The Newest Wolverine: Lucas Lessio

The writing has been on the wall since he left Niagara camp and signed with the St Michael's Buzzers and Bob Miller just confirmed it: Lucas Lessio has committed to the University of Michigan.

I've had him pegged as a 2010 recruit all along because it seems hard to believe he'd play two years of juniors when the OHL is hot and heavy for him, but Miller indicates that "until further notice" he's a 2011 recruit. That makes sense considering he's a 93 birthday. Seeing the amount of talent in the 2010 class, I'd be accelerating.

Lessio is off to a good start in his OPJHL career. Or is it the OJHL? Or the CCHL? Whatever the hell they're calling it now. In three exhibition games, Lessio has a 4-1--5 line, including three points on the power play and a game-winner.

The Wolverine will have much more about Lessio in the near future.

Other stuff:
Billy Muckalt was named head coach of the Valencia Flyers of the Western States Hockey League.

WCH has Kevin Lynch as #30 in his Best of the West series.

Not that this is a shocker, but it's still nice to hear: Luke Moffatt was not at Kelowna Rockets camp.

Dean Blais called Jack Campbell's play in the national evaluation camp "outstanding" and said that he was tested more in his victory against Russia than Mike Lee was.

"We won 6-1, but the turning point in that game for us was killing those 5-on-3s and Jack had two saves I can remember that were outstanding," Blais said. "He would square up to the puck and control the rebounds."

He sounds like he's definitely got a great chance of representing the US at the World Juniors this season. Blais said they accomplished the goal of locking 15 players in to roster spots, and based on his comments, it'd be hard to believe that Campbell and Lee aren't among them. Blais was very critical of Maxwell's play and Knapp didn't see any action against the Russians. Meanwhile, the other two played very, very well.

A Couple Good Reads

Habsworld interviewed Mac Bennett. A great read all around, but here are a couple of Michigan-relevant bits:

HW- Is playing for Gatineau of the QMJHL still something you'd consider?

Mac- I'd say at this point I'm pretty much locked in with University of Michigan. So it really isn't an option right now. It just seems to be the better fit for me right now to go the college route and join Michigan.

HW-Do you have a timetable in mind for when you'd like to turn pro?

Mac-I'd like to turn pro 2 or 3 years down the road, but that's a best guess. When they think I'm ready, I'm going, and I'll do everything in my power to make sure I'm ready as soon as possible. If it takes 1- 2 years or 4 years, whenever I can, I'm going to play pro.

He also mentioned that Max Pacioretty was his roommate at the development camp and that he also hung out with Greg Pateryn.

Also, the Daily talked with Chris Brown. Interesting tidbit at the end of the article:

At this point, though, Brown’s potential at the highest level is exactly that — just potential. He plans on earning an undergraduate sports management degree in the next four years, meaning the NHL will have to wait.

And those four years could mean a great deal to Berenson, who's had to deal with early exits from Michigan for several years.

“You can’t turn down a Michigan education,” Brown said. "So for right now, it’s four years, and I’m going to do whatever I can to bring a national championship within those four years.”

Based on his earlier interviews it sounded like he was two (at most) and done. Granted it might just be that he knows his audience here, but it's still nice to think that a highly draft player might think about staying four!

Edit: One other thing...JMFC kept being a bad-ass in international play. He backstopped the US to a 6-1 win over Russia in game two of their exhibition series in preparation for the World Junior Championships. Campbell made 24 saves and turned aside four Russian 5-on-3s. He made 13 of his 24 saves in the first period when the outcome was still in doubt.

Campbell, Czarnik on USA's 29-Man Roster

Jack Campbell and Robbie Czarnik made it through the first round of cuts in the USA World Junior Championship evaluation camp. There are 29 players (15 forwards, 10 defensemen, 4 goalies) remaining in the camp, vying for 22 spots on the team.

AJ Treais, David Wohlberg, and Kevin Lynch were among the 14 players who did will not be a part of the team that will take on Russia in a couple of scrimmages. They could still be considered for a spot on the WJC team, but you have to believe it's kind of unlikely at this point.

On the bright side, it looks like Michigan will be almost completely at full strength for the GLI this year. I'm kind of shocked that David Wohlberg didn't make it through the first cut for World Juniors after the season he had for Michigan last year. I'm sure he's disappointed, but I'm sure all Michigan fans will be happy to have him in the lineup at the Joe.

Here's the full list of players who advanced.

This is old news but it wasn't really worth a post of its own and I haven't had much to talk about:
If you go to MGoBlue and click the Alumni Weekend video link on the right sidebar, there's a recap of the Alumni Game. They busted out the blue style of our throwbacks for the Over-35 game and they're every bit as cool as the white ones. Really nice looking jersey...

Mike Cammalleri likes hybrids--but he's not talking about cars.

The Caps have a long interview with Brendan Morrison.

Camp Randall Hockey Classic Tickets on sale Monday

Just a reminder that tickets for the Camp Randall Hockey Classic go on sale Monday at 9:30 am EDT. You can get them at the linked site. I've got 31 people confirmed to be going, so there will at least be one Michigan section!

There were lots of JMFC links in the aftermath of the US victory at U18s and MGoBlog pretty much covered them in this post and this post. The interview from The Wolverine (linked in post 2) was pretty awesome. He referred to Jon Merrill as "the next JMFJ" and jokingly referred to himself as JMFC when thanking Bob Miller for doing the interview, which is awesome on a lot of levels. I also thought his comments about Adam Murray were really classy.

The Port Huron Times Herald had an article about him as well, talking about what a classy kid he is.

Mike Brown is fitting in well with the Ducks. That'll probably be a suspension......

Al Montoya was in net for USA's 6-2 win over France at the World Championships today. They've been going with Robert Esche, but wanted to make sure that Montoya got in for a game. JMFJ is tied for the team lead in goals (4) and points (6) and is playing a team high 19:37 a night.

Calgary, you're welcome. Sincerely, The Michigan Wolverines

To recap, Calgary has tied up their series with Chicago at two games apiece.

They've scored 13 goals in the four games, not counting the one empty-netter. Of those, six have been scored by Wolverine players. David Moss leads the team with 3 tallies.

Eric Nystrom had the game-winning goal and two assists tonight to lead them to a 6-4 win. Last game--a 4-2 Flames win--Eric Nystrom scored the first goal and David Moss sealed the game with a pair of third-period goals.

So yeah, Calgary, you're welcome.

Other stuff:
USA Hockey had an article about Kevin Clare, who is taking advantage of his increased ice time due to a couple of dmen getting called up to U18s.

Michigan's power play this year was the worst it's been since 1984-85. Ouch.

Matt Hunwick had his spleen removed but hasn't been ruled out of the playoffs just yet. They said on XM that he's out of the hospital.

The Port Huron Times-Herald had an article about JMFC.

USA Takes Gold at World U18s

Jack Campbell, by the powers vested in me by the Michigan blogosphere, I officially dub thee JMFC.

The Americans flat out dominated the Russians in a 5-0 victory in the championship game of World Under 18s. They scored two in the first, added another early in the second period, and Campbell was perfect in net.

Kevin Lynch made a gorgeous feed to Matt Nieto for USA's second goal (Chris Brown assisted on it as well). Brown also scored on a vicious wrist shot early in the third to give USA a 4-0 lead.

Lynch was named one of USA's three most outstanding players in the tournament. He's an impressive player. Great on draws, kills penalties, put up a ton of points in the tournament. I think he's going to fit in just fine.

Somehow the Russian goalie was awarded Best Goalie over Jack Campbell, despite giving up 10 goals in two games to the Americans (and getting beat 5-0 by our guy tonight). I know he faced a ton of rubber and played most of the games for Russia, but he had a 3.33 goals against. JMFC gave up 1 goal in the semis against Canada and backstopped USA to a shutout victory in the title game. He was named to the All-Tournament Team by the media, however. And he got the gold, which is clearly the most important thing. To me, it's pretty clear who the best goalie in that tournament was.

Check out these numbers for our future goalie: 4-0-0 record, 0.75 goals against average, .967 save percentage, two shutouts, and zero even-strength goals allowed. He's from the U17s playing in the World U18s and he put on a show. In international play he's 11-0-1-0 (that's 11 wins and an overtime loss) with a 1.04 and probably something around a .955 save percentage to go with 5 shutouts. Eww. Eww eww eww.

While he wasn't overly busy tonight in terms of saves, he had several fantastic stops. Russia had a partial breakaway or two, a couple other odd-man rushes, and Campbell stopped them all. Actually Chris Brown's goal came off a USA rush immediately after JMFC made a great save on a short-handed chance for the Russians.

Final numbers for our other guys in the seven games:
Kevin Lynch: 5-5--10 (tied for 2nd in points, 2nd in goals), a +9 which was tied for the team best, and a team-best 31% shooting percentage. And, at least tonight, he was automatic on draws.
Chris Brown: 4-3--7, +6
AJ Treais: 2-0--2, +2
Jon Merrill: 0-2--2, +1

Before, I was of the opinion that Campbell would see a decent amount of ice time as a freshman, but that Hogan would still be our starter. We've still got a long way to go, but now I'm starting to wonder if Hogan won't get Billy Sauered his senior season. This kid looks like he might be too good not to play. If he makes it to campus, of course.