"We've Got a Lot of Dogs on This Team. I Don't Know How Else to Say It"

On dogs, coming together at the right time, and the path to what could be a third straight B1G Tournament title clinched on enemy ice

“We’ve got a lot of dogs on the team honestly,” said Rutger McGroarty Tuesday afternoon.  “I don’t know how else to say it.  I feel like guys rise in the playoffs, and other guys fall off, and we’ve got a bunch of guys that are rising to the occasion.”  He sounded almost apologetic as he said it, as if he wished he could offer a more scientific or tangible explanation for his team’s postseason surge but an idiomatic, vibes-based one was closer to hand.

It’s not hard to find evidence for McGroarty’s declaration.  Heading into this weekend’s Big Ten title game at Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing, Frank Nazar III ranks sixth on the University of Michigan men’s hockey team in scoring with fourteen goals and twenty-three assists.  If he played for any other school in the conference, he would lead that team in points.

This week, Gavin Brindley—McGroarty’s long-time line-mate and Michigan’s leading scorer with twenty-seven goals and twenty-seven assists—was named the conference’s player of the year and first team All-Big Ten, a decoration McGroarty (sixteen goals and thirty-five assists) and defenseman Seamus Casey (seven goals and thirty-seven assists) earned as well.  Those three and Nazar won gold for Team USA at the World Junior just a few months ago.

Dylan Duke, with twenty-one goals and twenty-one assists thirty-seven games into his junior season, earned second team All-Big Ten honors, while Nazar and T.J. Hughes (eighteen goals and twenty-six assists) were honorable mentions. This year’s Wolverines may not have a singular talent equal to Adam Fantilli, but they aren’t short on firepower. 

Of course, those dogs—to use McGroarty’s appellation—were healthy and assembled when last Michigan met Michigan State, and that wasn’t enough to avoid a humbling sweep, first at Yost then at Little Caesars Arena for the Duel in the D.

It was a uniquely disappointing effort, even in an up-and-down season, because those two games in February weren’t failures of game management or blown leads.  Instead, the Wolverines were unable to assert their attacking, possession-based identity in the face of the Spartans grit, depth, and goaltending.

According to Nazar, that weekend was a critical inflection point in Michigan’s season.  As the sophomore said Tuesday, the series served as “definitely a big aspect to how our team plays now.  Just taking a big look in the mirror and man-to-man just knowing that we need to better.  It definitely fueled the fire going into the next games of trying to make the tournament, trying to be in a good spot for playoffs, get home ice advantage against Notre Dame.  Just knowing what we’re fighting for just led to stacking momentum and wins together.”

Per McGroarty, in the weeks since those two State defeats, the Wolverines have sped up.  “Our game has gotten a lot faster,” he said.  “I feel like we move pucks north faster.  We’re stopping on our spots in the D zone.  We’re winning the blue line.  We’re winning all lines.  We’re just managing the puck better.  We could do it for certain points in the game, but I feel like we’re playing a full sixty now, and it’s really cool to see.  We’re just gonna keep progressing for these last five games.”

Meanwhile, coach Brandon Naurato has seen steady progress from his group since that series, to the point that the team that lost to MSU twice in February is hardly recognizable as the one that dominated Minnesota in Minneapolis last weekend.  

“Watching those games back now, we’re a different team,” he said Tuesday.  “Not taking anything away from them…When you play good teams and you don’t have success, it’s important to look in the mirror and have an identity check of what we need to do to push over that edge.  All credit to the players.  We just got to work, and we talked about some different things, and just because you talk about it, it doesn’t happen right away, but I think you can see over the last four or five weeks, we’re progressively taking steps.”

Naurato has stressed the importance of failure to growth since he took over as the Wolverines’ coach on an interim basis last season, and his team’s improvement since that Duel in the D defeat is another example of that dynamic in action: “It’s important to let these kids fail forward and learn, and we’re teaching them through the video and back in practice.  It’s not like we’re just snapping our fingers and everything’s great defensively now.  That’s all credit to them.  It’s not like they’re not trying earlier on, but they’re growing, and they’re continuing to take steps…It’s just playing winning hockey and playing for the team and just the little stuff that matters.”

In the first round of the Big Ten playoffs, Notre Dame provided Michigan with a stylistic challenge, playing a defense-first brand of hockey that has given the Wolverines fits for just about the entirety of the 21st century.  The Wolverines found a way past it.

Last weekend, Minnesota had the scoring talent to punish any fragilities in Michigan’s structure, and those opportunities never arose.  Instead, as the Wolverines roll into the time of year where each game is supposed to be maximally competitive, Michigan has delivered its smoothest performances of the season.  On Saturday at 3M Arena at Mariucci, Naurato’s team held the Gophers to just 24 shots, their lowest total in any of the two teams’ five games against one another all year.

However, because of their depth, the Spartans are equipped to provide a more comprehensive test than Michigan received from either the Gophers or the Irish.  It was that layered attack that humbled the Wolverines a bit more than a month ago.  This weekend, Michigan’s path to success will likely hinge on the forecheck as a tool to extend possession in the offensive zone.  

The Wolverines’ lone victory over MSU this season was a triumph of territory over possession.  It wasn’t necessarily about beautiful breakout sequences to get there; instead, Michigan’s forward group asserted itself over a Spartan team that is most vulnerable along the blue line. 

Adam Nightingale’s team is deep and experienced up front.  Trey Augustine (who should have won the Big Ten’s goaltender of the year honor by a great distance) is imperious in net.  However, the Spartans’ defense corps can be gotten at exposed, a feat Michigan achieved in its 7-1 rout at Munn during the two sides’ first meeting of the year.

At his weekly media availability, Naurato wasn’t much interested in stoking the flames of an in-state rivalry ahead of what may well be its most significant edition of the entire century, but he did double down on an assertion he made before the Wolverines traveled to Minnesota last week, saying of his team “I told you they’re the best when they got something to prove, and they got something to prove this weekend.”

For McGroarty, a key to Michigan’s postseason success, particularly road postseason success, is a surplus of players with experience in high-stakes environments.  “Guys that have played in big games,” he said when asked what he attributes his team’s recent Big Ten Tournament success to.  “In the regular season, it is what it is.  It’s very important, but everybody gets into the Big Ten playoffs and as long as you get into the tournament, that’s all that matters.  There’s some guys on this team that have played in some really big games.”

Nazar sees something similar in the sense of unity he feels when he looks around the Wolverine locker room, saying in response to the same question, “Just coming together as a group, playing for each other, which is a huge thing.  Just being able to look across the room and know you’re fighting for the guy sitting next to you or on the other side of the room.  Just being able to fight for that guy.  We all went out there with that attitude and were just able to play for each other.”

“I feel like Michigan’s always got that swagger, and it’s coming into a rink, you always have that swagger, coming ready to play, knowing we’re gonna out-work you on the forecheck, backcheck,” added McGroarty.  “I mean we’re just gonna outwork you, and we got some skill as well.”

In that sentiment, the Nebraskan sophomore identified the most important variable in determining Michigan’s fate this weekend at Munn.  The Wolverines’ dogs will be there, but their swagger can’t depend merely on their skill. It must manifest in the insatiable work rate that has defined the previous two rounds of the postseason for the team.  If that’s the case again Saturday, Michigan will celebrate its third straight B1G Tournament title in enemy territory, and this one all the sweeter for the in-state foe and short bus ride home.

At the end of these articles, I always plug the daily Red Wings coverage I’m doing over at THN.com/Detroit, but this week I wanted to call special attention to a feature on the social media team behind @umichhockey and the work that SID Kristy McNeil has done to build a social media powerhouse within a hockey one. If you are all interested in UM hockey, I assure you it’s worth your time.

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