After running long over the weekend, we’ll do our best to be short and sweet with this edition of the midweek roundup. Without further ado, let’s dive into the stories of the week in Michigan hockey and beyond:
B1G Beginnings
This weekend, in a rare Thursday-Friday set, the second-ranked University of Michigan Wolverines men’s ice hockey team opens their Big Ten season by taking on the Wisconsin Badgers at Yost Ice Arena. The Badgers are defending regular season champions in the conference, though they fell to Minnesota in last year’s B1G Tournament.
In MGoBlue TV’s preview of the series, the Wolverines expressed excitement at the prospect of opening up the conference season.
Head Coach Mel Pearson voiced his eagerness to welcome a challenge into town in the form of the conference’s defending champs, saying “What better way [to start the B1G season) than to bring in Wisconsin…we’re anxious to get it started, so here we go.”
Saskatoon-born senior forward Jimmy Lambert echoed this sentiment, before speaking to his particular excitement for the intensity of the Big Ten season. In Lambert’s litotic words, “Every single team you play against you don’t necessarily have the kindest feelings for.”
Even freshman forward Mark Estapa, who has not yet played a Big Ten game himself, emphasized the animosity that characterizes hockey in the conference. Estapa said “It’s such a good conference that every game is kind of a rivalry.”
Even with a number of key figures from last year’s Badgers now departed (more on this in a moment), the Wolverines will be keen to present as the class of the conference from the jump.
The team will begin that mission from pole position, sitting as the nation’s number two ranked team in the country. At the present, only two other Big Ten teams crack USCHO’s top twenty-five: Minnesota (7) and Notre Dame (14).
Scouting the Badgers
It is no secret that the Badgers’ offensive engine from last year’s Big Ten title-winning team now wins resides elsewhere. Cole Caufield scored thirty goals and added twenty-two assists in a Hobey Baker-winning effort a year ago. In the Spring that followed, he helped guide the Montreal Canadiens to a berth in the Stanley Cup Final.
Replacing Caufield alone would be a Herculean task. However, the Badgers’ next three highest scorers have also since moved on from the program.
In the early stages of this season, the impact of those departures is obvious. Wisconsin sits at 2-4, its only wins coming against an Army team that has won just one game itself. The Badgers sandwiched those wins between getting swept at home by Michigan Tech and on the road by St. Cloud State (who now sit atop the national rankings).
Neither series was close. Wisconsin lost the Tech series 10-3 on aggregate, and the St. Cloud one 9-2.
Even still, it is not as though we are talking about a team devoid of talent. Perhaps most notably, the Badgers added Corson Ceuleumans, a first round pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets and presumptive future teammate of Kent Johnson.
The Wolverines should be able to win both of these contests (though this statement really applies to all their games this year). I’m sure they would like to add some style points to those results. Nonetheless, Tony Granato’s team is well coached and boasts championship pedigree; they will not roll over.
Rankings
On the subject of rankings, Michigan now sits at number two in the country in USCHO’s poll and number three according to USA Today. As noted above, St. Cloud State (with a record of 6-2-0) have assumed the top spot.
I don’t wish to dwell long on polling, mostly because I did last week and it yielded the Wolverines’ first loss of the season.
From this point forward, I hope to cover national polls more in an administrative way than an analytical one. Beyond whatever poor karma my hubris may have brought down upon the Wolverines last weekend, I don’t see much point in discussing them at length.
If all goes according to plan, the Wolverines’ ranking should matter little. We can say now with near certainty that they will have a place in this Spring’s NCAA tournament. With that in mind, regular season polls are unlikely to offer any satisfaction or worthwhile disappointment. Instead, our focus here at Gulo Gulo will lie with a more subjective assessment of the Wolverines’ play, rather than partisan lobbying.
KJ Diaries
This week, The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline announced a recurring diary courtesy of Kent Johnson. Portzline covers the Blue Jackets for the site, so Johnson is of course of interest to fans of a team that will likely struggle to compete for a playoff spot by season’s end.
You can find the link to the first entry in Johnson’s diary here: Kent Johnson’s Diary, Part 1: Getting settled at Michigan, crushing crepes, watching the Blue Jackets in Detroit https://theathletic.com/2914267/2021/10/27/kent-johnsons-diary-part-1-getting-settled-at-michigan-crushing-crepes-watching-the-blue-jackets-in-detroit/?source=user_shared_article.
The unfortunate truth about this sort of diary is that it seldom yields much insight. Without wishing to cast aspersions toward either Portzline or Johnson, I suspect Johnson is not actually going through a meticulous writing and editing process to come up with these posts.
As such, I found the first entry to be for the most part predictably boring. Nonetheless, there were a few nuggets I will share here for those of you who do not care to subscribe to The Athletic.
First, in what may cause chagrin for the sort of Michigan fan who loves to tout the school’s academic record in comparison to its peer athletic institutions, we learned about Johnson’s school work for the semester.
A sports management major, Johnson is taking four classes: two of them appear to my eye mind-numbing (“Exercise, Nutrition, and Weight Control” and “Coaching as Leading and Leading as Coaching”) and two potentially interesting though enormous in scope (“Principles of Economics” and “Black World Studies.”)
We also learned that Johnson lives with fellow sophomores Owen Power and Phillippe Lapointe, along with senior Jimmy Lambert. This is not an especially interesting revelation, though I’m curious as to how Lambert came to be roommates with a crew of sophomores. To that end, Johnson does note that Lambert has his own bathroom, while the other three share one.
Lastly, I enjoyed Johnson’s simple but incisive nonetheless description of the Wolverine power play: “Our power play is fun. When we’re snapping it around like we can, it’s really fun. We’re clicking at a good percentage, so hopefully, we can keep that going. We move around a lot on the power play. It’s definitely a 1-3-1 set-up, but we’re all over the place. You’ll see me in a few different spots.” That positional freedom along with pace of puck movement has vexed penalty kills all year long.
Cathartic Goal of the Week: Vince Dunn
What’s a bit peculiar about this week’s pick is that it came in a losing effort. On this note I will say only that the in-the-moment catharsis cannot be muted by the end result of the game a few periods later.
Our goal came late in the first period of the first home game in Seattle Kraken history. With no score to that point in the game, defenseman Vince Dunn took a pass from partner Jamie Oleksiak and rifled home a wrist shot to score the first goal in Climate Pledge Arena history.
It wouldn’t reverse the frustration of the first few Kraken games, nor prevent them from suffering further in the games to follow, but in that moment, as he kicked his leg high and pumped both arms above his head, Vince Dunn made clear the carthartic release of his goal.
Recommended Reading of the Week: Content Warning (Sexual Assault) Scott Powers and Mark Lazerus on the Latest Revelations from the Chicago Blackhawks
https://theathletic.com/2915069/2021/10/26/team-performance-above-all-else-blackhawks-executives-out-as-findings-of-sexual-assault-investigation-released/?source=user_shared_article
Once again, this is by no means an easy read, and I think there is further reason to avoid reading the full report published this week via the independent investigation into the Chicago Blackhawks. The immediate ramifications of the report, detailing the Blackhawks seemingly criminal mishandling of credible allegations against video coach Brad Aldrich, was the removal of GM Stan Bowman. I suspect Joel Quenneville will soon be removed as coach of the Florida Panthers as well.
I often fear in these moments we jump too quickly toward punishment, instead of taking the requisite time to express empathy for the actual victims of the crimes committed. Nonetheless, The Athletic, along with TSN’s Rick Westhead, have done exhaustive reporting on this subject, and in so doing, forced a national conversation over something the organization had up until that point successfully covered up.
The initial draft of this post went live before Kyle Beach had taken the brave step of revealing that he was “John Doe.” I want to take a moment here to commemorate the bravery of that step and express empathy for the horrible way in which this team, league and sport let him down.
Lastly, I want to close with this article from the incomparable Catherine Silverman, who offered this poignant piece on the nature of heroism and myth-making, particularly of coaches, a trap into which we fall far too often.