Midweek Roundup 10.26.22
We preview the WMU series, review the weekend from Michigan’s women’s team, deep dive Michigan’s PK, check in with three Wolverines about family connections in the game, and chat development with Nar
With Ann Arbor temperatures leaping back into the seventies, fall colors out in vibrant force, and a 5-1 record and the nation’s leading scorer on the ice, there is no shortage of reason for optimism around the University of Michigan men’s ice hockey team.
Fresh off a sweep Up North against Lake Superior State, the Wolverines now shift their attention to a home-and-home with Western Michigan. On Friday night, the Wolverines will host their Kalamazooian rivals, before traveling to the Broncos’ Lawson Ice Arena Saturday evening. Checking in at seventeenth in the latest USCHO poll, WMU represents the second ranked opponent of the season for the fourth-ranked Maize and Blue.
Scouting the Broncos
When Michigan squares up with Western this weekend, it will meet a familiar foe. Last year, the Broncos handed Michigan, then ranked number one in the nation, its first loss of the season in a 5-2 Friday night affair at Yost. Twenty-four hours later, Michigan exacted revenge on enemy ice in the form of a 3-2 overtime victory on the strength of a Nick Blankenburg winner. Both games were physical, chippy, and enhanced by raucous student sections. A rubber match in the Great Lakes Invitational was canceled for what Mel Pearson referred to as safety concerns related to COVID and World Junior absences and Broncos fans described as cowardice.
When asked about the animosity that arose from the two games these teams played a year ago and the one they didn’t, Naurato reiterated that the team wanted to participate in the GLI fully but didn’t have the bodies available to safely do so, before adding “I think we owe them something after losing at Yost last year to them and didn’t play our best game.”
Naurato went on to express his team’s pleasure at the challenge posed by a Saturday night affair in Lawson: “We like playing on the road and playing in hostile environments. The Lawson Lunatics? They’re lunatics, they do a good job, and they’re loud, and it’s a fun place to play.”
At the risk of being reductionist, Western Michigan presents the Wolverines with a similar challenge to that offered by Lindenwood, only with a more talented roster. The Broncos play a straight-ahead, physical game that emphasizes counter-attacking. Their strength lies in what a soccer pundit might refer to as “verticality,” or the ability to rapidly transition from winning possession deep in your own territory immediately into an attack of your own.
In the early stages of the season, freshman forward Ryan McAllister and junior Luke Grainger are leading the offensive charge for Pat Ferschweiler’s team. The former, a teammate of T.J. Hughes’ for the past several seasons with the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Brooks Bandits, has three goals and five assists through seven games. The latter has scored once to go with six helpers.
In net, junior Cameron Rowe has done the heavy lifting for the Broncos, posting a 1.66 GAA and .928 SV % across six starts. Freshman backup Kirk Lauren has featured twice to lesser effect (a 2.70 GAA and paltry .818 SV %).
Ferschweiler’s bunch began their season with a surprising loss to the University of Alaska-Anchorage. With Western coming off one of its best season’s in recent memory and the Sea Wolves having not played Division I hockey since prior to COVID, a 3-1 defeat in Anchorage on the season’s opening night appeared as though it might spell trouble for the Broncos. However, the puck dropped on that game at 6:07 local time, which is to say 10:07 PM on the Broncos’ body clocks, and Western still doubled up UAA in shots on goal. As such, the defeat looks more like an early season aberration than a harbinger of regression.
Since that defeat, Western’s only loss was an 0-2 stumble last Friday in South Bend against Notre Dame, whom they proceeded to defeat 4-0 the following night back home in Kalamazoo.
WoHo Wednesday
Last weekend, the University of Michigan women’s hockey team earned a split decision against Indiana Tech. In the home leg on Friday night, the Wolverines scored a dramatic victory when senior forward Jordan Eliason tucked a rebound home in the game’s final minute to clinch a 3-2 victory. Throughout the game, the Warriors were able to hem Michigan into its defensive zone, but from there, the Maize and Blue looked rather comfortable. Confident in Sandrine Ponnath as a backstop and with fearsome devotion to tight checking, Michigan conceded possession without affording Indiana Tech quality offensive opportunities. When the Warriors took a 2-1 advantage midway through the third, Michigan rose from the defensive shell it had occupied for long stretches and equalized through Maria Di Cresce before Eliason’s winner.
On Saturday evening in Fort Wayne, Tech returned the favor with a 5-0 victory of their own. The weekend split left Indiana Tech atop the ACHA standings (albeit with an advantage in games played on the rest of the top ten) and placed Michigan in seventh.
This weekend, the team is on a bye, before returning to action the following weekend with a Friday-Saturday home set against Lake Superior State.
Amateur Film Study: Saturday Night PK
Given that Michigan went to the penalty kill a whopping ten times on Saturday night, we thought it might make sense for a little amateur film review focusing on Michigan’s shorthanded unit.
Before diving into the tape, let’s take a moment to review personnel. By my eye, Michigan leaned primarily on seven forwards for killing duties Saturday night: Adam Fantilli, Mackie Samoskevich, Gavin Brindley, Jackson Hallum, Rutger McGroarty, Nolan Moyle, and Mark Estapa. In the third period, Nick Granowicz, Kienan Draper, and Eric Ciccolini also took short-handed shifts. Meanwhile, on the back end, Michigan used six of its seven defensemen shorthanded, the exception being Seamus Casey.
Structurally, Michigan used a “1-1-2 Wedge” in its attempts to thwart the Lakers’ power play.
Conveniently, Jack Han explored such an approach in his Hockey Tactics newsletter and on Dimitri Filipovic’s Hockey PDOcast just this week. If you’re interested in a deeper dive into the tactics at work here, both are well worth your time.
In brief, Han makes the case against the aggressive “1-2-1 Diamond” that predominates around the NHL and seeks to apply pressure along the half wall and at the top of the offensive zone. Han’s argument is that, given that on average the team up a man will control roughly 90% of the offensive opportunities on a given power play, a penalty kill that plays at a high pace is doing itself a disservice. By attacking up and down the ice, such an aggressive kill increases the rate of offensive opportunities both ways, which on aggregate benefits the power play (since it will presumably get the vast majority of chances regardless).
As an alternative, Han suggests a more passive 1-1-2 approach that may concede zone time to an opposing power play but that seldom affords high quality looks. In so doing, a 1-1-2 wedge can drain time off the clock as the opposing power play makes ineffectual passes around the perimeter of the offensive zone.
The above screenshot from Han’s newsletter offers a visual representation of the formation and a brief word on its benefits and drawbacks.
This screenshot from a first period Laker power play shows the wedge in action:
Jackson Hallum is the lone killer applying pressure while his three running mates (here Gavin Brindley, Ethan Edwards, and Steve Holtz) form a tight triangle around Erik Portillo’s crease.
For the most part, Michigan was willing to concede some manner of Lake State offensive zone possession out of this look. However, as soon as the Lakers bobbled the puck along either half wall, Michigan would swarm in an attempt to grab control and clear.
The one Lake State power play goal came when one such attempted swarm failed to secure the puck and instead destabilized Michigan’s wedge.
The first ten seconds of the clip illustrate the kind of hollow possession the Wolverines were willing to concede. Lake State is able to control the puck and work their way toward Portillo, but they do little to break down Michigan’s 1-1-2 structure.
As you can see in the above screen shot, Michigan’s wedge (this time Holtz, Edwards, and McGroarty) have a numerical superiority in front of the net. The Lakers do not have a one-time threat on the far side of the ice, and even if they did, the active sticks of McGroarty and Brindley could likely seal off that lane.
However, after the Lakers bobble the puck behind Michigan’s net and then along the half wall, the Wolverines flock to the puck but do not successfully regain possession.
When the Lakers return to the same area of the ice where we just saw they had precious little room with which to make a play, this time Michigan’s wedge has been disrupted. Holtz, Edwards, and Brindley (who has swapped roles with McGroarty) are much farther apart than they were moments previously, and the Lakers have the space to execute a tic-tac-toe passing play that beats Portillo.
Though the wedge broke down here, leading to a Laker goal, for the most part, this tactic served Michigan well over the weekend. One of the game’s highlights was a second period short-handed shift in which Jackson Hallum generated a breakaway for himself, then was hauled down by a Lake State defender before he raced to another—drawing a penalty and ending the Lakers’ chance with an extra man.
The play shows Hallum’s speed and hockey IQ, but it also reflects the soundness of Michigan’s defensive shape. Take a look at this screenshot just before Hallum’s initial break:
As you can see, Brindley, Edwards, and Keranen form a tight wedge around the two netfront Lakers, freeing up Hallum to use his speed for the initial breakaway bid.
Though thus far, we’ve emphasized Michigan’s success at limiting Laker opportunities from within the defensive zone, that was not the only way the Wolverines’ limited the LSSU power play.
This clip shows, in addition to a brief technical glitch in the stream, an impressive spell of keep away from the Michigan kill. It stars Rutger McGroarty who showcases his physicality, skating, and intelligence to push the puck to the Laker end for a chance before killing off further precious seconds by playing it all the way back to his waiting defensemen from the offensive zone.
Another takeaway from revisiting Saturday’s kills was the predominance of Ethan Edwards. Playing in his first series of the season, Edwards was, more often than not, among the first two defensemen tapped by Brandon Naurato and Rob Rassey to kill. In anticipating Edwards’ return, we emphasized his skating and playmaking, but in his first weekend back, the Alberta-born blue liner made clear that he will play a key role for the Wolverines’ short-handed. In this clip, Edwards shows that his skating and playmaking skills needn’t exist independently from his aptitude on the penalty kill:
As Naurato explained after yesterday’s practice, even if his offensive upside garners more attention, Edwards’ defensive game will prove essential to long term success: “He has a lot of offense in him, but he’ll play pro hockey for a long time because of his defensive play.”
Family Traditions with Kienan Draper, Phil Lapointe, and Luca Fantilli
After Monday’s practice, we checked in with freshman forward Kienan Draper, fresh off scoring his first collegiate goal Friday night. In the season’s early days, the Bloomfield Hills native has stood out for his feistiness on a team better known for its offensive panache.
When asked about his function within the high-flying Michigan team, Draper explained it in simple terms: “I think my role in this team is just kind of being a hard physical player, not easy to play against…When there’s an opportunity to get in there and, you know, hit someone or stick up for my teammates, [I’m] definitely just trying to get in there and do that.”
In an even sharper distillation, Draper added “obviously, we got a lot of skilled players on our team. Guys want to play us hard, so I’m just trying to come back at them even harder.”
For fans across the state of Michigan, it’s impossible to hear such a description without invoking fond memories of a different player who wore a jersey that read “DRAPER 33” across its back. In describing his father’s legacy, the younger Draper emphasizes that paternal pressure was never a factor in his own hockey career: “I let him do his thing, I do my thing…it’s great to have him around.”
When comparing his own style to that of his Grind Line father, Draper brings up one pointed piece of advice he received: “He tells me…if you gotta grab someone, just go ahead and grab them, so that’s just kind of the way it’s been.”
Of course, Draper is not the only Wolverine with a family history in Hockeytown. Junior forward Phillipe Lapointe’s father Marty won a pair of Stanley Cups in the late 90s for the Red Wings with the elder Draper (who went on to add two more in the aughts).
Lapointe referred to playing in the state where his father won those championships as “special,” while expressing a similar appreciation for the way his father allowed his career to develop without Marty’s adding an external pressure. Lapointe explained “He’s been great with me…he knows that I’m my own person and just trying to play the game that I love, and that’s something that we share together.” The junior forward also joked that he was following his “frat monkey” brother’s legacy as a club hockey player in attending U of M.
Meanwhile, family has taken on a different tone and tenor for Luca Fantilli, who has spent his hockey career with the peculiar reality of looking up to his younger brother Adam.
The elder Fantilli jokes about how you likely wouldn’t guess their birth order from looking at them today, with Adam “so physically mature” and Luca “more of a late bloomer.”
Luca, who has a smile on his face throughout his time chatting with reporters, notes that, going back to their time together at New Hampshire’s Kimball Union Academy, he has looked up to his younger brother. He says that he “learned a lot from [Adam] every day even though he’s the younger brother, even though he doesn’t look like it.”
When asked about the increased media attention Adam has generated of late, Luca says that he pays closer attention to Adam’s press clippings than his brother does, before adding that his younger brother’s hot start (a nation-leading fifteen points through six games) came as no surprise. “That’s just Adam,” he says. “He’s so focused, he’s working his butt off, he deserves every second of it. He dedicates a lot of his time to the game, and the game is just giving it back to him right now.”
Nar on Development and Balancing Short & Long Term Growth for Players
At Brandon Naurato’s media availability following Tuesday’s practice, I bring up the prevalence of high-profile prospects struggling to crack lineups, or earn ice time once they have done so, in the early going of the NHL season. Prospects like Shane Wright, Marco Rossi, and Juraj Slafkovsky have seen paltry minutes in the season’s early days, while a player like Cole Caufield seems to have had the handbrake taken off him when Martin St. Louis took over as his interim coach last season.
Naurato explains that, even for an organization in the midst of a thorough rebuild, it’s not as easy as just sending out players to stumble their way into NHL life, a lesson he took from his time with the Red Wings: “When I first started working with Detroit, in my head, I was like, ‘Well, why don’t we just play all these right away and have them fail through it. But then you have, you know, six first rounders that have no confidence…, and they’re fighting to find their identity and what they are and how they have an impact. It takes time.”
While Michigan fans (and newsletter authors) spent the past two years marveling at the likes of Kent Johnson, Owen Power, and Matty Beniers, Naurato couldn’t help but noticing their growth areas in studying their games: “So like me coming here and seeing Kent and Owen and Beniers, all I see is holes, and it’s not because I have it all figured out, but I just understand how difficult it is to play at the highest level. And these guys just, that's how you grow, you learn through failure.”
Naurato explains that, for him, the regular season (and in particular the first half of the regular season) provides a vital opportunity for development, even (or perhaps especially) if that involves some degree of failure: “I’ve got an interim tag like I’ve got…to win, but it's not in me to just play to win…People have to develop.”
This approach is fundamentally at odds with that of an NHL coach, who feels a perpetual imperative to ice the best possible lineup to win every night and as such has a far lesser tolerance for what Naurato referred to as “failing through it.”
Naurato points out that “The NHL is not a development league. Their business is to win. A lot of people say college hockey, your business is to win. It is. But for me, I look at it as making them better every day.”
In practical terms, that approach might shift as the season progresses, the postseason approaches, and the magnitude of each game grows. In Naurato’s words, “when we get closer to the playoffs, like, yeah we are just playing guys that are gonna help you win that game. Where now guys have to fail through it. And they're probably put in situations where they may not be the best fit.”
Reflecting on his own roster, Naurato points to Mackie Samoskevich, T.J. Hughes, and Dylan Duke as reflecting different stages in the long arc of development.
This season, Samoskevich has featured on the penalty kill and been “great” according to Naurato in that role. Placing him there was one example of the value of experimentation. The winger didn’t have a track record with that unit, but, when given an opportunity, he flourished.
Naurato explains that Samoskevich’s freshman season was fundamentally different than this year’s crop of first-years as a result of roster composition. When Samoskevich arrived in Ann Arbor, featured roles in the lineup were already spoken for by the likes of Johnson, Beniers, Thomas Bordeleau, and Brendan Brisson. With those players departed, there is much more latitude for this year’s freshmen to jump straight into prominent spots in the lineup.
The head coach suggests that while it is not as though Michigan’s freshmen are over-achieving relative to their talent, “life’s good for them and the opportunity they’re getting because we have so many freshmen versus a Samoskevich who plays eleven, twelve minutes last year on the third line and is sitting there at times for seven, eight minutes on the bench because other guys are going. Did it hurt his development? I don’t think it hurt it, but he had to pay his dues maybe a little bit more.”
In T.J. Hughes, Naurato sees a player working consciously to incorporate new feedback. When Naurato sees a young player working on his game and making an effort to adapt to new coaching points, he has no issue with the occasional error: “T.J. Hughes, you tell him to do something in the defensive zone that he's never heard before, and he's trying to do it. And then if you're trying to do it, and then you're doing and you're having success, even if you're failing and you're trying to do the right thing, our coaching staff is cool with that, but it's it's like anything if you keep making the same mistake, you're not learning or you're not coachable. So we have to find different ways to try and get it through to you. And if we can't get it through you then it's either on us or they don't want to hear it. Which I don't think we have that issue…these guys are all students of the game and listening.”
Meanwhile, in Duke, Naurato appreciates a player being rewarded on the scoresheet for the quality habits he developed as a freshman. In forty-one games last year, Duke notched nineteen points. After an offseason spent hard at work at improving his technical ability as a skater, Duke has nine points in his first six games as a sophomore. As Naurato puts it, “I think Dylan Duke working on his skating—he probably wasn't rewarded for a lot of the little things he did last year. And he's being rewarded now, which is really cool.”
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