Midweek Roundup: December 7, 2021
Taking stock of the Big Ten race, pre-scouting Ohio State, and some lingering musings on Beecher and Holtz
A tumultuous home split with Minnesota in the rearview mirror, the University of Michigan men’s ice hockey team travels this weekend to Columbus, Ohio, where they will take on the loathsome and upstart Ohio State Buckeyes on Friday and Saturday evenings.
Handicapping the B1G Race
‘Tis the season for talking about Big Ten championship races. Has anyone heard who won the league in football? Anyway, with the Big Ten title at the top of Wolverine fans’ minds, let’s take a moment to check in on the men’s hockey race.
The above graphic (courtesy of USCHO) lays out our order: Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Penn State, and Wisconsin. Though the season remains on the young side, .250 points percentages from the Nittany Lions and Badgers suggest that their title hopes may already be dashed, leaving us with a group of five still in the hunt.
For a bit of context, the current standings do not mirror this week’s USCHO poll, which ranks Michigan third, Notre Dame seventh, Minnesota at tenth, and Ohio State at seventeenth (Michigan State also received three votes, a number insufficient to slide into the top twenty-five).
To me, the logical explanation for Notre Dame sitting higher in the national rankings than the Big Ten standings is the weight voters ascribe to their sweep of the Wolverines at Yost. In the poll preceding that series (which took place on November 19th and 20th), Notre Dame boasted a commendable 8-3-0 record, but they were ranked at fourteen in the USCHO poll (behind Minnesota). After the sweep, Notre Dame leapt all the way to eighth with Minnesota dropping back to eleventh. I say all this in large part to point out the respect this Michigan team commands within the world of men’s college hockey.
All of this is, strictly speaking, irrelevant to our actual point of interest here: the Big Ten race. We’ve decided to scratch out Penn State and Wisconsin from the race, leaving us with the four ranked teams discussed above and Michigan State.
Having not yet seen the Buckeyes play live, my feeling is that Michigan and Minnesota are clearly the conference’s two best teams. I say that because of the skating and skill both those sides carry through their lineups; as the grind of conference play persists and goals grow harder to come by, I believe the teams with the most firepower find an advantage.
With that said, Notre Dame’s style of game (to indulge Jeff Jackson, we can refer to it as possession-based, rather than boring or defensive) has the potential to make them competitive every night. It would also be unfair to suggest that Notre Dame has none of the top end talent of Michigan or Minnesota, even if their depth does not quite hold up to those teams.
To me, the Buckeyes (and to a lesser extent the Spartans), while good stories, are not yet in a position to compete for a conference title. Given that the Buckeyes are led in many ways by their freshman (more on this below), Ohio State should be able to put themselves in a more serious position of contention in the coming years, but I would contend that they do not rise to that level this year.
That leaves us with three horsemen remaining: the Wolverines, the Gophers, and the Irish. Paragons of impartial journalism that we are here at Gulo Gulo, we will set aside our personal preferences and biases to offer a prediction: Michigan will win.
Scouting the Buckeyes
Ohio State entered the season expected to finish somewhere near the Big Ten’s cellar. Last season, the Buckeyes finished 6-16-0, and that was with reliable veteran goaltender Tommy Nappier, who has since graduated.
Instead of floundering though, the Buckeyes are the (positive) surprise team of the Big Ten season to date. To replace Nappier in net, the Bucks turned to Czech freshman Jakub Dobes. In 12 games so far, Dobes (a fifth-round draft choice of the Montreal Canadiens) has posted an admirable .918 save percentage, and, just like that, Ohio State seems to have found a potential long-term answer in net.
Instead of struggling to keep the puck out of the net, defense has been a strength. No Big Ten team has been as stout in their own end as Ohio State, who have conceded just eighteen times in conference play.
Dobes is not, however, the only freshman in a starring role for the Buckeyes. At the top of their scoring list are three freshmen. Defenseman Mason Lohrei is leading the way with twelve points with forwards Georgii Merkulov (11) and Cam Thiesing (9) following close at his heels.
Instead of sitting in the basement, Ohio State is ranked seventeenth in the nation by USCHO and carries a 9-5-0 record into this matchup with the Wolverines. Unlike Michigan, the Buckeyes have yet to suffer a sweep at the hands of a Big Ten opponent. Ohio State has split their home series with Michigan State and road series against Minnesota and Notre Dame. They also swept Penn State at home.
Contrary to preseason expectation, Ohio State constitutes a meaningful test for our beloved Wolverines. With the top end of the conference in a tight pack, a sweep over the Buckeyes would be even sweeter than usual.
Lingering Player Notes from Minnesota
There were two Michigan performers whose performances from the weekend merited more discussion than we had space to offer in last weekend’s recap column.
First up is Johnny Beecher. Beecher made his season debut in November 5th’s game against Michigan State. He didn’t waste time getting on the scoresheet, with two goals and two assists in his first three games. Since that point, Beecher has been scoreless for seven games.
You might not like where this is going, but I would submit that the Minnesota series offered some reason for optimism. Devoted readers to this newsletter will recall our interest in the players (and even the types of player) who seem to stand out even when their team suffers. Beecher was such a player for the Wolverines during Friday night’s humbling, and he carried his strong play into Saturday’s win, even if that did not yield him a point.
We’ve mentioned a few times that, in anticipation of Beecher’s return from injury and season debut, Mel Pearson described the forward as bringing something his team didn’t otherwise have. In that moment, Pearson intended to highlight the physicality of the 6’3” forward, but moments later Pearson also submitted Beecher’s name as a candidate for fastest Wolverine.
Even on a team with the absurd forward depth of Michigan, Beecher is the only player to combine high levels of speed, skill, and size. The former two abound in Michigan’s lineup, but the final one is harder to find. Owen Power’s size jumps off the ice at you, but he is not a player who leans much on physicality.
Meanwhile, Beecher is a classic power forward, and last weekend he leveraged that skillset to put Gopher defensemen in difficult positions. If that trend continues, he will return to the scoresheet in no time.
The other player we wanted to touch on is Steve Holtz. The defenseman made his season (and Michigan) debut on the same night as Beecher, with the simple task of replacing injured captain Nick Blankenburg. He certainly hasn’t been perfect since that debut, but he’s shown enough to Pearson to earn a regular spot in the lineup. Last weekend, Holtz impressed on both sides of the rink, doing some impressive damage control on Friday night, before chipping in with a pair of assists on Saturday. At full health, the presence of Power, Blankenburg, Luke Hughes, and Jacob Truscott means that more than half of the available spots on defense are spoken for. With that said, just dressing for this team is no easy feat. That Holtz has stuck from the jump suggests that serious respect from Pearson. His progress as the season moves along will be worth monitoring.
Weekend Vibes
We’re trying to think of big highlights of Michigan playing Ohio State. Something must be close at hand…
Oh, and the Buckeyes haven’t beaten Michigan in football in 738 days.