On to Boston
On to Boston
Three observations from Michigan’s 7-4 win over Quinnipiac, as the Wolverines clinched their 26th trip to the Frozen Four
On Sunday evening in Allentown, PA, the University of Michigan men’s ice hockey team clinched the program’s twenty-sixth trip to the Frozen Four with a 7-4 victory over the Quinnipiac Bobcats.
The Wolverines built a 4-0 lead through forty minutes on the strength of a dominant fourth-line performance and a dazzling power play passing sequence. Though Michigan boasted a formidable lead, it was not as though the Bobcats were devoid of chances.
In the third, Quinnipiac put a conclusion that had appeared foregone as we emerged from the second intermission into jeopardy. Three goals in a seven-minute span cut the Michigan lead to one.
From there, a controversial early goalie pull from Bobcats coach Rand Pecknold opened the door for Michigan to ice the game with a pair of empty netters.
Though the outcome was finally sealed, the scoring wasn’t done.
A devastating one-timer from Brendan Brisson stretched the Michigan lead to 7-3, only for Zach Metsa to claw a goal back with a well-placed wrist shot.
Twenty-two seconds of hockey later, the horn sounded, and the Wolverines were on to Boston and the Frozen Four.
At five PM on Thursday April 7th, Michigan will vie with the Denver Pioneers for a spot in the national championship game. In the other semifinal (which will commence at eight-thirty), Minnesota and Minnesota Duluth will go head-to-head.
The Grind Line
Michigan seized control of Sunday’s regional final on the game’s first shift, thanks to its checking line of Garrett Van Wyhe, Jimmy Lambert, and Nolan Moyle.
The trio, Mel Pearson’s default starters throughout the Big Ten and now NCAA tournaments, has been doing its best impression of the Detroit Red Wings’ legendary Grind Line of Darren McCarty, Kris Draper, and Kirk Maltby.
Though ostensibly the line’s role is a defensive zone, Van Wyhe, Lambert, and Moyle excel at playing on the front foot.
When they are on the ice, the puck moves away from Erik Portillo and toward the attacking third of the rink. Upon arriving in the opposing end, the puck tends to stay there thanks to the trio’s zealous forechecking.
Sunday’s first shift offered a nice illustration of the line’s formula. Upon getting the puck into the offensive zone, all three forwards (along with towering defenseman Owen Power) collapsed toward the net.
The skill and precision we would later see from the Michigan power play was nowhere to be found. Instead, a series of determined whacks in and around Bobcat goaltender Yaniv Perets’ crease culminated in a Nolan Moyle goal. Michigan led 1-0 after thirty-three seconds.
After the goal, we suggested that you couldn’t possibly ask for more from the fourth line than what it had already offered in the postseason. Before the period was up, Jimmy Lambert proved that assertion wrong when he doubled the Wolverine lead.
Lambert won a faceoff back to Luke Hughes, who delivered a sterling backhand pass to the Saskatchewan native as he drove toward Perets’ crease. This time, the line benefited from an astonishing bit of skill from Hughes, but the formula remained intact: simple offensive zone plays and collapsing toward the crease.
In the dying stages of the second, with Brendan Brisson in the box for tripping, Van Wyhe completed the collective third line hat trick. The goal emerged from some quintessential Michigan penalty killing, with defenseman Nick Blankenburg eschewing his defensive duties to pursue an offensive opportunity.
Blankenburg won a race to the puck, recovering it just above the faceoff dot to Perets’ left before delivering a centering pass to Van Wyhe, who in keeping with his fourth liner’s obligations was driving the net. 4-0 Wolverines.
Imagine you are Rand Pecknold. You have been preparing your team, known for its stellar defense, to face an offense that has no equivalent or near equivalent in your conference, the ECAC. You know you must contain Michigan’s uber-talented lineup, worrying about names like Matty Beniers, Brendan Brisson, and Kent Johnson.
Then, after twenty minutes of play, you trail by two thanks to a pair of fourth line goals, with another goal from a fourth liner killing a penalty in the second period.
As we said after the AIC game, if Michigan receives this degree of scoring from its depth, opponents will despair in short order.
Another Cautionary Tale
In many ways, Sunday’s game was a more extreme version of Friday’s. The Wolverines built a comfortable lead, then began to collapse thanks to misbegotten coverage in their own end of the rink, only to survive the scare.
Sunday’s opponent was superior, their comeback push harder, and the possibility of a loss appeared nearer than it ever did against American International.
As such, it is difficult not to look at Sunday’s result as another cautionary tale. It was not as though the Bobcats were unable to generate anything offensively through two periods, particularly during a chaotic first in which both teams registered fourteen shots on net.
Michigan did a better job keeping Quinnipiac in check in the second, surrendering just six shots on Portillo, but in the third, the Bobcats registered fourteen more, this time beating the big Swede thrice.
It’s difficult to be too disappointed in a result that sent the team to the Frozen Four, but closing out games will surely be a talking point amongst the Wolverines during the two week layoff before the national semifinal with Denver.
On some level, you could see how head coach Mel Pearson would be pleased to have obvious areas of improvement to target rather than coasting into Boston with an air of utter invincibility.
Of course, to be a bit blunter, missing out on the Frozen Four in a game Michigan should have clinched by the time the final horn on the second period sounded thanks to sloppiness in the defensive zone would have been a devastating conclusion to the season.
Michigan has shown no difficulty in mounting leads this postseason, but protecting them has been a bit ropey. To win twice more and hoist a tenth national championship, Michigan will need to sure up that dimension of its game.
Tic-Tac-Toe
Though the story of Sunday’s game was the Herculean efforts of the fourth line, Michigan made sure not to leave Allentown on Sunday before flashing its top-end skill with a pair of dazzling power play strikes.
The first offered a deviation from a familiar pattern of Michigan power play passing. We have grown accustomed to watching the Wolverines circumnavigate the perimeter of the offensive zone with eyes toward setting up a Brisson one-timer at the top of the right circle.
This time, Michigan’s perimeter passing opened the door for Brisson to slide a pass into Thomas Bordeleau in a soft spot in the inner slot. Bordeleau waisted a shot past Perets with ease.
The second Wolverine power play goal was largely academic, coming with thirty-five seconds remaining and Michigan up three. However, its relative lack of consequence does little to dilute its technical brilliance.
This time, the Wolverines reverted to type by setting up a textbook Brisson one-timer, but the highlight of the play came from Bordeleau, who delivered the puck to his Californian teammate via an audacious fake-slapper, no-look, between-the-legs feed.
Bordeleau, a sophomore who has endured a trying season in a number of ways, has outpaced his production from a year ago in which he earned the Tim Taylor Award as college hockey’s rookie of the year. The Houstonian-Quebecois center is playing his best hockey of the year at the right time, helping to shoulder the offensive freight for the Wolverines throughout their time in Allentown.
Once again, the takeaway is rather simple. Despite some skepticism as to whether the high flying Wolverines are well-suited to the rigors of postseason hockey, Michigan’s elite skill at the top of the lineup coupled with a fourth-line playing traditional playoff hockey to perfection makes them a force to be reckoned with in ten days in Boston.