Midweek Roundup 19 October: Topping the Polls
This week, we wrestle around with the significance of Michigan’s newly earned number one ranking, touch on awards, and celebrate cathartic goal scoring.
Monday’s release of the latest polls affirmed what we already knew coming off last weekend’s triumph in Duluth: the University of Michigan ice hockey team ascended to the nation’s number one ranking.
Perhaps more surprising is that squads besides the Wolverines received votes at all for the top spot in the country. In USCHO’s latest poll, Michigan received forty-five of the fifty available votes, with the others split between Minnesota State, St. Cloud State, Minnesota, and Denver.
I feel too often that we often fall victim to groupthink in the creation and evaluation of polls, particularly early season ones. I also don’t find quibbling with a small minority of voters to be a worthwhile or even interesting exercise.
Even in the case of Minnesota State, whom the Wolverines just knocked off in the Ice Breaker final, I can appreciate the idea that a one-game sample size does not offer definitive proof of Michigan’s superiority.
What I find trickier to understand is that, despite Michigan’s superiority in terms of talent being a consensus view AND early season results suggesting a level of maturity and discipline presumed to be absent from the young and gifted Wolverines, these sorts of doubts persist.
I alluded to this notion in last weekend’s newsletter, but I’d like to make it more explicit here.
College Hockey News’ preseason rankings freely acknowledge that this year’s Michigan team boasts “the most star-studded talent of anyone ever,” but penciled them in at number six, citing recent struggles to “turn talent into deep tournament runs.”
Undergirding this sentiment is the exact phenomena I discussed in reference to last weekend’s triumph. As sports fans and especially hockey fans, we presume that victory must hinge on grit and determination rather than skill, two abilities (or perhaps styles?) that we assert as mutually exclusive. According to this mindset, because Michigan is young and talented, they must also lack the discipline we deem essential to championship-level success.
In the particular context of hockey, a sport we know to be determined more by chance than the average American athletic endeavor, it isn’t hard to see why we adopt this outlook. We are accustomed to watching ostensible powerhouses stumble and fall flat in the crucible of the postseason, where margins grow thinner, officiating less stringent, and stakes higher.
We have seen the high flying 2010 Capitals collapse against the Canadiens. We remember the 2019 Blue Jackets sweep over a Lightning team entering the postseason on the heels of the best regular season in the NHL’s salary cap era. We can even think back to last Spring’s playoffs, in which the Colorado Avalanche appeared a buzz saw after winning its first six postseason games, only to lose four straight and see their run come to an ignominious end.
Despite this evidence, concluding that this suggests talented teams are actually at a disadvantage would be to confuse correlation and causation. That the chance inherent in the game of hockey means the most talented team does not always win a championship does not mean that the most talented team isn’t the one best positioned to do so.
Statistically, it is more likely that Michigan will not win the national title than that they will. Nonetheless, pretending that their nonpareil talent is some kind of perverse disadvantage is foolhardy.
What’s more, in winning the Ice Breaker, Michigan showed the precise ability we presume their talent strips from them. Last weekend, the Wolverines did not travel to Duluth and play the wide open game they deployed against Lake Superior State in the season’s opening weekend. Instead, they showed discipline and consistent focus in earning consecutive victories over excellent teams in a hostile environment.
I don’t wish to take umbrage with anyone who feels another team is better than this season’s Wolverines right now, but I would love to hear more from them about why. And if you do wish to make such a bold case, spare me even the faintest implication that Michigan’s talent actually holds them back somehow.
Weekend Preview in Brief
This weekend, the Wolverines take on Western Michigan in a home and home, with Friday night’s contest taking place in Yost before a follow-up in Kalamazoo Saturday. Western sits at number 17 in the USCHO poll, so while this weekend’s opponent won’t cause quite the menace that last’s did, the Wolverines are not in store for a cake walk. The Broncos swept their only series to date this season, knocking off Ferris State on October 8th and 9th by an aggregate score of 8-3.
They will also be looking to offer a counterpoint to the case I’ve just made as to the fallacy of presuming a trade-off between talent and success compared to the supposed synchrony of experience and success. Western will take on the Wolverines with just two NHL draft choices (defenseman Ronnie Attard and forward Wyatt Schingoethe) but eight players with at least four seasons of experience.
In the words of head coach Pat Ferschweiler (courtesy of M Live), “we have some years on them that way, and we’ve been in more fights at the college level than they have, as far as battles go, and so we’re hoping that works to our advantage.” We have to wait to see how that strategy pans out come the weekend.
More Brisson Flowers; Too Early for Award Talk?
Brendan Brisson once again captured the Big Ten’s first star of the week, after registering game-winning goals in each of Michigan’s victories, the former a dazzling between-the-legs finish and the latter coming with fewer than five minutes to play against the nation’s top-ranked team. Brisson added an assist for good measure.
Please forgive me if I’m getting out over my skis here, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to begin considering Michigan’s prospects of winning its first Hobey Baker since Kevin Porter in 2008. In some ways, the greatest obstacle facing a potential Wolverine winner might well be the presence of other notable candidates elsewhere throughout the roster who may siphon away votes.
However, that problem need not arise if Brendan Brisson continues to score at his current outrageous clip. Barring calamity of titanic proportion, Michigan will be an NCAA tournament team and likely a number one seed, and that level of team success along with this blistering goal-scoring pace would likely be enough to carry him over the line.
Of course, the season is so young that some readers may find even entertaining thoughts of end-of-year awards scandalizing, and if you are of such a persuasion, I will harbor no resentment if you stop reading here. If you’re willing to go with me on this speculative journey, consider the following:
Cole Caufield earned last season’s Hobey by scoring thirty goals in thirty-one games, a pace of .97 goals per game. Brisson has five in four games (a 1.25 per-game pace). I say again that the season is young and this pace may well prove unsustainable. However, given how dangerous Michigan’s power play has appeared to date, I see no reason Brisson must slow down by much. With that in mind, it feels worth getting his name out early and often as the logical Wolverine candidate to the Hobey throne at this stage in the extremely young season (I hope that’s enough qualifiers!)
George Jewett Trophy
Speaking of trophies, when Michigan football takes on Northwestern this weekend they will do so for the rights to a brand new piece of hardware: the George Jewett Trophy. Jewett, an alum of both schools, became the first Black player to be allowed to participate in Big Ten football when he suited up for the 1890 edition of the Wolverines. He was valedictorian at Ann Arbor’s Pioneer High School and earned a medical degree from Northwestern, where he also played football.
The Jewett Trophy immediately becomes the first rivalry trophy named for a Black player in all of college football. For a sport that loves to celebrate its history, college football has quite obviously neglected adequate celebration of the Black athletes without whom the sport would not have arrived anywhere near the place of national prominence it now occupies.
Here’s to hoping this is just the first step of many to follow toward reversing this disturbing trend.
Cathartic Goal of the Week: Jonathan Drouin
I’d like to introduce a new recurring segment to our midweek roundup: the Cathartic Goal of the Week. This week’s entry came just a few hours after last week’s roundup went live, but it was such an obvious candidate we won’t even bother questioning whether it should qualify.
In his first game back after stepping away from the Canadiens last season to attend to his mental health, Jonathan Drouin registered the Habs’ first goal of the ‘21-22 season in the season opener against the Maple Leafs.
The young season has been unkind to the Habs so far, but Drouin’s season opening goal offered a moment for us to hold fast in our memories until season’s end and beyond.
Drouin’s euphoria was apparent but also made even sweeter by his immediate turn to point at linemate Josh Anderson, whose pinpoint pass set Drouin up for a straightforward finish.
Suffice it to say that we here at Gulo Gulo will be cheering for Drouin all season long.