Week 2: Statement Victory and Bitter Lesson
Michigan splits a weekend set with BU. The Wolverines rode a lethal power play and poor Terrier discipline to a 9-2 rout Friday only to falter with a lethargic performance in a 3-2 Sunday defeat
Over the weekend, the University of Michigan men’s ice hockey team split its series with the ninth-ranked Boston University Terriers. On Friday night, the Wolverines cruised to a 9-2 victory on the back of a decisive and prolonged five-on-three that put the game out of reach before it even got off the ground. Tonight, Michigan generated an early lead that flattered its performance, only to see that lead dissipate via consecutive power play goals in the latter half of the second.
Both games featured a heavy serving of pleasantries exchanged after the whistle, and the Bostonians’ desire for a physical contest was apparent from the opening minutes of Friday’s contest. On Friday, Michigan exploited BU’s misbegotten aggression; on Sunday, the Wolverines couldn’t match the Terriers’ intensity, and the result reflected the team’s incomplete effort.
Friday’s onslaught began with a Gavin Brindley goal just after time expired on the game’s first Wolverine power play. The Wolverines created a numerical advantage below the circles, and Jacob Truscott sent the rebound of a Rutger McGroarty bid over to Brindley, who finished into a yawning cage.
The Terriers’ problems intensified when Luke Tuch and Jay O’Brien each earned major penalties for checks to the head within a minute of one another. BU had arrived in Ann Arbor with clear intentions to set a physical tone but instead set into motion a parade to the penalty box. The infractions set up a four-minute-and-four-second five-on-three, which wouldn’t be cut short should the Wolverines score as both penalties were majors.
It took Mackie Samoskevich, who was on the wrong end of the first of the two majors, twenty-one seconds to begin punishing BU for its lack of discipline. Samoskevich settled into a soft spot in the Terriers’ defensive zone coverage, before one-timing a Dylan Duke feed past Drew Commesso.
Twenty-eight seconds later, T.J. Hughes was the first to the rebound of a Samoskevich shot that Commesso couldn’t quite secure. Michigan’s lead was now three.
Before the Terriers’ sentences elapsed, Seamus Casey stretched the lead to four by finishing off a tic-tac-toe freshmen exchange that went from Brindley to Rutger McGroarty and then Casey, leaving Commesso without any hope at a stop.
At the first intermission, Michigan led 4-0 with three of those goals coming on the decisive five-on-three and all but one goalscorer a freshman. The Wolverines earned their lead through as unlikely a game script as you could imagine—such a prolonged two-man advantage as inviting an opportunity to Michigan’s snipers as being set free in the candy store might be to a toddler.
The penalties that undid the Terriers were self-inflicted, but Michigan was ready to capitalize. In the second, BU’s continued insistence on extra-curricular physicality garnered a familiar result.
Three minutes into the frame Luke Hughes and Sam Stevens went off for matching roughing penalties, the Wolverines took advantage of the extra ice available during the ensuing two minutes of four aside.
First, Dylan Duke took advantage of a long Casey rebound off the end-boards to beat an unsuspecting Commesso.
Then, Casey added another to stretch the Michigan lead to six before Hughes and Stevens returned to action. A theme that would persist throughout the weekend was well-established: Michigan wanted to play a game predicated on speed and skill, while the Terriers emphasized physicality and intimidation. Throughout Friday’s contest, the Terriers’ ambition cost them dearly in penalty minutes, and Michigan was all too happy to take advantage.
After BU got itself onto the scoreboard, Samoskevich cleaned up the rebound from an Adam Fantilli partial breakaway to restore the lead to six goals. The game was not yet halfway over, but the outcome was beyond even the most unreasonable doubt.
Perhaps the crooked final scoreline (which germinated from a once-in-a-blue-moon five-on-three opportunity) was not an accurate reflection of the two teams’ relative abilities. Nonetheless, it served as a caution to any teams around the nation that doubted Michigan’s firepower following the departure of last year’s anointed six. Even without the likes of Beniers, Bordeleau, and Brisson, Michigan’s revamped attack has the potency to run a top-ten team in the nation out of the building before a game is a period-and-a-half old.
When Dylan Duke scored just before the halfway mark in tonight’s game, it appeared Michigan was on its way to consecutive sweeps to open the season. The Wolverines’ top power play unit had just vaporized BU’s penalty kill with a sequence of cross-ice passes, and the Ohioan winger capitalized on an inviting rebound at the goal mouth. Michigan was far from its top form, yet still boasted a 2-1 advantage. However, the Terriers rallied for consecutive power play goals of their own before the horn sounded on the second, only to hold on for a series split over the course of a bitter third.
The second period ended with mounting tensions between the two sides with one pivotal moment a late knee-on-knee hit by Ty Gallagher on McGroarty. Despite a Brandon Naurato challenge, the call stood as a minor rather than rising to a major.
After the game, Naurato expressed his displeasure with the officials’ decision but emphasized his team’s performance rather than the referees’ as determining the game’s outcome: “I definitely didn’t like the knee on Rutger. I think it’s a major all day long, but we’re not gonna make excuses…We’ve got to score on those power plays. They score two power play goals, we scored one, so they won the special teams battle. I just thought they had way more urgency: blocking shots and being physical and protecting their netfront versus ours.”
Where the Terriers’ aggressive tactics earned majors and myriad power play goals on Friday night, it resulted in softer sentences Sunday and Michigan struck on just one of the five power plays it did receive.
Naurato explained after the game that he spoke with the officials at the second intermission in an effort to re-establish a standard of officiating: “We just felt like their coaches were talking to the refs a lot, and I said I’m trying to leave you guys alone, but it’s getting out of hand. Again, it’s not on the referees, but when two of our guys get buried from behind and then they call a slash on the stick…it is what it is. We’ve got to find a way to fight through it.”
In the end, though, Naurato was unequivocal: the result was a product of the team’s uninspired performance for forty-plus minutes rather than a lower standard for infractions than it experienced on Friday. By the time Michigan cobbled together a late-game push, it didn’t have the time it needed to atone for its substandard start.
As Naurato put it, “If we play the way we did in the last twelve minutes for sixty minutes, we should have a chance to win every single game this year. We did not start on time and just didn’t defend as hard as we needed to. We weren’t as physical as we needed to be. Everyone could talk about our offense, but you win hockey games…by checking for offense and playing the right way.”
If there was a silver lining to Sunday’s defeat, it wore extra protective equipment and manned the crease. All three Wolverines who spoke to the media following Sunday’s defeat lauded Erik Portillo’s performance. The towering Swede stopped thirty-one of BU’s thirty-four shots, including numerous quality rebound and in-tight chances. Naurato labeled his goaltender “outstanding again.” Captain Nolan Moyle explained “He’s the backbone of our team. It gives us a chance to win every night, and we need to be a lot better in front of him, but he has been our best player all year.” Then, Dylan Duke echoed the point, saying “Erik’s been our best player all year.”
In the end, despite his obvious disappointment in tonight’s effort, Naurato sounded optimistic about the defeat’s long-term effect on his team.
“We weren’t ourselves tonight, and we’ve got to find it. That’s all part of it…Even prospects three, four years into the NHL, they’re figuring out how to play the game…the MacKinnons, the Ovechkins…before they won cups they have that failure and it’s hard and then good things happen.”
On Friday night, Michigan rode a dominant power play and poor Terrier discipline to a 9-2 statement victory. Though the rout emerged from a unique five-on-three, the victory offered a hint at the heights this team could achieve when playing to its potential, even against one of the country’s top teams.
Tonight, the Wolverines received a hard lesson on the consistency of effort required at the highest levels of NCAA hockey. For a team with twelve freshmen, freshmen whose every shot had seemed to turn to gold until Sunday, the defeat offered a first taste of adversity at the collegiate level. Fortunately for the Wolverines, with a Friday-Sunday set this weekend, the team will need to wait just five nights instead of six for a shot at returning to the win column next Friday at Lake Superior State.
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