matriculate the puck from a low-danger area along the wall to the net front. These sorts of “inside plays” are Hughes’ calling card.
In this case, it leaves Hughes and Duke with a two-on-one against UND d-man Abram Wiebe in tight. From there, Hughes has the skill and poise to send a backhand pass perfectly for Duke, awaiting the feed at the far post. Duke won’t miss from there, and Michigan takes a 4-2 lead via an insurance goal it would eventually need to secure the victory.
It was an excellent third period from Michigan as a whole, with the second line particularly outstanding, and Hughes—with his blend of finishing skill, aptitude for driving play to the interior of the offensive zone, and intelligence—drove the production the Wolverines needed to see their way past UND, proving his playoff mettle once again.
III. Barczewski at his Best in Closing Moments
As a graduate transfer from Canisius, Jake Barczewski arrived at Michigan with a mission that was easier to articulate than execute: provide a steady presence in net. With a .907 save percentage, 2.83 goals against average, and 19-13-3 record, Barczewski—who grew up ten minutes from Centene Community Ice Center in suburban St. Louis—has accomplished that feat, but in the postseason, he’s shown a different side to his game than just reliability.
Stretching back to the first round of the Big Ten Tournament against Notre Dame, Barczewski has made something of a habit out of making tremendous saves in the final minute of regulation to close out games. The story of Michigan’s postseason has been its collective uptick in defensive solidity, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been anxious moments as the Wolverines look to finish off wins.
Barczewski made that happen by denying grade A chances late in both legs of Michigan’s sweep of Notre Dame, and he did it again Friday night. With 40 seconds left in regulation, Barczewski denied a point-blank Louis Jamernik backhand bid with a flourish of his glove. It was a premium opportunity for UND to tie the game, and Barczewski turned it aside with apparent ease.
With 20 seconds to play in regulation, Jackson Blake set up a Jake Livanavage one-timer with a cross-ice pass. Once again, it was a phenomenal chance to tie the game, and once again, Barczewski turned it aside. At the end of what had been an exemplary collective effort in the third period, Michigan needed its man with the extra equipment to come up big, and on two occasions in the final minute, Barczewski was everything Michigan needed.
Barczewski’s 30 save on 35 shot effort in the Big Ten title game against MSU was not his finest hour of the season. To exact revenge against the Spartans this evening, Michigan can’t count on its goaltender to be as spectacular as he was in the final minute Friday night, but, even with a stingy defensive effort, the Wolverines will need that goaltender for a few big stops against a team as deep as State. If Friday night’s close out performance is any indicator, Barczewski will be up to the task.
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