Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Schedule Released; The Rich May Get Richer?

The 2009-2010 hockey schedule is out (and it's only out a week earlier than last year, folks)! 16 home games out of 37 does seem like a low number, but last year we had 36 regular season games with 17 at home, so it's not that different from usual. The Wolverines open with an intrasquad scrimmage--or at least that's what it will seem like when they play the USA U-18 team. The first regular season game is up in Anchorage against the Nanooks. Another trip to BU is the highlight of the non-conference schedule. Hopefully that'll go better than last year.

The regular season closes with a Thursday-Saturday home-and-home against the Fighting Irish, with the Thursday game being at Yost. Fantastic. While I like the idea of playing ND the last weekend of the season, I don't like the fact that it will more than likely be over the students' Spring Break. I haven't confirmed that, but it seems like Senior Night is almost always sans students. FYS, Notre Dame, and BGSU are in our cluster this year. Advantage: Miami.

MHNet provided some thoughts on the schedule in a couple of posts.

The other news is that we might be adding another high-profile name to the ridiculous Class of 2010. Mike Spath posted that Lucas Lessio, a first-round pick in the OHL Draft, may become a Wolverine. He would then play at St. Mike's (The school that produced Caporusso, Cogliano, and Burlon) next season. His source told him that Lessio would be the best player to come to Michigan out of Ontario in the last decade (which includes the names listed above as well as Mike Cammalleri). Lofty praise. He's been compared to Rick Nash in the past, according to that thread.

He's 16 years old and currently stands 6'1", 178. He was named MVP of the OHL Cup this past season after scoring 11 points in 7 games. He had a 53-60--113 line with 123 PIMs in 72 games for the Toronto Marlboros.

Thoughts from his current coach:
“He’s got great skill, great hands and great speed,” said Marlboros coach Ken Strong. “He really handles the puck well. As a left shot, he’s probably one of the best I’ve seen beating the defenseman wide and cutting in on the left side, which is really hard to do because your body wants to go the other way.”

Here are some quotes from the Niagara GM, who picked him in the OHL Draft:
“He’s a big time sniper,” Brown said. “He reminds me of Luca Caputi in his 19th year, but I think he’s far advanced as to where Luca was when he came into the league. He’s definitely 100 per cent the best player available with that selection.”

Brown sees Lessio as an immediate impact player.

“We’re going to put him in position to succeed. I’m real excited about the future with him joining our young forwards,” Brown said. “He’s got natural savvy. He goes to the net with his stick on the ice and in the lane all the time. He’s deflected more meaningless pucks toward the middle more than anyone I’ve seen in the draft in six or seven years.

“I don’t want to say he’s a highlight guy, but he’s a real high-end offensive player.”

Michigan's interest is mentioned in a number of the articles about him. Pretty clearly he'd be a HUGE get for a class that seems to only be getting better and better.

The Cedar Rapids Roughriders have set their preliminary 30-man roster for the upcoming USHL season. They'll have to trim to 25 later in the summer, but at the moment, both Derek Deblois and Mac Bennett are on the roster. If they both decide to go the OHL route and make the team, when Cedar Rapids plays the NTDP, all currently-committed members of the 2010 recruiting class would be on the ice at the same time. I smell road trip. To Iowa. (No link, accidentally closed the window...take my word for it.)

Ticket sales for the Camp Randall Hockey Classic pretty much suck. Just over 18,000? I wonder how many tickets they have to sell for the game to turn a profit? They're still hoping for 40k.

9 comments:

streaker said...

Good stuff, Tim.

Sounds as if the Wolverines will need a better effort on the road to get back to the top of the standings this season. That, and a better overall PWR ranking for tourney purposes.

One slight correction... they'll play UA in Fairbanks... right?

streaker said...

My bad, I looked at the schedule and, U-M plays UA in Anchorage and then Anchorage. Didn't realize it was a tourney. Sucks to go up there, three years in a row, then have to go to the east coast.

Sean said...

Spring break doesn't start until Feb. 27 or something like that next year, so thankfully students will actually get to be there for senior day. I'm assuming that is part of the reason why the game is on a Thursday.

Packer487 said...

Thanks for the clarification Sean. Great move by the AD if that's why they scheduled the game for Thursday. Gotta have the students for what could be the biggest game of the conference schedule.

Re: Alaska) Red just likes taking the team up there. We don't have the high number of freshmen that would make it the great bonding experience, but it's still a good chance to go up and hopefully get a win over a WCHA team for PWR purposes.

It's not a bad non-conference slate: Alaska, UAA, Niagara, BU, Minnesota, and Wisconsin twice...along with RPI and either FYS or Tech in the GLI.

Anonymous said...

What happened to the um fys game at the big house? I thought it was dec 11th 2010

Anonymous said...

December 11, 2010 is during the 2010-2011 season not the 2009-2010 season.

Anonymous said...

Question that just came to my mind, is there any plan to bring in another goalie for this year? Hogan+Hunwick+Walk on leaves me pretty nervous, but I understand that bringing in a scholarship goalie for next year could be pretty tough, since he would probably never play over Campbell and everything.

Brandon said...

geez i need to switch to the 5 yr plan. the 2010 season should be insane. ridiculous players and the proposed cold war II.

Anonymous said...

No worries on Wiscy ticket sales. It's still very very early. Ticket sales sucked initially for Michigan-Michigan State too. Wiscy will surge in sales in the fall/early winter once students are back on campus. Way way too early to think that will be a disappointment.