Midweek Roundup: February 16, 2022
Previewing another rivalry weekend, checking in on the Michigan power play, and a bittersweet Olympic update
It will be a second consecutive rivalry weekend for the University of Michigan men’s ice hockey team. Fresh off a sweep of Michigan State, the Wolverines turn their attention to the final home series of the regular season: a two-game set with arch-nemesis Ohio State.
The above graphic, courtesy of College Hockey News, gives us a sense of the series’ stakes. After a home sweep at the hands of Minnesota, the Buckeyes now have fewer standings points with two more games played than Michigan. That development springboarded Michigan to the undisputed top of the B1G race, with the Gophers in hot pursuit.
For Ohio State, this weekend will be a desperate one as these will be the Bucks’ final two games of the regular season, meaning a sweep of Michigan is the only realistic path to the conference’s regular season crown, and even then would likely require outside help.
Meanwhile, Minnesota will travel to State College to take on a Penn State team that enters the weekend on a three-game skid.
For Michigan, the resolution is simple: win out, and there is nothing to fear.
What’s New with OSU?
Ohio State got off to an outstanding start to 2022, losing just once in regulation before last weekend’s sweep by the Gophers, and it continues to be an outstanding freshmen class leading the way in Columbus.
In conference play, freshmen forwards Georgii Merkulov and Cam Thiesing are both top five scorers in the Big Ten, while Mason Lohrei is the conference’s second highest scoring defenseman.
(Incidentally, number one on the list of scoring defensemen in B1G play is also a freshman, whom you may have heard of…)
Steve Rohlik’s team has already left all preseason expectations behind it in the dust, as the squad was expected to end up as one of the bottom two teams in the conference. Instead, that talented crop of freshmen has put them in with a realistic shout for the B1G regular season title.
Of course, perhaps the most important of those freshmen is the one between the pipes: Jakub Dobes. Dobes’ .934 save percentage in 30 appearances is without doubt a vital ingredient in the team’s success.
Though Michigan showed itself to be capable of ample scoring even without the services of the Olympic Four, it will have its hands full with another rival this weekend.
When Last We Met the Buckeyes
Michigan split the pair of games it played in Columbus, the team’s final series before the holiday break. Much more importantly than that, Nick Blankenburg scored a goal and celebrated with a very good boy on Saturday night.
It was a physical series with oodles of rough stuff after the whistle. I see no reason that trend will not continue in Ann Arbor this weekend.
For a human highlight from that weekend back in early December, we also saw a piece of inch-perfect board play from the dynamic fourth line duo of Garrett Van Whye and Nolan Moyle.
For a full review of that series, follow the link below:
Power Play Resurgence?
After sputtering for long stretches even as the team has rolled through its 2022 slate, the Michigan power play showed new signs of life during last weekend’s bouts with Sparty.
Michigan converted on four of their eight opportunities with the man advantage, with goals ranging from dirty work in front of the net to long distance snipes.
At the heart of it all (just as he was at even strength) was Luke Hughes, who picked up the Big Ten’s first star of the week for his troubles. Hughes was dominant in transition but also showed an almost uncanny ability to sneak point shots through traffic and on net for a pair of almost identical PPGs on Friday night at Yost.
As the power play began to slump, we highlighted assistant coach Brandan Naurato’s decision to refrain from using a stacked top unit of Thomas Bordeleau, Kent Johnson, Brendan Brisson, and Owen Power.
With all but Bordeleau off in Beijing, that stacked look is no longer an option, and Michigan instead used a top unit of Mackie Samoskevich, Bordeleau, Mark Estapa, Nick Blankenburg, and Luke Hughes.
Normally, using two defensemen on a power play unit feels regressive, but in Michigan’s case, it is simply a matter of putting the most gifted offensive players on the ice together, regardless of position. Plus, given Blankenburg’s proclivity for sneaking down toward the net, it hardly feels like a unit that does feature two defensemen.
Even on the second unit, Michigan paired Ethan Edwards and Jacob Truscott, alongside forwards Johnny Beecher, Michael Pastujov, and Dylan Duke, but once again, the offensive gifts of Edwards in particular ensure that such a unit lacks little in terms of explosiveness or offensive creativity.
I would expect to see most of the same personnel return to the power play units this weekend against the Buckeyes.
Perhaps the best news for a Michigan power play that appears to be rounding into form is that Ohio State’s penalty kill enters the weekend at a rather inviting 77% flat.
Olympic Update & USA Hockey’s Disappointment
Well, just like that, Michigan’s representatives in the men’s Olympic tournament are no longer in the running for medals. Brendan Brisson, Matty Beniers, and the U.S. bowed out of the tournament in the wee hours of the morning Wednesday—having fallen short in a 3-2 quarter-final shootout loss to the Slovaks. Meanwhile, Owen Power, Kent Johnson, and Team Canada fell 2-0 to Sweden in the same round a few hours later.
Though the end result was unsatisfactory, it was hardly a tournament devoid of joy for Wolverine fans who braved the hostile time difference to watch the aforementioned quartet in action.
Kent Johnson went from an alternate—not expected to play unless injury or COVID necessitated it—to posting five points in five games, all while playing against senior competition for the first time in his career.
Brendan Brisson opened the scoring on the tournament for Team USA, when he one-timed home a loose puck in the slot for a power play marker on a play that will look delightfully familiar to Michigan fans. He would add a second in the U.S.’s group stage triumph over Canada.
Matty Beniers was perhaps the States’ most dangerous offensive player all tournament, and the fact that he was not tapped as one of the team’s five shooters in the fateful shootout against Slovakia boggles the mind.
It was a quiet tournament by Owen Power’s lofty standard, but he continued to demonstrate his utter command of the game from the back end in this his second senior appearance for Canada (with the other being last spring’s World Championship).
We don’t yet have official word on when we should expect to see the Olympic Four back in action for the Maize and Blue. It appears likely that the foursome will not appear this weekend against Ohio State, as a weekend off is almost certainly in order for the jet-lagged quarter as they recover from their overseas experience and prepare for a playoff push. Next weekend at Notre Dame would appear a more likely return date for Beniers, Brisson, Johnson, and Power.
For some time now (you might say for forty-two years), the U.S. men’s national team has been hamstrung not from a lack of talent but from its own philosophical defeatism.
This is not to say that the U.S. has the best hockey talent in the world on the men’s side, but the fact remains that USA Hockey has failed to take advantage of the talent this country does possess at the men’s senior level.
This reality stands in direct contradiction to the overwhelming success the American program has enjoyed on the women’s side and at the junior level.
The problem for the U.S. lies in a crippling tendency to turtle in its biggest games, playing a conservative brand of hockey that takes control of the game away from the talented players this country has produced in recent years. The 2014 semi-final in Sochi is a perfect example. So too is the entirety of the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, from roster and coach selection to on-ice performance.
After an exhilarating win that began late Friday night and ended around 1:30 AM Saturday morning over Canada, it appeared the U.S. might have overcome its self-imposed limitations.
In the victory over Canada, the team showed the benefits it drew from populating its roster not with journeymen from the AHL or European leagues but instead with many of the best players in college hockey.
That team, led by players like Beniers and Brisson along with Minnesota’s Matthew Knies and Brock Faber, played the game at a pace Canada—who opted for a more conservative approach in roster building—could not match.
Comparisons to the 1980 Miracle team (anathema to most serious modern fans of USA Hockey) came pouring in, and there was reason to believe this would be the first American men’s side since Brooks’ miracle workers in Lake Placid.
Instead, head coach David Quinn (late of the New York Rangers) returned to the dull, conservative, and self-defeating style of the 2016 World Cup and Sochi medal round. Rather than afford vital opportunities to the young dynamic players on his roster, Quinn turned to the more predictable (read: boring, teetering on ineffectual) presence of his veterans.
We here at Gulo Gulo are reluctant to criticize hockey coaches, who know far more about the game than I ever will, but we simply can’t fathom a scenario in which any coach believes Andy Miele is more likely to net an overtime winner than Brendan Brisson (no disrespect, Andy).
Once again, when the lights shone brightest, the U.S. took control of the game away from its own stars. As long as this trend continues, American hockey fans will have no choice but to tout their success at the World Juniors and reminisce about 1980.
The good news is the same story can’t be told on the women’s side, where roughly five hours after this writing, Team USA will look to defend the gold medal it claimed in Pyeongchang against its hated rivals Canada. It is as intense a rivalry as exists anywhere in sport, and, while this appears the best Canada team since Vancouver in 2010 at least, you can rest assured the American women will be playing to win from puck drop until the final whistle.