Midweek Roundup 4.26.23
The latest from the transfer portal—including how Pletzke, Barczewski, and Duke fit into UM’s plans, a glance at an upcoming goalie competition, and looking forward to a full season of Frank Nazar
We write to you today from another busy week in the transfer portal. The latest commits include forward Chase Pletzke (last of Miami), goaltender Jake Barczewski (via Canisius), and Tyler Duke (from Ohio State). The former two arrive as graduate transfers, while Duke spent just one year in Columbus before traveling north to Ann Arbor’s greener pastures.
Pletzke notched twenty-four points in four years with the Redhawks, which is to say Brandon Naurato and company didn’t seek out his services for his scoring touch. Instead, Pletzke profiles as a defensive specialist in Michigan’s bottom six and on the penalty kill. He has played center before, though spent the stretch run with Miami along the wing (generally on the left, though with cameos on the right).
While far from a splashy acquisition, Pletzke represents the ideal function of the portal for a team with Michigan’s aspirations. At the end of March, Naurato said “Every year is different. We’ll probably use [the portal] more next year than we would in the future, but I think it’s year-by-year depending on who’s coming in or what your depth chart looks like…I think the transfer portal is for plugging holes. It’s not for building a team.” In other words, the portal’s utility is fleshing out a roster with players ready to serve a specific role that they will arrive ready to perform.
The lifeblood of Michigan’s roster will continue to arrive via junior hockey recruiting, but the portal provides a supplement of players who will require less ripening to succeed in high leverage, specialized roles like the PK.
Naurato’s note that Michigan will likely use the portal more this year than in the future also feels significant. In pragmatic terms, this isn’t a tricky sentiment to parse. This is Naurato’s first true offseason managing the Wolverines’ roster, so it would stand to reason that he sees a greater need for adding portal talent than he would after another recruiting cycle or two. In this regard, it’s also notable that of Michigan’s four portal additions to date, all but one have already played four years of college hockey, which provides two benefits. First, the likes of Marshall Warren, Pletzke, and Barczewski can provide experience to what would otherwise be one of college hockey’s youngest rosters once again. Second, all three players will (more than likely) spend just one season in Ann Arbor, helping to maximize Michigan’s roster flexibility next summer.
Barczewski fills another immediate need. Fresh off guiding the Golden Griffins to the Atlantic Hockey Tournament crown and an NCAA Tournament berth, the fifth-year projects as Michigan’s 1A option in the crease next season (more on this in a moment). He posted a .918 save percentage and 2.64 GAA in thirty-two games a year ago.
Tyler Duke is already a familiar name to Michigan fans, thanks to his brother Dylan. Duke scored four goals and gave eight assists during his freshman campaign with the Buckeyes, including a decisive short-handed tally in the Faceoff on the Lake against Michigan.
It’s easy to see that Barczewski’s move (from Atlantic Hockey to the Big Ten) will constitute a major shift in environment, but I think that is close to as relevant for Duke. Under Steve Rohlik, Ohio State plays a “punt and hunt” style, in which defensemen are often tasked with looping high flips into the neutral zone for the forwards to track down by winning races; it made them a tricky matchup for Michigan (until the B1G semifinal, that is) and difficult team to play against. However, that style also de-emphasized some of Duke’s best tools, ones that helped him stand out in his two seasons with the NTDP before making the leap to college hockey.
Consider this excerpt from Elite Prospects’ 2022 Draft Guide:
“The defenseman plays close to a rover style. His constant activations, on breakouts with his forward and off the blue line in the opposing zone, helped open up the offensive game of the USNTDP. They also helped him shut down plays at the defensive blue line.
“Duke was a focal point of attention every time he stepped on the ice for the team this season. He could start breakouts, link transition plays, and even finish scoring chances at the other end with catch-and-release shots.”
While there might have been some chances to put those skills to use with the Buckeyes, they should fit even better in Michigan’s possession-based style. To be clear, this is not to say that Duke will slide straight into a starring role in Ann Arbor. The same EP scouting report points to mechanical troubles with Duke’s stride, which limit his upside as a skater. However, as Dylan showed last summer, it’s not as though that is an unsolvable problem, and I fully expect the younger Duke to be an immediate contributor along Michigan’s blue line.
Moving forward, I suspect Naurato and company will look to do a bit more business in the portal. Adding another veteran forward looks like a logical, if not quite essential, move. Among the top players available in that spot are Jack Hughes (the one who isn’t related to Quinn and Luke, last at Northeastern), Jack Malone (last at Cornell), and Josh Eernisse (last at St. Thomas). With Nick Granowicz announcing his transfer to UMass-Lowell this week, there is all the more reason for Michigan to look into adding another forward.
Even with the additions of Duke and Warren, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Michigan target another defenseman out of the portal—perhaps Tanner Palocsik (last at Dartmouth) or Ryan Siedem (last at Harvard). In projecting forward to next year’s blue line, Luke Hughes is of course a massive loss—a transcendent skater with immense offensive upside. However, with the additions of Duke and Warren, the Wolverines are in position to improve their defensive depth next year, which would go a long way toward raising the team’s floor. Still, one more functional piece on the blue line could reinforce the position group further.
The Wolverines will also be on the lookout for another goaltender—whether that’s Tyler Shea returning from the portal or a different target. Ethan Haider (coming from Clarkson) could be a name to watch on that front.
A First Glance at a Forthcoming Goalie Competition
With the arrival of Barczewski and Noah West’s return from the transfer portal, Michigan appears to have a goalie competition on its hands heading into the ‘23-24 season. After two seasons with Erik Portillo as the clear cut number one option, that will be a change of pace from recent history.
Heading into the year, I would expect both netminders to start games, at least in the non-conference season as the Wolverines settle on a preferred option. Obviously, the best case scenario is to have an unquestioned number one playing at an elite level, but I think there are some advantages to a different model.
The scheduling of college hockey presents a unique challenge for netminders. Friday-Saturday games mean that number one goalies routinely play back-to-back nights. In the NHL, a number one option is liable to play thrice in a week but would only play on consecutive nights in emergency situations.
I’m reluctant to make sweeping declarations about the benefits of rest for an individual player, since of course everyone is different, but I think it will benefit both Barczewski and West to stay fresh with something of a rotation in the regular season. To that end, I would be surprised if either goaltender gets up to around twenty-five or thirty starts next year.
So, with the caveat that I doubt this competition will yield a winner and loser (i.e. a clear cut starter and back-up), let’s take a moment to consider the two goaltenders.
Noah West’s collegiate career began at Robert Morris, where he posted a .915 save percentage and 2.66 GAA in nineteen games as a freshman. When Robert Morris’ program folded after that season, West settled into the backup gig behind Erik Portillo at Michigan. In the 2021-22 season, West faced just a dozen shots, stopping all but one for a .917 SV%. Last season, West made three starts—two in State College to open the B1G season with Portillo out sick and a third against Harvard in late November, a relief effort (he also featured in the January exhibition against the NTDP). Across those three games, West stopped 104 of the 113 shots he faced for a .920 SV% and 2.92 GAA.
In West’s first Michigan start, the skaters in front of him delivered the Wolverines’ worst performance of the first half. Turnovers abounded, and the Nittany Lions found serious joy in transition, while peppering West with shots (by game’s end, PSU hit the net forty-nine times). Amidst that chaos, West was by far Michigan’s best player, keeping the Wolverines alive in a game where they probably deserved to be down badly after just ten minutes or so.
This clip from the first period offers a decent summary of the experience of that outing:
The sequence opens with an innocuous transition chance, which West deftly redirects into the corner, but PSU’s persistence and intensity in the offensive zone keeps the play alive for a small volley of follow-ups. None of these chances are of especially high quality, but Penn State does good work to get Michigan scrambling and sustain possession. Meanwhile, West remains cool and nimble in the crease, fighting through traffic to deny the Nittany Lions.
At 6’2”, you would never confuse West for a short goaltender, but, when you’re accustomed to the 6’6” Portillo, the rising senior looks a great deal smaller. What impresses me in the clip above is the concision of West’s movement. He can drop into and pop out of the butterfly with ease, and his lateral movement across the crease is effortless. He also looks comfortable at managing rebounds and resetting himself to stop second-chance opportunities.
As the game wore on, Michigan continued to afford Penn State a considerable volume of opportunities, while also leaking chances of escalating quality. West made a number of impressive saves but eventually yielded three goals in a 3-0 defeat.
The following night, West delivered another strong performance behind a much-improved skater group to secure a 4-3 OT win while stopping thirty-two of thirty-five Nittany Lion shots.
His performance against Harvard was a bit more up and down. In the early going, it was another poor defensive performance from Michigan. West made a number of excellent saves, but conceded four goals, which were not always flattering—including losing his net.
In projecting forward to next year, the biggest variable with West is what he might look like with a significant uptick in workload. In his last year of junior hockey, West faced 1,217 shots (stopping 1,118 for a .919 SV%) in forty games played for the NAHL’s Jamestown Rebels. Since then, he hasn’t seen more than 568 shots in a season (his freshman year at RMU). Even if Barczewski is the Wolverines’ number one option, I expect to see West play, as an approximate minimum, double digit games. How he responds to the extra responsibility on his plate will dictate just how many appearances he might earn.
If West’s upcoming campaign hinges on his response to an increased workload, Barczewski’s will depend on how he adapts to a radically different environment. Unlike West, Barczewski is accustomed to life as a definitive number one starter. In three of his four seasons with Canisius, he played in twenty-five or more games, including thirty-two a year ago.
However, in leaping from Canisius and Atlantic Hockey to Michigan and the Big Ten, it doesn’t take a shrewd scout to identify that Barczewski is in for a major change in his context. It’s not just that the Big Ten is a better (for the sake of simplicity) conference than Atlantic Hockey, but also that the type of team Barczewski plays behind is changing.
I don’t believe there is a singular style to B1G hockey; one of the best parts of the conference is its diversity of hockey philosophies. With Michigan, Barczewski will play behind a team that wants to be protagonists whenever it takes the ice—driving play, controlling the puck and by extension shot attempts, though taking some offensive gambles that inevitably yield the occasional odd-man rush opportunity the other way.
That was not the nature of the Canisius team Barczewski backstopped to its second ever NCAA Tournament. Last season, Canisius averaged 27.24 shots on goal and 2.81 goals, while conceding 32.24 shots and 2.83 goals against. In conference play, it was 27.19 shots and 2.92 goals for, with 2.73 goals against and 32.54 shots against.
In other words, whether in conference play or on aggregate, the Griffins yielded about five more shots a game than they generated. They finished the regular season fourth of ten teams in Atlantic Hockey, stealing a tournament bid by winning the conference tournament.
All of that comes together to paint a picture of a team that fought its way to the tournament through outstanding goaltending. This is not to suggest that the Griffin skater group was devoid of skill but rather that, without Barczewski, this would not have been a tournament team.
That claim gets even sounder when you consider his Atlantic Hockey Tournament stat line: seven games played, two shutouts, a staggering .963 SV%, and a 1.14 GAA.
Once he got to the NCAA Tournament, Barczewski got a taste of the Big Ten in the form of top-seeded Minnesota. The Gophers won that game 9-2 (a scoreline that obscured what was a competitive game for forty-five minutes or so.
Barczewski stopped twenty-five of thirty-four Minnesota shots, but that raw figure does a disservice to his performance. Six of the Gophers’ nine goals came in a third period flood that put the Griffins to rest, but for the preceding two periods, Canisus and their netminder impressed. To be sure, the Griffins had to absorb heavy pressure, and that demanded a heavy lift from their goaltender.
Though the score remained tight through two periods, there were stretches in the game’s opening twenty minutes where there appeared little difference between five-on-five play and Gopher power plays. In that context, Barczewski’s ability to deal with heavy netfront traffic impressed. Of course, he and the Griffins couldn’t hang with Minnesota for a full sixty minutes, but it would be foolhardy to cite the game as proof that Barczewski can’t hack it in the Big Ten. This wasn’t a Big Ten Game; it was an Atlantic Hockey team taking on a B1G one, and the regular season champions at that.
At the end of the day, context is everything for goaltenders, and Barczewski’s will undergo a serious change going into ‘23-24. Unlike the Griffins he leaves behind, Michigan won’t need to lean on goaltending alone to claw its way to the NCAA Tournament.
Instead, whoever plays goal for Michigan will need to provide a steady hand at the back behind a strong team that shouldn’t need exceptional goaltending to succeed but which does need someone comfortable in the occasional adverse situation based on style. In West and Barczewski, Naurato has two credible candidates to do just that, and I suspect Michigan’s staff hopes that some friendly internal competition will benefit both goaltenders.
A Full Season of Frank Nazar
We’ll wrap this week with another installment of our “Reasons We’re Excited for Next Season” series, and this week’s entry is a lay up: In 2023-24, I cannot wait to watch a full season from a fit Frank Nazar.
The boxcar stats from Nazar’s freshman year won’t jump out at you: thirteen games played, two goals, five assists, +6, zero PIMs, nineteen shots, 48.9% at the faceoff dot.
After returning from preseason surgery in January, Nazar flashed straight away with a goal in the Duel in the D (his second game) and post-game Eminem impression; walking out of Little Caesars Arena that evening, it was impossible not to salivate at the possibility of adding another star forward to Michigan’s lineup.
Incidentally, it will be worth monitoring Nazar in the Duel in the D once again, since the Mount Clemens native’s NTDP linemate Isaac Howard transferred into Michigan State from Minnesota-Duluth in the early days of the offseason.
However, progress is seldom linear—whether that’s coming back from injury or adjusting upon moving up a level. Nazar had the unenviable task of doing both at the same time last season but still managed to carve out a role for himself as Michigan’s third center between Eric Ciccolini and Jackson Hallum, while also contributing to the penalty kill. That Nazar was able to manage that much with such a short runway is a testament to his physical tools but also his intelligence and mentality.
I’ve previously suggested that the biggest offseason variable for Michigan with respect to next season is Adam Fantilli’s decision to stay or go. I stand by that, but, with total respect for what Nazar did manage this season, an in-form Frank Nazar has the potential to guide Michigan back to the Frozen Four, with or without Fantilli.
For Nazar, freshman year was a teaser trailer. To get a sense of what’s to come, it’s worth taking a look back to his final season with the NTDP.
Frank Nazar wasn’t the top scorer on that NTDP (that was Howard), nor was he the first from amongst its ranks to hear his name called in last June’s Draft (that was Logan Cooley). However, the aforementioned 2022 EliteProspects Draft Guide’s scout survey landed on Nazar—not Cooley, Shane Wright, or David Jiriçek—as boasting the class’ highest ceiling.
When you look back on his ‘21-22 season with the program, Nazar is a force of nature in transition, elite dual threat shooter-passer, and puck handling whiz. It appears impossible to send him a bad pass. His speed creates opportunities in transition. He looks just as comfortable creating for others as he is efficient in capping off his own chances. Of course, we need the standard caveat that not everything a player can accomplish at the junior level will translate up to NCAA hockey. The good news for Nazar is that so many of the skills and tricks he uses to create space appear transferable.
Nazar’s success at the NTDP reflected numerous precepts you will hear ad nauseum from Brandon Naurato: Attacking middle ice off the rush, subtle deception to manipulate defenders, cutbacks to create extra space.
Nazar isn’t just burning overmatched defenders wide in transition to get chances. The above highlight pack offers myriad examples of Nazar receiving the puck in wide areas of the rink (i.e. along the boards) and attacking the defense by cutting in and looking to make inside plays. When he has a defender in a vulnerable position, you can see him using feints with his hands and feet to force that defender into making the wrong read. Rather than forcing a play that isn’t there, Nazar will cut back against the grain to find the right pass to maintain possession.
These are all habits Naurato advocates for creating sustainable offense, and Nazar excelled at them before he made his NCAA debut. We saw flashes of that from Nazar as a freshman, but next year, with full health and further attunement to the collegiate game, it will manifest every weekend.
Because he is neither a highly touted incoming freshman nor an über-productive returner, it can be easy to lose track of what Frank Nazar will mean to next year’s Wolverines. I’d be surprised if it takes Nazar the full month of October to match last season’s statistical output, and, from there, the ceiling is nowhere in sight.
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