Michigan 5, Michigan State 2
Game notes on Nazar's confidence, Edwards' imperiousness with Casey out, and third period resilience via goals to be remembered from Warren and Duke
On Sunday evening in suburban St. Louis, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University men’s hockey teams met for the 343rd time. It was the sixth match-up of the season but first ever between the programs in the NCAA Tournament, with a berth in next week’s Frozen Four in Minneapolis at stake.
After falling in overtime in East Lansing in the Big Ten title game eight days prior, the Wolverines won the season’s most important rivalry game by a 5-2 final score, following the script from Friday night against North Dakota with another emphatic third period securing passage to the Frozen Four for the third consecutive season.
Three notes on the victory:
I. Nazar’s Confidence & the “Michigan 2.0”
In a 1996 second round NCAA Tournament game between Michigan and Minnesota, Mike Legg scored among the most iconic goals in the history of hockey, immortalized as “the Michigan” and revitalized as the calling card of the most skilled generation of hockey players to ever hit the NHL.
There may well never be another Wolverine goal as iconic or influential as Legg’s, but one moment from Sunday night’s win, regardless of Michigan’s fate in St. Paul, will live on in program and rivalry lore, a peer to Legg’s if not quite an equal: Frank Nazar III’s between-the-legs feed for Gavin Brindley to put U-M up 4-2 in the third period, just twelve seconds after Dylan Duke made it 3-2.
Nazar himself has dubbed the pass the “Michigan 2.0,” and while a lofty comparison, it’s also a fair one. In keeping with that idea, what stands out most from the goal is the confidence, even the audacity, to attempt the pass in that circumstance, before even considering the skill to execute it. With a berth in the Frozen Four at stake against a bitter rival who has vexed the Wolverines all year, Nazar had no compunction about daring a between-the-legs pass. And it worked.
Ridiculous though that is, Nazar’s confidence is characteristic of both his own collegiate career and Michigan’s season. To begin with the latter, despite moments as recent as February when their tournament future was in grave peril, the Wolverines’ have expressed nothing less than complete faith in their own agency to shape what remained of the season into success.
“Our season’s on the line now,” Gavin Brindley said after MSU won the Duel in the D. “If that’s not motivation, I don’t know what is—just being able to win out these games and finish off our season pretty strong. Big Ten championship, that’s something that we’re looking forward to, and we have the confidence to win that thing. Again, in the tournament, anything can happen. Our goal is just to get better every day and do everything we can to win out.” Even at the season’s lowest moment, Michigan’s thoughts were of championships.
And a split the following weekend in State College shrouded the Wolverines’ tournament prospects in even more uncertainty, but Michigan, true to Brindley’s plan, came together to play their best hockey in the season’s final month. It wasn’t enough for a third straight Big Ten Tournament crown, but it did prove enough for a third straight Frozen Four. That confidence might have appeared unfounded as the split series (and not even a split against MSU) continued deep into the season’s second half, but Sunday’s third period (just like Friday’s) proved it to be merited.
As for Nazar in particular, if he’s made one thing obvious over his collegiate career, it’s that he’s never lacked confidence After surgery kept him out until February of his freshman year, Nazar wasted no time making a splash in his first weekend in maize and blue, which, as it happened, came against MSU. On Friday night, his NCAA debut was mostly quiet, but in the third period, he sent a between-the-legs feed for Jackson Hallum; Hallum’s ensuing shot was stopped but that didn’t diminish the flourish Nazar showed. The following night at the Duel in the D, Nazar scored, held his hand up to his ear as if a phone, then explained the celebration by rapping Eminem lyrics at the post-game press conference: “That’s why they call me slim shady: I’m back.”
Because of the injury, Nazar didn’t have the freshman year he’d envisioned, but his flair jumped off the ice after just two games. And as it turned out, that pass for Hallum—sent in the third period of a game in which Michigan led State 3-2—served as practice for the same situation with the stakes dialed up a bit more than a year later. When it counted most, Nazar’s pass and Brindley’s finish were true, and the Michigan 2.0 entered into immediate legend in the 100-plus-year lore of the program.
II. Edwards Imperious in Casey’s Absence
Speaking of Michigan hockey’s tradition, a more recent signature of the program has been the pipeline of the Wolverine blue line to the New Jersey Devils. The most prominent example was Luke Hughes (first round, fourth overall to the Devils in 2021), whose departure for the NHL opened up an opportunity for Seamus Casey (second round, forty-sixth overall to the Devils in 2022) to emerge as a superstar as a sophomore. With Casey injured and unavailable Sunday evening, it was Ethan Edwards’ (fourth round, 120th overall to the Devils in 2020) turn to play the star.
Edwards missed the first half of the season to shoulder surgery, before returning in January and providing a sorely needed stabilizing presence to Michigan’s defense corps. Among the Wolverines’ issues in the first half was a lack of healthy bodies along the blue line, leaving the players who were available (and in Tyler Duke’s case, availability meant playing through significant pain) over-extended. Michigan wouldn’t completely solidify its defensive structure until the postseason began, but Edwards’ return began that process by slotting the group into appropriate roles.
With Casey injured on Sunday, Edwards could be credibly described as Michigan’s best player. He got the Wolverines started with a goal in the second period to tie the game at one. On the play, he trailed T.J. Hughes and Dylan Duke on a three-on-two rush, watching the play develop while lurking in the backside MSU defender’s blindspot. When Hughes took the same route through which he set up the 4-2 goal against North Dakota (off the heels of the play side defenseman), room opened for Duke to set up Edwards for a one-timer. The puck skittered on its way to Edwards, and he had to reset his feet to get in the proper position for a shot, but the Albertan defenseman nonetheless hammered Duke’s pass past Trey Augustine.
It was a vital goal to keep Michigan alive, but it was just the start of Edwards’ contributions. Brandon Naurato needed the junior in all situations, and Edwards delivered in every phase of the game. Though the NCAA does not make ice time publicly available, I would feel confident guessing it was Edwards’ heaviest workload of the season, and in those minutes, he showed the best of everything these Wolverines can be.
Edwards has spectacular skill and poise with the puck. The fluidity of his hands and feet in showing an opponent the puck then pulling it away rivals Casey’s, and that skill was on display on a few occasions Saturday night. He is an outstanding passer in all three zones, which combined with that poise on the puck, makes him a weapon on the breakout, in transition, or from the offensive zone.
However, much like Michigan’s firepower was never in doubt even in the season’s lowest moments, Edwards’ performance Sunday offered a reminder that the best of his game comes out through physicality and a hard defensive edge. The Wolverines have scored all year long, but the biggest driving factor in their improved results in the second half has come away from the puck, where Michigan has shown a newfound solidity and strength in the neutral and defensive zones.
On Sunday, Edwards provided offense (in addition to his goal, he set up the Brindley one-timer that Duke deflected home for a 5-2 lead on the power play), but he led the Wolverines from the back with heavy hits and poise to kill plays and exit cleanly all night. The scoring was of course vital, but to win, what Michigan really needed came in the back two-thirds of the rink.
III. Truscott & Warren, Duke & McDavid, Resilience & Moments that Oughtn't be Forgotten
The nature of Frank Nazar’s feed for Brindley will, for good reason, command outsized attention in every conversation about the first ever NCAA Tournament match-up between Michigan and Michigan State from now until the last ice rink has melted. However, Nazar’s individual brilliance should not preclude the Wolverines’ two go-ahead goals from the first period from flowers of their own.
Six minutes and twenty-nine seconds into the third period, Marshall Warren scored to give Michigan a 2-1 lead. That lead wouldn’t withstand the thirteen minutes and thirty-one seconds remaining in regulation, but like Nazar’s, it was a goal illustrative of one of the Wolverines’ foremost strengths: experience along the blue line.
As Truscott walked down from point position, he played a quick one-two with Garrett Schifsky, which commanded just enough attention to open up a lane through which Truscott could hit Warren (who had activated as Truscott and Schifsky exchanged passes) at the back door for a composed finish from the grad transfer.
In the season’s biggest moments, Warren has made a habit of scoring big goals. He scored the late winner to secure a win over Notre Dame on senior night. He provided one of the prettiest finishes of the season against MSU to put UM up 3-2 in the second period of the Big Ten championship game. Meanwhile, like Edwards, he’s provided more than just offense. He was excellent on all 200 feet of the rink against North Dakota and then the Spartans; at a time when many legs may be growing weary, Warren’s skating stood out all weekend, helping him to command play all over the ice.
At this time last year, Truscott was injured and unable to play during the Wolverines postseason run. “It was tough,” the captain said of that experience after senior night. “I tried my best to be around the guys during that time, being at every meeting, try to help my guys out. It’s tough not being be in that stretch with them on the ice, but I tried my best to be a part of that and lead from the sidelines.”
After Michigan’s exhibition drubbing of Simon Fraser, Naurato said, “[Warren] and Truscott are like brothers from another mother. I think they just have so much chemistry on the ice, and it seems like they’re becoming really good buddies off the ice, so good to see them feed off each other.” Their chemistry may have been that of brothers after one game, forty games later, Truscott and Warren’s chemistry provided reached new heights as they combined for a third period goal with a trip to the Frozen Four hanging in the balance.
Then, not long after the midpoint of the third, two minutes and sixteen after a short-handed breakdown afforded Joey Larson a wide-open one-timer with which he tied the game, Dylan Duke scored what would prove the game-winner. Had Nazar’s pass for Brindley not followed twelve seconds later, it might have been the goal that dominated highlight reels and at the center of conversations about the rivalry for years to come.
Before the tournament began, I touched on Duke’s improvements as a skater over the course of his Michigan career, comparing him to Wolverine alum and current Edmonton Oiler Zach Hyman. I thought this a fair comparison for Duke but also a flattering one, considering Hyman just cracked the 50 plateau for the first time, but it turns out I was selling him short.
The ESPN broadcast (which otherwise wasn’t a highlight of the weekend, to put it mildly) compared the speed with which Duke turned the corner then tucked the puck around Augustine to Connor McDavid. What’s crazier than the comparison itself is the accuracy of it; the finish from Duke was classic McDavid, using the speed of his hands and feet to send the goaltender the wrong way from in tight after cruising around the entire defense. Based on that trajectory, the next Duke-to-an-Oiler comparison will be with Wayne Gretzky.
In the same note on Duke, I argued that his reliability is so great as to become a unique brand of clutch-ness: He’s less a big game player than an every game player. But even with the reputation as the free space in the bingo square that is this year’s Wolverines, Duke exceeded expectations this weekend, scoring twice in each game (while also picking up an assist on Edwards’ goal Sunday).
As friend of the newsletter and unlicensed Michigan hockey historian Drew VanDrese noted on Twitter, the goal was Duke’s eight game-winner of the season, tying the all-time program record. It also gave him 100 career points as a Wolverine, fifty-one of them during his first two seasons before a forty-nine point explosion as a junior. Duke, Edwards, and Mark Estapa will be the three Wolverines playing in their third Frozen Four games next weekend, where once again, the most certain outcome will be a Duke goal from point-blank range.
The cumulative effect of Michigan’s four third period goals is also worth dwelling on. After third periods were the team’s undoing for 80% of the season, the Wolverines were poised and authoritative in both third period’s this weekend.
Entering the third tied at one, the game—the tightest checking of the six the two teams played this year—had a “next goal wins” air about it. Truscott and Warren combined to get that goal, only for Larson to counter.
However, Michigan didn’t allow the equalizer to force it back onto its heels, instead striking twice more within two-and-a-half minutes to restore the lead and then some, before adding one more insurance goal with two minutes and nineteen seconds to play.
For most of this season, Michigan looked like a team with unbridled potential but not a championship team, characterized as it was by bountiful offense undone by dubious defending and an inability to manage and close out games. This weekend, the attack remained potent, and the Wolverines had a sharpness away from the puck to supplement it, affording them the well-rounded game necessary to see out results at the hardest moment in the season to win.
The potential that always hovered over this team has been realized over the course of the postseason, and Michigan looks an awful bit like a championship team, now only two more wins away from becoming one.
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