Week 13: Four Points in Minneapolis
Michigan overcomes the hard-pressing Gophers to take four valuable B1G standings points and the Mariucci-Renfrew Trophy
The University of Michigan men’s ice hockey team took four points off the Minnesota Golden Gophers this weekend, falling in overtime on Friday before scoring four unanswered in a Saturday night come-from-behind victory. Those four points were enough to secure this season’s Mariucci-Renfrew Trophy away from the Gophers.
For about four periods at 3M Arena at Mariucci, the Golden Gophers flummoxed Michigan. The Wolverines, accustomed to controlling games through their talented corps of puck-moving defensemen, struggled to sustain any kind of attack. Whether it was an acclimation period to the Gophers’ Olympic-sized ice sheet or the tight checking in the neutral zone by a Gopher team keen to avoid burdening its unproven goaltender, Michigan managed little more than an occasional foray into the offensive zone for most of Friday’s loss and the opening frame of Saturday’s victory.
On Friday night, Michigan managed to salvage a point thanks to a lone marker from Dylan Duke and some outstanding goaltending from Erik Portillo. The Wolverines were outplayed for most of the contest, but Portillo’s twenty-three saves kept the Wolverines afloat.
In the game’s early stages, Michigan looked cautious in attack, a seeming adjustment period to the wide ice at Mariucci. Kent Johnson or Luke Hughes would supply an impressive individual rush with the puck, but those rushes never seemed to convert into quality chances.
Duke’s goal—which opened the scoring—came off a rare offensive zone face-off for the Wolverines, when the forward capitalized on a loose puck just outside Justen Close’s crease. It was an isolated moment of decisive finishing rather than the product of a continuous offensive onslaught.
Meanwhile, the Gophers’ talented forward group tested the Michigan defense corps in a way it hadn’t had to withstand all season. Even Owen Power appeared fallible, fumbling pucks at his own blue line and being forced to scramble defensively under duress from the hard-pressing Minnesota forecheck.
“The Nines Line”—composed of Matthew Knies (number eighty-nine), Ben Meyers (number thirty-nine), and Chaz Lucius (number twenty-nine)—led the charge for the Gophers, scoring both goals. Knies, a Toronto Maple Leafs draft choice who will join Matty Beniers and Brendan Brisson on Team USA next month, showed impressive hand-eye to convert a lobbed Lucius pass into an equalizing goal early in the third.
Meyers, himself also Beijing Bound to represent the US, notched what felt like an inevitable OT winner on the power play, following a Jacob Truscott major late in regulation. Michigan managed to hold Minnesota at bay for the remainder of regulation, but, with Truscott in the box, the Gophers had oceans of space in which to operate on a four-on-three power play.
In a sense, the Gophers’ reliance on converting turnovers into offensive chances doesn’t seem a logical way to exploit the unusual dimensions of their home rink. One might expect an expansive, possession-heavy style to accompany the extra space afforded by Mariucci.
However, Minnesota makes their counter-punching style workable through impeccable short-area passing and movement away from the puck. The Nines Line in particular resembles a tornado in converting an ill-located turnover into a quality scoring chance, snapping a flurry of quick passes until they are bearing down on an opposing goaltender.
For most of the first period on Saturday, the song remained the same—with the insatiable Gopher forwards hounding Michigan’s defensemen and preventing the Wolverines from generating anything of note offensively.
The Wolverines snapped into life late in that period when Ethan Edwards broke that cycle with an outstanding bit of individual playmaking. After a combination of Mark Estapa and Jimmy Lambert earned Michigan a clean zone entry (a rarity to that point in the series), Edwards snapped an incisive cross-ice pass to Brisson. Justen Close didn’t stand a chance against Brisson’s close-range one-timer, and the Wolverines were level.
Not even a minute later, Michigan found more room to attack off the rush, and this time Johnson and Power set up Beniers, who made no mistake with his wide-open wrister.
For the Wolverines, unlocking the Gophers’ staunch neutral zone defense seemed to come from carrying the puck out of their own end before using horizontal passes to open up space in the neutral zone. Having done so, Michigan found itself with much more room in which to operate once they entered Minnesota’s end.
Following Beniers’ go-ahead goal, the Gophers continued to threaten for long stretches in the second period, but Erik Portillo had the answer to every question they asked.
Michael Pastujov added a third for the Wolverines midway through the second, and Nick Blankenburg pocketed a decisive fourth in the third period to put the game out of reach. In both cases, horizontal passing (this time in the offensive zone) opened up the shooting lanes that Michigan struggled to find on Friday night.
On Pastujov’s goal, Brisson’s attempt at a cross-ice pass was swallowed up by the Gopher defense, but Thomas Bordeleau used the outside of his right boot to redirect the ensuing breakout attempt to Pastujov, who found himself with ample time and space in front of Close’s crease.
On the one hand, Close will probably want Pastujov’s shot, which he got more than a small piece off back, but, leaving any player with that much room in that spot on the ice will always spell disaster.
Blankenburg sealed the game after taking a D-to-D pass from Power and then catching Close leaning to cover another potential centering pass only to see the captain’s wrist shot find the short side.
By game’s end, Michigan had persevered through an excellent start to the series by the Gophers to earn four of the six available points and the Mariucci-Renfrew Trophy. Though they were heavily outshot Saturday, that figure is a bit misleading, given that Michigan came alive with two quick goals at the end of a first period in which they had been suffering. Because the Wolverines built a lead without much shot volume, they had little incentive to rectify that differential with risky offensive play in the games’ latter stages. In the third period, Michigan allowed just seven shots, effectively slamming the door.
In sum, it was about as good as a late-January trip to the Twin Cities can get.
Odds & Ends
Experimental KJ
Mel Pearson offered one major wrinkle in his top six, shifting Kent Johnson from his familiar spot on the left wing alongside Beniers to the right side. Presumably, the move was a bid to open up more shooting opportunities for the versatile Johnson, who played mostly as a center for the BCHL’s Trail Smoke Eaters before coming to Ann Arbor and has shown his comfort all over the ice on the Wolverines’ power play. This weekend, though, the experiment appeared mostly unsuccessful. The shift to the right side seemed to cut down on the number of puck touches for Johnson, and, though he managed two shots in each game, none of them seemed to offer a major test for Close. Johnson’s one point on the weekend came when he joined the rush on his more familiar left side, collecting a Pastujov pass and sending it along for Power. It was a worthwhile experiment, but I would expect to see Johnson back on the left side for next weekend’s trip to Madison.
Signs of Life from Samoskevich
When the new year began, Mackie Samoskevich appeared an obvious breakout candidate for the Wolverines. In the one game Team USA did manage to play in the World Juniors*, the future Florida Panther buried a scorching wrist shot for the Americans, and his strong form to close out 2021 suggested that more was sure to come.
Progress isn’t always linear though, and it has been a comparatively slow start to 2022 for the Connecticutian, registering three assists and failing to score in his six games in the new year to date.
The good news for Samoskevich though is that he has looked better in each series during that span. This weekend, he was one of the few Wolverines to consistently cause Minnesota problems. He showed flashes of the lethal transition game that made him effective in the first half of the season and mixed in a physicality we hadn’t yet seen. Look for Samoskevich to get back in the goal column next weekend, when he will again look to leverage his explosive skating on an Olympic sheet against Wisconsin.
Special Teams Update
At midweek, we wrote about the red hot Wolverine penalty kill and comparatively mild power play. This weekend, both units remained true to that form. Minnesota did manage to snap the Wolverines’ unblemished streak on the PK that stretched back to early December with Meyers’ Friday night OT winner. However, given that the goal came on a four-on-three on Olympic ice, it is hardly cause for panic for Michigan. There is perhaps more room for concern about the Wolverines’ power play. The unit went 0-for-3 on Friday and never offered a credible threat to Close. On Saturday, Michigan’s sole power play was meaningless, coming with under a minute to play in a game they led by three goals. Michigan has been mostly able to overcome the power play’s slump since early December, but it will want to rectify that trend before the postseason. That task will only grow more difficult next month, when Power, Johnson, Beniers, and Brisson head to the Olympics.