"When We’re Comfortable, We’re Just Okay. When We Have Something to Prove, We’re Really Good”: B1G Semifinal Preview

Depth and defense came through in unprecedented fashion for Michigan against Notre Dame. What will it take to replicate that this weekend in Minneapolis?

Last weekend, the University of Michigan men’s hockey team swept Notre Dame in the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament, earning a date with Minnesota in Minneapolis for this weekend’s semifinals and in all likelihood an NCAA Tournament bid to boot.

Without wishing to dismiss the anxious final moments of both games, nor the handful of massive Jake Barczewski stops in one-goal third periods both nights, it felt about as smooth as the season has ever been for the Wolverines.  On Friday, they took the lead 3:04 into the third period through Rutger McGroarty; on Saturday, Gavin Brindley provided Michigan with the lead 3:54 into the third.  On both occasions, the Wolverines saw out those leads with an ease unprecedented in a season defined by chaotic, topsy-turvy third periods.

How did Michigan stay out of that drama to finish off the Irish?  The answer is two-fold: depth pieces falling into place and a collective commitment to team defense in closing out both games.

“The individual development, it’s just coming at the right time,” said coach Brandon Naurato Tuesday, when asked how it seemed his team’s role players all seemed to simultaneously deliver their strongest performances of the season.  “They’ve gotta know that we believe in them, and when they do it, you do believe, and if they don’t do it, we’ve gotta keep fighting the fight to get them there.”   After clinching the sweep Saturday night at Yost, he’d offered a similar message, saying “We challenged a lot of guys individually.  We talked about a lot of things as a team, and just super proud of these guys for stepping up.”

One example of that individual development comes in the form of freshman winger Nick Moldenhauer.  Moldenhauer now has eight goals and a dozen assists for twenty points in thirty-six games as a freshman.  What stood out to Naurato was not Moldenhauer’s goal Friday night so much as the way his progress with one isolated skill helped open up the rest of his game for what Naurato called his best weekend at Michigan to date.

“Nick Moldenhauer has been working on puck protection, getting his butt out, and not facing pressure,” Naurato explained.  “The first part of that is you have to do it and think about it.  And then you fail a little bit, you have some success, and you keep tweaking.  We’re three, four weeks into it, and it’s coming.  He’s extending plays because of it.  He’s getting more touches because he extended the play, and now you see more of his skillset because it’s happening.”

Meanwhile, fellow freshman Garrett Schifsky continued his ascent from being a recruit of modest acclaim to a central figure in Naurato’s team.  Against the Irish, he was literally Michigan’s central figure, assuming the number one center spot between McGroarty and Brindley.  He picked up three points over the weekend and excelled at five-on-five and on both special teams.  Schifsky and Moldenhauer got the ball rolling for Michigan for the weekend, combining for Moldenhauer to score the series’ opening goal Friday night.

“It was just a great moment between me and him,” said Schifsky Tuesday.  “We’ve been working the entire year just to get up there and create some momentum for the team…It was just good to get the spark going for the whole team.” 

“Red [Berenson] used to talk about it all the time,” Naurato said after that Friday win.  “This time of year, they shouldn’t be freshmen anymore, and I think you saw the growth out of both guys from the beginning of the year to what they did tonight, which is exciting.”

And the triumph of Michigan’s depth wasn’t limited to the freshmen.  Entering the weekend, Naurato tinkered with his forward alignment, putting Schifsky between McGroarty and Brindley on the top line, leaving Frank Nazar to lead the second line, and sliding T.J. Hughes down to the third.  Throughout the regular season, the Wolverines were highly dependent on a top six that generally featured all of McGroarty, Brindley, Nazar, and Hughes for offense.  With Hughes on the third line, Michigan benefited from greater scoring threat up and down the lineup via a more even distribution of the team’s top talent.

Naurato doesn’t care to expound too much on lineup decisions at this time of year, and he will often enter a weekend with a Friday night lineup card that does not match the lines that will actually take the ice once the puck drops.  On Tuesday, however, he did offer that, “everyone needs depth, and we tweaked some things around to find it a different way…After trying so many things, you hope that that works.”

He also pointed out that one player alone cannot make a team deep; instead, “Mark [Estapa] and Moldenhauer stepping up with T.J. makes the depth.  [Josh] Eernisse stepping up with Frankie and [Dylan] Duke makes the depth.”

To that point, Eernisse and Estapa are among the Wolverines who played their best hockey of the season last weekend.  “Mark Estapa and Eernisse and their physicality, and little things like throwing Mark out for a draw, him winning it, and getting off,” gushed Naurato after the sweep Saturday.  “Or Ern winning battles on the wall just to get pucks out.  Just a lot of little things that don’t show up in the scoresheet…This time of the year, you need everybody.”

Depth isn’t just one or two players outside the customary pitching in; it’s a top-to-bottom approach to team success with each player finding a role within a larger structure.  That’s how last weekend looked for Naurato’s Wolverines.

And it wasn’t just scoring, which has seldom been an issue for this year’s team, even through its ups and downs.  Closing out games on the other hand has been far more of a challenge.  Keeping the sweep of Notre Dame as drama-free as possible happened because of Michigan’s success at getting stops, killing plays, winning along the walls, and exiting the zone cleanly to see out both leads.

“Playoff hockey it’s all about board battles, winning against the boards and winning those foot races,” offered Hughes on Saturday.  “I thought everyone was on tonight with that and advancing pucks north and getting them out if you have to.  Another big confidence booster for us, and we all trust each other with those battles and those foot races.”

For an example, let’s take a look at a play from Friday’s win.  The Irish top line gains the zone and threatens to get into a cycle that will keep them there.  Instead of allowing that to happen however, Tyler Duke steps up to kill this play along the boards, and Hughes arrives on the scene immediately with “second quick support” to move the puck along the wall for McGroarty and a clean exit.

Controlling possession and building out from the back are central pillars of the Wolverines’ identity, but in the context of a heated playoff series, that can’t always happen beautifully.  Instead, sometimes it has to be rugged and ugly.  Consider this example from the Saturday win.  The Irish shoot a puck into the zone, aiming to play dump and chase.  Barczewski controls the dump-in, settling it for Duke.  Duke rims the puck along the wall for Estapa, who absorbs a heavy hit and survives being outnumbered to filter the puck further up the wall for Eernisse, who eventually gets it out.  It’s not pretty, but it is simple, effective, and winning playoff hockey.

Minnesota poses a much different talent profile and style to Notre Dame, but in many ways, the same tenets will lead Michigan to success this weekend in the Twin Cities: depth players thriving in their roles, winning battles and races, and exiting the zone cleanly.

The Gophers thrive on a quick transition game, allowing the likes of Jimmy Snuggerud and Oliver Moore to express their skill.  To take that away, Michigan will want to play its familiar brand of possession hockey to pin Minnesota in its own end, but it will also want to lean on its forecheck and getting pucks behind the Gophers defense to win the field position battle.  Avoiding turnovers against a skilled counter-attacking team like Motzko’s Gophers will also be paramount.

“Everything that you can do to take away their line rush, so if you turn pucks over, they’re going the other way,” said Naurato Tuesday.  “We have a plan off the rush.  We have a plan off the forecheck, and then if those plans don’t work, you need to track back as hard as possible and have good gaps and then breakout as quickly as possible.”

Michigan hasn’t had to travel prior to the championship game in either of the Big Ten Tournament-winning campaigns of the previous two seasons, but Naurato believes his team will be unfazed by the environment awaiting them in Minneapolis (where it secured both of those previous crowns).

“A lot of these guys have played in big games,” he said.  “Especially this year, Frozen Four, playing against Sweden in Sweden [at this year’s World Junior], playing against Canada in Canada [at last year’s].  They love the pressure.  They love playing in Pennsylvania when we played Penn State [at last year’s Allentown regional]...They love when people tell them they can’t do it, and they have something to prove…When we’re comfortable, we’re just okay.  When we have something to prove, we’re really good.”

It’s not that Naurato expects this weekend to be easy by any stretch, but rather that he believes his team—still with something to prove despite all but securing an NCAA bid last weekend—is ready to conquer the environment it’s met at a fervor and left somber in each of the last two B1G title games.

“We feel comfortable that we can do something extremely difficult in front of 10,000 Gopher fans and beat them,” said Naurato.  “We have confidence to do that but know that there’s a lot of work to do and that we have to earn it.”

WoHo Arrives at Familiar End Point at ACHA Nationals

On Thursday, the University of Michigan women’s hockey team saw its season come to an end via a 2-1 loss to UM-Dearborn at ACHA Nationals in St. Louis.

One day earlier, the Wolverines began their Nationals campaign with a 3-2 OT loss to Minot State.  The Beavers scored early, but Emily Maliszewski tied the score with just under five to play in the first.  Lucy Hanson then gave Michigan a lead via a power play goal 7:50 into the second.  However, Minot tied the game with just one second to play in regulation via a goal from Makena Welby, who went on to score the OT winner 16:33 into the extra session.  Sandrine Ponnath made forty-four saves to keep the Wolverines afloat, but in the end, Michigan came up one goal short.

Against Dearborn, Michigan conceded early in the first period and would spend most of the game playing catch up before Julia Lindahl tied the game at 11:19 of the third period.  However, within four minutes, Dearborn scored again to take a 2-1 lead.  Ponnath made thirty-six saves on thirty-eight shots, but once again, her outstanding effort wasn’t quite enough to secure a victory.

We’ll have more detailed coverage in the near future, but for now, we owe a tremendous congratulations to Team 28 on another great season.  The good news through the week’s disappointment is that every skater who recorded a point at Nationals plus Ponnath in goal will return next season.

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