Michigan Gets the Split - Michigan 7, RIT 2

Photo Credit: Bill Rapai

Like the night before, the Wolverines entered the third period of the game with a 3-1 lead. Unlike the night before, however, there would be no comeback by the feisty Tigers from RIT. After RIT cut the lead to 3-2 5:18 into the final frame, the Wolverines responded with a goal 47 seconds later and didn't let down, adding three goals in a 2 1/2 minute span in the middle part of the period.

13 of the 18 skaters registered at least one point for Michigan, with PDG, Boo, DeBlois, and Treais all registering multiple points. PDG had the game-winner and an assist on the big Treais goal that made it 4-2 right after RIT had climbed within one. He was named the #1 star of the game.

Lee Moffie got the Wolverines started 9:11 into the game. Nieves chipped the puck back to the point and he let a shot go through a K. Lynch screen that beat Jordan Ruby. Travis Lynch made it 2-0 Wolverines with a short-handed goal late in the period. Derek DeBlois made a nice play to keep the puck alive in behind the RIT net and fed Lynch streaking into the slot. It was Lynch's second in as many games.

RIT cut the lead in half in the first five minutes of the second on an unassisted goal by Jeff Smith. It remained 2-1 for about ten minutes before the Wolverines would light the lamp again. Boo Nieves intercepted an outlet pass from Elliot Raibl and sent PDG into the zone. Di Giuseppe wristed one from the top of the circles and it found its way through Ruby. He may have been screened on that one.

After RIT again cut the lead to one, it was Di Giuseppe getting a defenseman to dive at him, then wrapping around to the other side of the net and somehow getting a pass through two more defenders to Treais, who used a quick release from the slot to put the Wolverines back up by 2.

Andrew Sinelli then scored the first of his career, on a very nice half-slapper into the top corner to give the Wolverines some insurance. Less than a minute later the Wolverines were on the power play and Jacob Trouba added his second goal of the weekend. Guptill won a draw to Treais, he sent it over to Trouba for a one-time bomb and it was 6-2. I feel like that's something that has been missing from Michigan's arsenal for a few years--the ability to just win a draw and have the defenseman bomb one home. While the power play pretty much had to be better than it was last year, the presence of Trouba adds so much.

Michigan wasn't done. Lindsay Sparks would add a goal on a wrister to the far side of the net a minute and a half later to get to the final margin of victory.

Photo credit: Bill Rapai

Steve Racine got his first start and had a solid game, stopping 21 of the 23 shots put on him. Neither goal was included in the highlight package (obvious?) but neither was said to be one that he was expected to stop.

Mac Bennett had a great weekend. He had a goal and an assist, was +2, had five shots on goal, and blocked seven shots, half of the entire team's total through two games. Mike Spath said that through five periods he was Michigan's best player.

It's hard to complain about the production out of the third line of Lindsay Sparks, Travis Lynch, and Derek DeBlois. That trio combined for 4 goals, 3 assists, and a +11 rating on the weekend.

The Wolverines put 51 shots on net, including 20 in the third period. Every player who dressed recorded at least one shot on goal this weekend. For the series the power play was 3-for-13 (23%) and generated 27 shots on goal (!!!). The PK was 9-for-9 and added a short-handed goal. Good weekend for the special teams.

It wasn't all perfect for Michigan on Friday, though. Defenseman Kevin Clare left the game and reportedly had his arm in a sling after the game. Red expressed concern about his status. With Merrill already out of the lineup, if Clare is out for any period of time, the Wolverines will likely turn to Mike Szuma. Szuma got into two games a year ago.

Photo Credit: Bill Rapai

Around the web:
Mike Spath posted his thoughts on who should start in net. ($ link)

Yost Section 25 is quickly turning into a must-read blog. He posted his thoughts on Friday's game, as well as some thoughts on the goalie situation:

In goal, I thought Racine was steady.  He wasn’t spectacular and he gave up a lot of rebounds.  He also seemed to lose sight of the puck at times, and the defense helped him out.  I didn’t get to see Rutledge against RIT, but I did see him for a period against Windsor and thought that he just seemed a bit nervous in the crease.  I think both of these guys with a little seasoning are going to be good goalies for the team.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Friday/Saturday platoon from these guys at least for a few weeks until Red can see how they actually perform in game situations.  In the meantime the defense will have to clear away the rebounds and make sure we don’t give up soft goals.

MHNet has post-game quotes from Red as well as thoughts from Geoff Chiles. He was impressed with Nieves.

What stood out for me?  Speed.  He has it, and lots of it.  The freshman might not have Hagelin-esque speed, but it’s definitely there in good supply.  Up and down the ice all night, disrupting passes from RIT players, and finding his teammates.  Humble, and not arrogant or garish about his draft selection.  I feel like we’re all going to love this kid, and what he’s going to bring to Michigan.

Nieves skated on the second line on Friday and recorded two assists.

The Daily has their usual assortment of quality articles: Game story Thursday, game story Friday, the struggles of the defense on Thursday, comments on the goalies, an article about the offense coming from a variety of sources, and the dominance of the power play.

Michigan will take on Bentley in a single game this Friday.

Media Roundup: CCHA Quarterfinals

I haven't done one of these in a few weeks, so it's time to take a look-see at what the media thought of Michigan's series sweep of the UNO Mavericks.

The Michigan Side:
Varsity Blue wins at the internet for having a montage of Sideline Charlie's reports from Friday night's game. I'm posting it here because it's awesome, but you should shoot over to his site for highlights of the actual game Friday as well.



I should also say that I know from experience how hard talking behind a mic can be, and that I'm actually really jealous of the WOLV-TV guys because I really wish I had worked for the station when I was in school. That's something I regret not doing.

Michigan Daily live blogs of Friday and Saturday. I'm not sure why they're always fooled into thinking the crowd will be small just because it's not packed 10 minutes before faceoff, but a good job blogging as usual. Some great photos Friday night as well. Also a nice, if biased (you'll see a completely different, biased as well, recap by reading at MavPuck) recap of the fight.

Daily game stories from Friday and Saturday.

Daily reporter Scott Bell has a great recap of the emotions of his final game at Yost as a student. Based on the headline, I thought it was going to be about Kolarik and Porter. I'm glad it wasn't. I had similar emotions running through me after my final game there as a student--ironically also against Nebraska-Omaha in the playoffs. I didn't know at the time that I was going to spend another three years in Ann Arbor, so I spent a good hour walking around the arena, taking pictures (including one at center ice that a staff member was gracious enough to allow/take), reminiscing, and soaking everything in. Yost is a special place. I only got to one game this season at the Old Barn, and the students weren't there. It was an ass-kicking of Minnesota, so that was pretty great, but not a Friday/Saturday night goes by that I don't miss that place. Fantastic column and I echo a lot of the sentiments (though personally, I enjoy the game itself way too much to get drunk beforehand).

It's impossible to overstate what Kolarik has meant to this team. I've been through this before. He deserves to be one of the ten Hobey Finalists and it's going to be a travesty when he's not.

Elmblad did a nice job pressed into duty in a tough situation.

No Ann Arbor News stuff this week in protest of them letting Jim Carty continue his agenda against the University of Michigan and certain academic programs, and for printing a lot of one-sided trash this week with a few valid points mixed in. Unless there's something really great, I'm probably not linking to them until next season.

Friday's and Saturday's game stories from MGoBlue.

The UNO Viewpoint:
The Friday and Saturday articles from UNO's website.

Friday's story from the UNO student newspaper. The majority of their coverage won't take place until the March 25th issue, sadly.

Mike Kemp was "bitterly disappointed" about this season. The Mavericks lose a ton of offense (Marshall, Lawrence, Scero) but he's more concerned with improving a horrid defense.

Friday's game story from the Omaha World Herald. Kemp called the game "Probably the most dominating performance I've seen by a team in an awful long time."

Saturday's game story. I feel for Bryan Marshall. Sad that a player as good as he is had to end his college career in the press box instead of on the ice.

Stat Hunting:
They combine for 55 goals, 102 points, +52, 310 shots on goal, 11 game winners, 19 power play goals, and five short-handed goals, but Chad Kolarik and Kevin Porter have just 38 PIMs between them. Pretty impressive.

With 69 goals, the three players that traditionally make up our top line outscored Alabama-Huntsville (60 goals) and Brown (67) this season. Add in contributions from other players taking the place of Kolarik or Pacioretty due to injury/WJC and they likely outscored Minnesota-Duluth (74) and Merrimack (71) as well.

We had 56 goals (42 power play, 14 short handed) on special teams last season but allowed 59 (47-12) for a net of -3. This year, we have 50 goals on special teams (42-8) and have allowed just 32 (30-2) for a next of +18. Big difference right there.

At this point, Mark Mitera's +30 rating is tied for the second-highest mark we've had in ten years (David Rohlfs, +33 last year).

Chad Kolarik's seven game winning goals is the third highest total over the last ten seasons (Muckalt and Dale Rominski each had 8. This is also the first time in ten years that we've had a player net three hat tricks in a season.

Kevin Porter's 14 power play goals are the most by a Wolverine in a season in the last ten years. With one more PPG, Kolarik will tie Bill Muckalt for the second-highest total in that span. Max Pacioretty's eight would have led last year's team.

It's kind of a down year for scoring in the NCAA. Porter's 56 points would be just the eight-best single-season total in the last ten years for Michigan and yet he appears to be a shoo-in for the Hobey (though in points per game he's #3). #1, of course, would be Hensick's year last year, which evidently wasn't good enough to even be in the Hobey Hat Trick. Lunacy. Just a reminder to Hobey voters, Porter has no misconducts this season. It's ok to vote for him.

Kolarik led last year's team in shots on goal by 35. In just 34 games this season, he has bettered last season's 41 game total. Bombs away! Porter is in close proximity to him this year (20 behind), though he's also played four more games.

The goals against average for the team has gone from 3.14 to 2.01 while the offense has only dipped slightly (about a quarter of a goal per game). The team save percentage is also 31 points higher.

The penalty kill is an impressive 85.7%. If you account for SHGs scored, it improves to 89.6%. Last year's squad was 80.5%/86.3%.

We've actually gotten worse at faceoffs (47.7% this year).

We could very reasonably have 12 players reach the 20 point plateau (8 have already done so). Since 99-2000, only the 04-05 team has had more than 12 players reach the 20 point mark (they had 13).

Media Roundup: MSU Series 2

It was interesting, given the way that the rivalry typically goes, that both of these games ended up with a three goal spread. MSU got the first one, Michigan the second. It was enough to eliminate the Spartans from contention in the CCHA. Time to check out what people had to say about these contests.

The Michigan Side:
Official game stories, quotes, and highlights from Friday and Saturday. Palushaj and Pacioretty are the first freshman duo at Michigan to score 30 points apiece since Kosick and Langfeld. What happened that year? Hmmmm....

The Daily live blogs Friday and Saturday night.

Game stories from The Daily as well.

No features from them this week due to Spring Break.

Kind of ridiculous that Red has been our coach for 40% of the games in Michigan's history.

Ann Arbor News articles from Friday and Saturday night. Red was going to kill them if they didn't win Saturday. Message received.

Article from the Freep on Saturday's game. BLUE WALL! Friday's article was shorter! Some good quotes from Red in Saturday's.

The Grand Rapids Press had an article about Kolarik being on the bench. Sounds like the players really like having him there. Have we ever done that with an injured player before?

The MSU Viewpoint:
Spartan fan in a nutshell. I'm surprised they didn't just come out and say that they'd rather see Michigan lose than have MSU win.

Lansing State Journal's take on Friday and Saturday. Lots of comments on the Munn crowd from Friday. I really wonder why it can't be like that more often. Red was upset that the team wasn't humiliated to walk out of Munn having lost by 3. I'm with ya Coach.

State News stuff from Friday and Saturday. Some really classy quotes from Comley this time.

Other Stuff:
Good article on 2009 recruit Chris Brown. He's gonna be a good one. He's already big. Sounds like a good kid too. I always get a kick out of guys who became interested in Michigan because of their helmets. You never know what will make an impression on someone when they're little. Hell, I'm a Packers fan because when I was like 5 my zone soccer team was called the Packers.

MHNet points out that since Michigan is on Spring Break, WOLV-TV will not be covering the Michigan/FSU game this weekend. Bummer. I believe Saturday's game is on the B2Network. If it matters in the standings I'll probably buy that one. He also dug up a nice (well, kind of) quote about Czarnik from Red Line.

Not the best news on Kolarik from Saturday's game. They need to send him to Arnie Kander or something.

Given that the WCHA has the ten best teams in the country and the successful CCHA teams are just benefiting from an easy schedule, it's kind of amazing that our 8th place, below-.500-in-the-CCHA team (UNO) just finished a season sweep of the .500-in-the-WCHA, T-5th MSU-Mankato.

Also, how bout BU? I suspected that they'd be much better than their early-season record, and they've risen up to .500 overall, second place in Hockey East, and T-16 in the PWR.

Media Roundup: LSSU Sweep #2

Michigan won two games but lost their second best player with Chad Kolarik going out for at least a month. Time to take a look and see what the media is saying:

The Michigan View:
Official game stories and highlights from Friday and Saturday. We're 10-1-1 as the #1 ranked team in the country. That's much improved over previous efforts. Read Kolarik's quotes from Friday night. What a great kid. Red was asked Saturday about Miami being swept by Ferris. His response was much classier than, "Should we have a moment of silence?"

Great article about the Michigan coaching staff.

Ann Arbor News game stories from Friday and Saturday. Interesting that Kolarik said a bunch of people fell during the warmup Friday night. There were a bunch of people falling in that end during the game too. I wonder if there was an issue with the ice. It would make sense.

Crowds at Yost have been huge as of late, even for the lower-ranked opponents. Nice to see. Only four of our home games this year have played to a below-capacity crowd. Antoine also makes mention of the "Free spear" Dan Eves was allowed to give. Not sure how you let that happen. He should've gotten a DQ if it was severe enough to warrant calling 5 and a game after the game was over.

Article on Kolarik's hamstring injury. From this article, it seems that 4-5 weeks is the far end of the spectrum for amount of time they expect Chad to miss. That would be really huge if he was back in time for the Joe, if we make it. It'd be nice for him to be able to lace them up for one more game at Yost though. No sense in rushing it, but it'd be sad for him to not be able to play there one last time. No one wants to be helped off during their last game there.

Hogan >>>>> Jakiel. Also, note the weird start times for this weekend's games. 8:00 Friday, 7:00 Saturday. The players also got a visit from Gordie Howe. It looks like Turnbull gets first crack at filling Kolarik's spot. Well earned. He's been stellar this year.

Quick was arraigned on identity theft charges amongst other things. He used the card to pay down his own card and to pay a traffic ticket. I'm not commenting on this situation again but you can probably figure out what word I'm thinking of at the moment.

Daily Liveblogs for Friday and Saturday.

Daily game story from Friday and Saturday.

Palushaj wins CCHA Rookie of the Week.

Kolarik's injury leaves a hole on the ice. Even in practice. Even though he can hardly put on his socks right now, he hasn't lost hope of being able to play on Senior Night. Just don't push it Chad. We need you healthy to take a run at the big prize.

Four points in the last four games wins the CCHA title. Don't take it for granted.

Red has been impressed with the way Caporusso has come back from his injury. And a classy quote from Jim Roque about Kolarik's injury.

Mgoblog updates us on the PWR again. Long story short, root against CC and NoDak. Don't get swept by Sparty. We're in great shape to get one of the coveted top 2 seeds.

Also, root against Wisconsin since I want us to be in Madison, but I don't want the Badgers there. Not a far drive for M fans, Saturday/Sunday regional, and lots of really cheap tickets if Wiscy misses the tournament. Plus Madison is a cool city. Lots of fun bars to go to celebrate/drown sorrows at after the games. The fun thing is that since we've played Minnesota twice and Wiscy once, rooting against Wisconsin this weekend helps us too! Even if it means we have to root for Minnesota. It'd be really fun to see those bastards finish ninth in the WCHA. I guess either way we win this weekend!

The LSSU Side:
Official game stories from Friday and Saturday. Game story from the Soo Evening News. Nothing overly interesting in any of those articles. No coverage from the LSSU student paper.

Media Roundup: Miami Series

Alright, I'm sick of talking about Kevin Quick. Unless some major revelation comes to light, I've said my piece--dumb action, extremely disappointing, wish him well in the future--and it's time to move on. Future articles may be included in the media roundups but I can't see writing anything else of any substantial length about the story.

Back to the guys who are still on our top-ranked hockey team and their impressive sweep weekend against Miami. I want to get the media roundup out of the way now so that I can do the review of the games mid-week. So let's have at it (there are a few random non-hockey links sprinkled in as well):

The Michigan Side:
First up, Michiganhockey.net has a great new look as well as more of a "blog" feel. Jason broke in the new site with a hilarious summation of the 5-5 tie. Couldn't have put it better myself...and I absolutely love that commercial! I also finally remembered to put up a link to his site on the sidebar. That was long overdue because he really does a nice job. It was a huge oversight on my part.

Michigan Sports Center had a solid wrap-up of the two games. That issue with the glass was interesting. A commenter from MU mentioned below that it's virtually shatterproof, so the players weren't at risk. It's pretty cool if that's true, but I wonder why pick glass like that over the traditional model that doesn't break when fans hit it? In seven years of going to games at Yost, I don't think I ever saw a pane of glass break. And I definitely never had my view obstructed for the rest of the game due to glass splintering.

This is of really no relevance to Michigan's weekend but I want to point it out before I forget. This thread on USCHO cracked me up: Describe your team's season in only six words. It's worth reading if for nothing more than the entries from the Minnesota fans. They're pretty hysterical ("Revised goal: Finish ahead of Seawolves"). If anyone's so inclined to throw a few Michigan ones out there either in the thread or in the comments, I'd love to read them. Here are my entries:

Sauer's really good? What the ****?
Enjoy Pacioretty while we got him.
Porter. Not a product of Hensick.
Porter: Hobey winner if no misconducts.
Michigan: Putting Miami's dynasty on hold.

I excluded one about the player I'm not talking about any more.

Michigan returned to the top spot in both polls. I'm curious who watched that weekend and thought there was some justification for keeping Miami #1.
Edit: No one. The remaining first-place votes went to the University of No Hardware. Though I'd also like to know who's voting an 18-7-1 team with a loss in the last month to freaking Dartmouth over Michigan. If this was the BlogPoll in football, Brian would be calling those three voters out and making hilarious, snarky comments about how they just doomed their team to a loss. UNH? Really?

Adam Wodon from CHN was impressed with the Wolverines.

Michigan articles/video highlights from Friday and Saturday. The 9-0-2 record in their last 11 road games is the second longest road unbeaten streak in team history. The record is 15 games. In the Saturday quotes, Red was happy with the effort, not so happy with Langseth. Kolarik said he thought the puck hit the netting on the fourth goal. The Miami commenter below disagrees.

Chad Kolarik won CCHA Offensive Player of the Week and Max Pacioretty was awarded Rookie of the Week for their roles in the three-point weekend.

Michigan has launched the Kevin Porter for Hobey website. They failed to include "0 misconduct penalties". That's apparently what really matters. There's a sweet little highlight video as well.

As usual, the Daily did liveblogged Friday and Saturday.

Again, not relevant to the hockey team, but well worth a link. Scott Bell from the Daily wrote an excellent column about our basketball team. I agree that some support for these guys would be nice, but then again, after the crap sandwich they've been serving up for years, I can't blame the fans for staying away. Michigan's never going to be a "basketball school", but even when I was there from 2000-2004 I had some great times at Crisler. They did have some really great crowds, who got rowdy. Winning will bring people back. Nice read though.

Much in the way MSU would've taken 3 points from Michigan at the start of the weekend but was disappointed they didn't get four in the end, Michigan feels the same way about their series with Miami. Sauer too thinks the puck hit the netting.

Michigan didn't see on film that Zatkoff's glove hand was vulnerable, but they exploited it. Also it's pointed out that Michigan has clinched a bye in the first round of the CCHA playoffs. Not that there was any doubt.

Miami's crowd was excellent. I gotta admit, I've always wanted to camp out before a game. I wouldn't be a fan of general admission seating, but every so often, it'd be fun to spend the night outside the arena. Call me crazy. It'd be great for the conference if this team could stay up toward the top for awhile. Plus maybe it would convince OSU to have a real hockey program again.

The Ann Arbor News talks about Michigan's new line groupings. I kind of like that Naurato, Caporusso, Turnbull line. Naurato has kind of been under the radar but he's really contributed offensively as of late. Louie is awesome and Turnbull has been outstanding. I also think that Palushaj/Rust/Hagelin has the makings of a very nice freshman line. I love all three of those kids. Really solid defensively and some offensive bite as well.

Game stories from Friday and Saturday.

Kolarik is going with the assumption that Michigan needs to win out in order to take the league title. I'd like to think we'll get some help from Ferris this weekend, but he's right with the idea that if you want something done, the best way is to do it yourself.

So you all know what I'm dealing with here, let the record show that on February fricken 12th, Madison, WI has officially gotten more snow this season than they have ever received. Time to take a run at the century mark. Dammit.

The RedHawks Viewpoint:
Official game stories. Friday's includes more comments from Red about Matt Shegos. For the record, only three Michigan games over the last five seasons has had more power play opportunities than Friday night's contest (games against U-Conn, Minnesota, and Quinnipiac). Probably unnecessary.

The Miami Student gets negative points for requiring registration to view articles. There's not a lot on the internet that irks me more than opening 12 tabs and then having all of them say "Please enter your email address to continue". At least unlike the Free Press, it let me read the article once I logged in.

Nothing earth-shattering here, but a nice story about the weekend's contests featuring some quotes that weren't seen in the other articles.

They find some positives in the weekend, despite only picking up a single point. If you take out the first period of Friday's game, Miami outscored us 7-5. But by the same token, if you take out Miami's 7 goals, hooray! We swept them 9-0! Definitely some valid points in the article though. I have a feeling these teams haven't seen the last of each other this season.

John Bacon, author of Blue Ice and Bo's Lasting Lessons is actually teaching at Miami right now. Didn't know that.

Nathan Davis wasn't at the top of his game, but he still delivered when the RedHawks needed him to.

Enrico Blasi doesn't think Miami is overrated. I agree. They weren't overrated, at least not substantially. I think Michigan was clearly the better team on the weekend though.

Blasi didn't blame his goalie on any of the first-period goals Friday night. Zatkoff, to his credit, said that he didn't make the stops needed to keep his team in the game.

From USA Today via the Cincinnati Enquirer, a story about Saturday night. One point. The winner of the conference won't necessarily get the national #1 seed in the NCAA tournament. There's the conference tourney to be played as well, and ignoring that, would a single Michigan tie be enough to flip Miami into #1 in the PWR? I don't think it's impossible that we could stay #1 despite losing the conference title.

The Enquirer also had a story about Friday's game. I'd suggest that you could answer the question posed by saying "Yes, Michigan is that good." This article also includes a photo of a girl in a Muck Fichigan shirt. You keep your newspapers classy, Ohio. Also, why is it that people say "girlfriends" when they speak of female acquaintances of a female? Does "friends" have a male connotation that I don't know about? I've always wondered that.

Media Roundup: Pair of Ties with NMU

16 inches of snow in Madison means you get a lot more blogging out of me. Media roundup today, a unique perspective on the Michigan/Miami series tomorrow or Friday, along with 10 Things if I have time and can dig up enough interesting stuff that isn't mentioned in the preview.

Here's what the media had to say in the aftermath of Michigan's disappointing weekend on and off the ice:

The Michigan Side:
Official game stories and highlights from Friday and Saturday. You definitely can't accuse Chad Kolarik of sugar-coating his thoughts. This was the first time in the history of the program that Michigan has tied three games in a row. You know what wasn't helpful? Our top line going 8 for 30 on faceoffs Saturday night. It's a lot harder to do what they do when they don't have the puck.

From the Ann Arbor News:
Friday's and Saturday's game stories. Red was much happier about the effort Saturday, but it's hard to be thrilled about the outcome of the weekend.

The distractions of Quick's dismissal and the Miami series could've contributed to the outcomes. Red can't apparently comment on why Quick was kicked off the team beyond that it was bad, but let's face it, even if he could say, he wouldn't. I'd be shocked if it doesn't end up leaking at some point.

From the, "Ya think?" file: U-M needs to play much better against Miami

An article about the guy who really has an opportunity here, Tristin Llewellyn. He agrees with me that his weekend against MSU was his best so far. He mentioned earlier in the season that he's been taking skating lessons, and I could be crazy, but I swear they're paying off. I couldn't see last weekend's games, but he looked like he was skating better against MSU. I'm curious to see him this weekend, but I have confidence that he's going to do just fine. The problem would come in if someone else gets hurt, sick, or, well, kicked off the team.

From The Michigan Daily:
Liveblogs of Friday and Saturday night if you care to relive either of the games. Yup, there were a lot of penalties. The sense that I get is that a few of them were even deserved! Wildcat Matt Siddall not only had to be restrained from jumping on to the ice to go after Tim Miller, he got a rare five-minute major for head-butting. Somewhere Sean Avery is nodding his head in approval. By the way, how is it that head-butting doesn't carry an automatic game misconduct with it?

An article about the impact of Quick's dismissal on the team. It's always the quiet ones. Red indicated that he'd go with 5 D if he had to, but that there'd be issues if two defensemen were missing from the lineup. This article also includes a "That probably wasn't necessary" comment about Eric Elmblad, but our coach speaks his mind. BTW, I just realized that I've spelled his name without the first "L" pretty much every time I've typed it, including in his preview. Sorry bout that Eric. That was a lazy mistake.

Red doesn't think we respected NMU as much as they probably deserved.

The team as a whole probably took too many penalties, but the freshmen got a little chat about it.

The Michigan of the first 24 games is going to have to show up if they're to beat Miami. Nate also reads between the lines a little bit on the Kevin Quick situation.

As Falcons30 pointed out, indications are that Quick has joined the Des Moines Buccaneers. We'll probably have to wait until Saturday to find out for sure though. He's not listed on the team website as of yet.

The NMU Side:
Michigan apparently gets "all the calls and favoritism" in the CCHA. See why I was compelled to create a database and write an enormous piece debunking this myth? Perhaps getting outshot 44-24 has something to do with the whopping 8-6 discrepancy in power plays? You're lucky Pio retired....

I guess like fan, like head coach. Those two points were big for NMU in their search for home ice in the first round.

Media Roundup: MSU Series 1

It was disappointing to only get one point out of four from Michigan State, but it's my hope that this weekend was a good learning experience. It gave the team a chance to play in two tournament-style games against a team with a lot of tournament experience. It let the youngsters get a taste of the MSU rivalry, plus it let them face a lock-down defensive team that is also very talented. I fully expect that the next series against MSU will go better for Michigan.

The Michigan Side:
Game stories and highlights (if you're so inclined).

Brian and I were on the same wavelength about this weekend. Namely that the officiating sucked and that we had seen Friday night's game too many times before.

Michigan Daily LiveBlog of Friday night. MHNet LiveBlogs Friday and Saturday. It really is painful to relive how many missed opportunities there were. BTW, I have my laptop back (accidentally left it in Michigan over Christmas) so my liveblogs and livetapedelayblogs will come back at some point--provided the damn thing will turn on.

Short game story about Saturday in the Freep--I include it in the Michigan section because of the "Blue Wall". Comley bitches about the cross-check, fails to mention the weak-ass calls that gave his team a nearly 2 minute 5-on-3 and led to two goals.

Less Daily articles than possibly exist due to server problems with their site. I was able to find some:
Red thinks that Sauer is every bit as good as Lerg right now, even though Lerg became just the second player in CCHA History to win a Player-of-the-Week award four straight times. Lofty praise for a guy that wasn't even guaranteed to be our starter this year.

Kolarik was embarrassed by the loss Friday. Rust and Berenson were happy with the effort on Saturday. Comley bitching.

Despite a lucky goal to tie the game, Porter doesn't feel lucky about Saturday's game. Just a frustrating weekend...

We've got a tough schedule the rest of the way. Comley bitching.

As pointed out by a commenter and confirmed here, Vaughan was out of the lineup due to illness. Winnett got dinged Friday night, hence Ciraulo coming in. I thought Llewellyn made the most of his opportunity. He played pretty well this weekend, IMO.

Michigan doesn't really get shut out by teams that aren't MSU.

Nice feature on Scooter Vaughan. He seems like a really good kid.

Random article I have to mention: Michigan is the top "Champion Factory" in collegiate sports according to Forbes.

The Michigan State Viewpoint:
State News article about the game Saturday night. Comley bitching.

State News Friday night game story. Red talks about how that game was probably good for the team moving forward.

The Spartans were disappointed in leaving a point on the table Saturday night. Red was disappointed in the officiating during the weekend. Pretty impressive job by Shegos to piss off both coaches. That's not easy to do.

The Spartans really wanted Friday's game. Michigan took 67 shots, but 41 didn't make it to the MSU net.

Apparently Michigan "wasn't coming close" until their last goal. Don't know that I'd go that far, Rick. We had some great chances both nights. It's interesting how neither team is happy with the results of the weekend.

MSU was perfect when leading after 2 periods until Saturday night.

Lansing State Journal Saturday game story. Comley bitches. Commenter says that Shegos is a notorious "sixth man" for Michigan. See below. I guess we'll find out about that. FTR, he kind of helped out the Sparties as well.

MSU had a nice gameplan to take Michigan out of what they like to do offensively. By the way, I'm ready for Benedict Lerg to leave.

Feature on Yost from the LSJ. I miss that place.

Upcoming Article: I've talked so much about power play opportunities in the last couple of weeks, that I decided to put together a massive database of all our games for the last 5 years. It will allow me to break it down by official, by opponent, and by location to see what the trends are. There's some very interesting stuff in there--at least it's interesting to me.

A teaser: I'm not crazy for thinking that it seems like we're always shorthanded when we play LSSU. There's a reason that so many of us miss Piotrowski. There's an unexpected name at the top of the list of refs that we shouldn't like. And we'll see how much of a friend to the Wolverines Mr. Shegos really is.

I'll have the analysis for you Wednesday or Thursday.

Media Roundup: Sweep of Notre Dame

For those out there who were waiting on Michigan to beat somebody to prove that they're legit, it's now safe to consider this team for real. After sweeping the Fighting Irish, Michigan is now off to the best start in the history of the program at 22-2-0. Let's see what the media had to say about this one:

The Michigan Side:
MGoBlue stories about both games, including a link to the highlights from Friday night.

The Daily liveblogged both games.

The Daily's article on Friday's game compared it to a playoff game, and I'd have to agree. That was an unbelievable hockey game. Though I'd point out that you can say that this is "arguably" Billy Sauer's best season as a Wolverine in the same way that you could "arguably" say that Tom Brady had a pretty good regular season. By the way, I love Louie Caporusso's goal celebrations.

Here's a short article about the snoozer the next night at The Palace. Not a competitive game, bad ice, crowd that only filled half of the arena, no Michigan band....

Tuesday's edition featured a more in-depth story about each game. Red pointed out that Notre Dame doesn't play a top-four CCHA team the rest of the way, so it was huge for Michigan to sweep them. As I pointed out last week, that basically buries Notre Dame in conference. They're 7 points back of Michigan with 10 to play. Michigan has 12 games left. They'd have to run the table and hope that Michigan plays .500 hockey the rest of the way to have a chance. Not gonna happen.

Michigan went with 11 forwards and 7 defensemen on Saturday night. They apparently did it as a response to Chris Summers getting ejected the night before. So it looks like they're going to keep Summers back on the blueline, as they didn't just dress Llewellyn, and move Summers to forward for the game--then have him drop back if anyone got tossed.

The Wolverines are playing it safe with Max Pacioretty, who has missed the last three games with a shoulder injury.

Kevin Porter called Friday's game maybe the best Yost experience of his career. Games like that really make me miss being there for this season. If you listened hard, you could hear me screaming in Madison though.

If Notre Dame wants to keep moving games to the Palace, they're more than welcome. Michigan's not interested in returning the favor, however. Rightfully so. I'm sure the recruits were impressed.

The Ann Arbor News's game story about Saturday's game.

Despite a record-breaking start to the year, Antoine Pitts points out that as the 2005-06 Pistons learned, regular season success doesn't mean much. Thankfully, from everything I've been told, this team is remaining humble and not paying attention to their ranking.

Edit: I was remiss in failing to mention two very good blog articles. Hoover Street Rag used some math to project the rest of the season based on the remaining strength of schedule. It obviously won't play out in this exact fashion but it's interesting to see the numbers anyway. A commenter posts what the KRATCH projects for Michigan the rest of the way: About 50 points in the CCHA. Which...yeah.

Also, Colin chimes in with his thoughts on the game Friday night. I always like hearing what he has to say. Sauer was having an intersting game with his positioning. It seemed like when he was going post-to-post, he was almost sliding too far and taking himself out of position at times. It never bit us, but there were a few "Holy crap" moments. Did anyone else notice that?

Stat Hunting:
Friday night was the first time Notre Dame lost a game when scoring the first goal of the game. They also had not been defeated when leading after the first period.

Billy Sauer now has a 1.70 goals against average (3rd in the nation, the leader has a 1.55) and a .935 save percentage (#2, .941).

Kevin Porter is still the nation's leader in goals, points, and PPGs, though Nate Gerbe leads in the nation in points per game.

Chad Kolarik is fifth in goals and sixth in points.

Our power play is +26 (PPG for - SHG allowed) and we're just -7 on the Penalty Kill (PPG allowed - SHG for). Last year at this point, the power play was +17 and the penalty kill was -21. We've given up just 13 power play goals on the season, compared to 29 at this point last year. If you want one of the biggest reasons for our success this season, it's that our special teams are almost a goal per game better (+19 vs. -4 over 24 games).

Faceoffs = struggling again, though Caporusso and Rust being back in the lineup full-time should help that back up. We're sitting at just 48.5% for the season, which is just a tick better than last year at this point.

Our penalty kill is now 90.2%. Yikes. If you factor in short handed goals for as a part of PK% (as I like to do), it rises to 94.7%. That's kind of absurd. Last year at this point, it was 80.1% (or 85.6 modified).

We've now gone 9 straight games without giving up more that two goals (9-0-0 in those games). Michigan's given up more than two goals just five times all season. We've been held to two or fewer goals just twice.

Travis Turnbull has points in six straight games (4-4--8). Brandon Naurato also has points in six straight (1-6--7).

After just one point in his first 15 games, Kevin Quick has 3 points (2-1--3) in his last four.

Since getting on the scoresheet for the first time (in his 5th game after an early season broken hand slowed him down), Max Pacioretty has been held off it just one time when he's played. Get well soon Max!

The Notre Dame Viewpoint:
Official game stories from Friday and Saturday. Michigan's PKing during that 5 minute major was unbelievable. The Irish didn't get a shot on goal, despite having possession in our end for much of the time.

What's cooler than being cool? Notre Dame's power play.

South Bend Tribune writer Steve Wozniak may be lamenting the fact that there's no Tim Horton's near South Bend after having one of their wonderful beverages, but he's not panicking about the team. I hear ya Steve. I can't get Timbits in Madison either. It's a major bummer. Apparently the Irish practiced outdoors on Monday--more to get back to having fun with the game rather than as a punishment. Pretty cool idea, and they all loved it.

The Irish hit "rock bottom" on Saturday night. At least they hope so. Apparently all four goals we scored with a goalie in net on Saturday were of the soft variety.

SBT article on Friday's game.

I really enjoyed reading Wozniak's take on the games. He does a nice job.

Media Roundup: GLI Championship

Since I apparently am not going to bed tonight due to my portable hard drive crashing, and my desperate need to find out if I can recover any of the data (like all the Packers wins from the last 2 years, Harvick's Daytona 500 win and a slew of Michigan games), now is as good of a time as any to do the Media Roundup for the GLI. While I'm at it, if anyone has any experience with data recovery programs like GetDataBack, SpinRite, or BadCopy--or tips for what I can do (I'm getting a "data error cyclic redundancy check" when I try to get to the F drive in the DOS prompt..."My Computer" just freezes when I try to select it)--any help would be much appreciated.

The Michigan Side:

Sauer has been outstanding this year, but I gotta disagree with Antoine that it was a poor performance in the NCAAs that spoiled a "good sophomore season" last year. The overall point of the article--that this GLI title was a long time coming--is definitely valid, though.

A GLI title game that is scoreless going into OT is very rare indeed. Wish I could've seen the replay of that no-goal we had. I'd like to know how close it was...and I wish that replay official had been working the Western Conference Final last year.

Random stat that I'm not sure I mentioned....it couldn't have been a scoreless tie due to the continuous OT, but the last time Michigan had a scoreless tie was in 1954.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. But it helps if you're a good player and you're lucky, like Louie Caporusso. BTW, for him, national pride means more than seeing any of his teammates come home with World Junior gold. Can't blame him.

This might be the best headline to an article ever.

Ann Arbor News game story from the semifinal.

Kolarik said of all the blocked shots in the championship game, "It was just a mess out there." BTW, that 3 1/2 hour game was like 12 seconds too long. The FSD telecast allotted 3 1/2 hours, and my DVR cut off 12 seconds before we scored the winning goal. The game was on tape delay. Couldn't they have like...edited out part of the 4th intermission or something? Loud noises!

There are a lack of egos on this edition of the Wolverines. As a friend of mine would put it (and then I'd make fun of him for his word choice), "I love this team. They're such a team."

It feels kind of funny to go into a game expecting to get consistently great goaltending. I haven't done that since Montoya's sophomore year. I'm still kind of in shock really. And I'm convinced that Josh Blackburn is the best goalie coach ever.

Sauer won CCHA Goaltender of the Week (shocker there) for the fourth time this season, and was also named CCHA Player of the Month for December after posting a 3-0-0 record with a 0.59 GAA, .983 save %. That's decent...He now has the 8th best GAA in the country (1.80) and 11th best save percentage (.930--A .930? Really?).

Official game stories: Providence. Michigan Tech. In all our years of playing in the GLI, we had just one shutout coming into this past weekend. This weekend, we had two.

The Michigan Tech View:

Tech's student newspaper hasn't published since the GLI, so there's no comment from them. I did find this look back at the "Worst Year in Sports History" and I'm really not sure what to make of it. I don't typically make fun of other writers because I definitely have my faults, but this is horrible. Sammy Sosa did what this year? I found at least 6 glaring mistakes...how many can you find? It's like a word search or something. I think I could've written that column in 5th grade. This has to be a joke that I'm not s-m-r-t enough to figure out. Either that or the writer is really convinced that in Heaven there is no beer.......At least he didn't call Miami a dynasty in the making.

And actually, there was nothing in the Houghton or Marquette papers that I could find. Weird.

Up next is Tuesday's exhibition against the NTDP Under 18 team, which is 3-6-1 against D-1 opponents this year. They have wins over Harvard, Yale, and Duluth, and tied St. Cloud. As of December 17, Robbie Czarnik was tied for fourth on the team with 17 points in 26 games (just two points out of the team lead). David Wohlberg has 3-8--11 in 23 games.

Media Roundup: BGSU Sweep

The Wolverines closed out the first half of the 2007-08 season in-style with, as expected, a tightly-contested sweep of Bowling Green. Those wins, coupled with the Miami loss to Alaska, have put the Wolverines into the #1 spot in both polls, and the #1 spot in the CCHA heading into our Christmas layoff.

The Michigan Side:
Kevin Porter was named National Player of the Month and has been a pretty unanimous choice in CSTV's Hobey Watch for the better part of two months. Pretty clear it wasn't just playing with Hensick last year.

Michigan doesn't usually lose second periods, but BGSU had great success in the middle frame this weekend.

Derek Whitmore was banged up, and that probably contributed to his subpar weekend. Kevin Porter doesn't believe that Hogan was just trying to clear the puck when he nearly scored into the empty-net. Sidenote: With everything that got called this weekend, how was it not a penalty when Porter got hacked on our second attempt and the empty net?

Red wasn't thrilled with the "holiday hockey" the team was playing, despite the sweep.

Everyone is surprised at Michigan's start. The Daily calls on the student section to eliminate the no-shows and be louder. Because this team deserves it.

Patrick Wiercioch, a defenseman for the Omaha Lancers, was in town on a recruiting visit on Monday. I think we get him. We seem to have cornered the market on players with names that people will butcher at every opportunity (Kolarik, Palushaj, Langlais, Gajic, etc.). He's from BC and played in the BCHL before coming to the USHL for this season.

Stat Hunting:
Our top line has now combined for 193 out of our 531 shots on goal this season. All three forwards have 54+ shots, the next highest on the team are Palushaj and Turnbull with 32 apiece.

Chad Kolarik may have six less goals than Porter, but he's got 4 game-winners amongst his twelve goals. That kid is just clutch.

Sparkling is the only way to describe our goalies' numbers. Sauer has a 2.06/.915. Hogan has a 2.01/.920.

7-0-0 on the road in conference is one way to win a CCHA title.

Now we get Louie Caporusso back. This already dangerous team adds a nearly point per game player (8 points in 9 games...he'd be 5th in scoring at that pace, had he not gotten injured), plus arguably their best faceoff man. That'll help.

The Bowling Green View:
The Sentinel-Tribune has recaps of both games. Red Berenson was very complimentary of the Falcons both nights, saying they outplayed Michigan on Saturday. BTW, I think Bowling Green should stick with these jerseys for awhile. I could take or leave the home ones, but the orange road jerseys were the best I've seen them wear. Very nice.

The BG News has their take as well.

BGSU fans came out in droves Friday night. That arena really can get loud.

Media Roundup: Ohio State Split

The winning streak had to come to an end sometime. It sucks that it was against OSU, but it's really not all that surprising, given the nature of that series as of late. We saw a senior almost single-handedly will us back Friday night, and a slew of freshmen re-emerge on Saturday, including a goalie making his first career start. Let's check out the general reaction to the weekend. We also get to see if anyone in Columbus remembers that they have a hockey team:

The Michigan Side:
Colin wrote a pair of articles: One about the team's play this weekend and one giving his thoughts on Bryan Hogan. Enjoyable reads as always. Completely agree with him that our passing was just off Friday night. Colin was also very complimentary of Pacioretty's play this weekend. We do miss Caporusso on draws, especially against a team like OSU that's great on faceoffs.

The Daily says that they're looking to switch things up a little bit on the power play since teams are starting to catch on. Seems like that happens every year. Eventually teams caught on to us sending the puck to Gajic for the one-timer a couple years back and we never adjusted. Hopefully things work out a little better this year.

Also in that article, they talk about Chris Summers moving back to forward. It sounds as if it's an experiment for next weekend only, and then they'll consider it in the future if it works out. I'm thrilled about this move. I think I advocated it in the season previews for Summers, Vaughan, Quick, Langlais and Llewellyn. I love Summers's game up front, and our freshmen have been very good. As Colin pointed out, it's readily fixable should our youngster start running around or if we need to protect a lead "OK, you're on D now". As I said earlier, it's almost like dressing 12 forwards and 6.5/7 defensemen. Reportedly, he's been skating with Turnbull and Miller. That's one helluva checking line and it actually has some offensive upside.

Chad Kolarik quashes the idea that there's a goalie controversy. Chad's comments don't entirely mesh with what Red Berenson said, but "goalie controversy" is still too strong of a statement. Sauer has earned the right to be the #1, but I do expect Hogan to get his starts now and then. It wouldn't shock me a bit if we see him against Bowling Green this weekend. If we prove to have two good goalies, then bully for us. They'll both get to play, but barring a letdown/meltdown, Sauer is the guy. He's been outstanding this year and one good performance out of Hogan doesn't change that. All Hogan's performance means is that he's probably earned a few more starts, and Red doesn't have to be scared to yank Billy if he's struggling, as Red was during the NoDak game last year.

The Daily reports on Hogan's first start, including Red's comments. Apparently Sauer was getting fatigued. Having a quality backup goalie will help him. And even though I think Josh Blackburn is quite possibly the best goalie coach in history, I'm not sure how a goalie has a "fifth gear". BTW, check out the picture included in this article. Hogan's pads are kind of sweet. Montoya still wins for coolest mask though. That thing was amazing.

Here's The Ann Arbor News's take on Hogan's performance.

It was a frustrating weekend at times for both teams.

Good article about the freshmen, but c'mon Nate, it's Canadiens. Sacrebleu! The Ann Arbor News also had an article about the lineup changes.

Our student section really chanted "filthy inbreds"? That's classic!

TJ Hensick made his NHL debut over the weekend. He and Mike Brown also scored their first career goals.

The Buckeye dominance in the faceoff circle played a big role in the game. Corey Elkins was 13-2 on draws on Friday night. Can't score if you don't have the puck. I'd really love to see the Daily do a piece on the anatomy of a faceoff. There are a lot of things that I'd like to know, because I'm sure it's not as random as when I take draws. How do you practice for them? Is there an advantage to the visitor getting to put his stick down first? Are there any particular attributes that make someone a good faceoff man? Why have we sucked at them for 8 years? I feel like it'd be a pretty fun story. But maybe I'm just a nerd that would read an article about winning faceoffs.

Berenson won't say why Kampfer sat Friday night. At his press conference, he said something along the lines of "In house. It's been dealt with."

Nice feature on one of the freshmen I've been most impressed with: Chad Langlais

Awards: Porter was CCHA Player of the Month while Pacioretty was CCHA Rookie of the Month

Stat Hunting:

Kevin Porter's 26 points already would have placed him 8th on last year's offensive juggernaut.

Aaron Palushaj leads the team in assists with 13 and already has more points than any freshman last season. He's on pace for 34, which would match Porter's total from last season. Pretty damn impressive for a freshman that doesn't play on the top line (though he gets most of his points by being on the top power play unit).

Scooter Vaughan's +7 ranks him #1 amongst our freshman defenders.

We have 7 players with 5 or more goals.

We're outscoring opponents by a 2:1 ratio, 66 to 33.

Our penalty kill is now at 88.6%, which is kind of amazing.

After the struggles this weekend, our faceoffs are down to 48.4%. Fardig is back at 39%. Even Rust is only 50.0% now.

Pacioretty has had points in 11 of his last 12 games.

Hogan is the only player that has dressed for a game and doesn't have a point. None of our four freshmen defensemen have scored a goal, but all six forwards have.

The Ohio State View:
They really don't know they have a hockey team--or they just don't care. There was nothing in the Dispatch beyond a one-paragraph wire report about Friday's game. There were no articles period in the student newspaper The Lantern. I understand the excitement over being in the BCSCG, but it kind of makes me sad that hockey doesn't even get a mention. Makes my job a little easier I guess.

The Commit That Wasn't:
Earlier in the day, the Canadian Hockey News reported that Toronto Junior Canadiens forward Devante Smith-Pelly had commited to the Wolverines. The Wolverine checked with some sources, after there were indications that this wasn't true, and were able to confirm that the story was false and that Smith-Pelly isn't likely to be a Michigan player in the future. The CHN has since posted a retraction saying that their source was "completely and utterly wrong".

What's interesting is that Smith-Pelly's teammate, Tyler Toffoli, was at Yost last weekend wearing a Michigan sweatshirt. Apparently he's got 1st round OHL potential.

Media Roundup: College Hockey Showcase

No matter the records, it's a big weekend anytime you can get two against Wisconsin and Minnesota back-to-back. Here's what the MSM and the blogosphere are saying about it:

The best article of the bunch is about how the WCHA and CCHA are talking about how to provide more games between Big Ten teams. It's even possible that they'll eventually award a trophy to the "Big Ten" champion. I think it'd be a great idea to have some semblance of a Big Ten round robin, even if it's not a series against each team as the article suggests. Michigan and MSU already do play the other four Big Ten teams and Wiscy and Minnesota always play everyone but OSU (though they both met the Buckeyes this year). Sounds good right? Well, it's not this first time that this idea has been floated.

If I remember to do it, I'll compile the final stats at the end of the season since everyone plays everyone else at some point this year.

The Michigan Side:
MGoBlog doesn't really talk about the game as much he provides a typically well-written post about why this game meant more than the typical regular season game. At least to us fans. It sounds so very MSU-little-brother, but we needed that one. Even with the Gophers sub-par start, this win validates our excellent early season record.

WCH was able to get to Ann Arbor for the Showcase and Chris has a recap of each game. His sentiments about Turris ("wasn't that noticeable") were echoed by a friend I hit up for info about the game Friday night. "Noticed him maybe twice" was what my friend said. The Wolverines did a great job this weekend against the top players on the opposing team. Turris, Okposo, Barriball, and for the most part Wheeler didn't do very much.

I agree with Chris that the much-improved coverage in our defensive zone is a big reason for our success, but I think Sauer has improved by leaps and bounds over last year. The soft goals have been virtually non-existent thusfar. He's had maybe 5 (and only 2 or 3 that were truly bad). That was a weekend last year. It is helping to not have to face 4 odd-man rushes a night as well.

Kevin Porter and Billy Sauer were again honored as conference players of the week. I'm not sure when the last time was that a goalie won the award three times in a row (especially midseason when everyone is playing), but it can't have happened recently.

Edit: I neglected to include the Michigan Daily articles in my media roundup (How? Don't ask), so I've added them.

As was the case several weeks ago, the Wolverines still want to cut down on penalties, particularly amongst our fourth-liners. When you don't get a ton of ice-time and you're not counted on to score goals, the last thing you want to do is put the team on a penalty kill. Michigan's averaging 3 penalty minutes more per game than they did a year ago.

The good news is that we're pretty adept at scoring when a man down.

Billy Sauer is like me. He hates Minnesota.

More about our dynamic duo up front.

Antoine Pitts has been writing up a storm lately. The rest of the articles in the Michigan section come from him and the Ann Arbor News:

Anthony Cirualo has been effective in the lineup with injuries to Fardig and Caporusso.

Billy Sauer wasn't at the summer evaluation camp for the USA World Junior Team, but he has to get some consideration after the start he's had. Summers, Pacioretty, Quick, Rust, Palushaj, and Hagelin (Sweden) could also be named to the teams. Summers and Pacioretty probably have the best shot.

Red Berenson is as laughably pessimistic to the media about his team as Brett Favre. We're now "perhaps a top 10 team" and the Packers might be "pretty good" at this point.

Kolarik said that despite beating Michigan earlier in the season, the Gophers might have been a little intimidated Saturday.

Recap of the Wisconsin game. Maybe I missed it, and maybe the holiday had something to do with it, but I'm surprised there wasn't a little more about the Sauer/Connelly angle in the lead-up to the game.

The top line has scored at least one in every game of this twelve game winning streak. That's kind of dirty.

Kevin Quick doesn't think he'd repeat the mistake he made in the earlier Minnesota game, where he took one quick stride to try and get to the puck and it was just enough for Wheeler to beat him around the corner.

Yost Built favorite Carl Hagelin is adjusting to this country, and the size of our hockey rinks.

Stat Hunting:
All stats are culled from the MGoBlue stat page as well as the full PDF that accompanies it.

-Kevin Porter has 16 goals on 47 shots. To give that some context, if he had the same shooting percentage last year, he would have tallied 43 goals. Kolarik would have had 55(!) using that same shooting percentage. But Eric Ehn would still be in the Hobey Hat Trick ahead of them.

-Steve Kampfer has more than doubled last year's point total.

-Want proof that Aaron Palushaj is lethal on the PP? He's third on the team in points, but is the only player on the team with a minus rating (-1).

-Porter has 8 PPGs. The rest of the team combined has ten.

-Mark Mitera is a team-high +12 through 14 games.

-Billy Sauer now has a GAA just a tick below 2.00 with a .918 save percentage. By comparison, opposition goalies are stopping just 85.3% of the shots Michigan puts on net.

-Our 4.3 goals per game is actually ahead of last year's pace. And our goal differential is +2.3 (!!) compared with +1.1 last year.

-We're back below 50% on faceoffs (the loss of Caporusso doesn't help), but Porter and Fardig are the only players below .500 out of the eight who have taken more than 30 draws.

-Our top power play unit (8, 24, 39, 11, 7) have combined for 38 points on the power play so far this year.

-Porter has been held without a point just twice this season. Three times for Kolarik.

The Wisconsin View:
The official article.

Wisconsin put the "special" in special teams on Friday night. Kind of like our football team does on a weekly basis. Berenson said that he "can't remember the last time we lost a third period like that". True, true. Michigan has been money in the third this year.

Michigan fans weren't the only ones who didn't notice Kyle Turris. He's been invisible--along with the rest of his line--during their 5 game winless streak. Coach Eaves drew a comparison to Joe Pavelski and the way he cooled off after a hot start his freshman year.

More on the Badger special teams and a couple of "thank you Captain Obvious" quotes from captain Ben Street.

Wisconsin started their freshman goalie against the Spartans largely because...well...it's quiet in Munn. No, really, that's why.

The Capital Times was blogging about the game.

The Minnesota View:
Gopher fans are split on if Frazee is the problem or not. I haven't watched them enough--and I haven't seen Kangas--to comment, but in the game against Michigan I don't think he was the problem. He didn't play well (and that third goal was horrible--great play by Porter though)
but they didn't give him a lot of help. And I have a hard time blaming the goalie under any circumstance when you only score once.

In addition to Connelly not playing, Sparty didn't see Frazee (good thing or bad thing??) or Wheeler this weekend. MSU tied both games this weekend, giving the CCHA a 2-0-2 weekend.

The STrib points out that the Gophers aren't exactly the model of perfection on special teams either. I'm not sure if these are just WCHA stats, but the Gophers have just eight PPGs and have given up five shorties. (This seems like an appropriate time to mention that if I were running things, you would subtract short-handed goals when figuring out PP% and add them in when calculating PK%)

Jeff Frazee said his stick got caught in the boards when he gave the puck away on our third goal.

Lucia credited the Wolverines with being hungry to win that game after the past history between these teams. The Pioneer Press has Porter as their early-season favorite for the Hobey. After what happened with Hensick getting hosed last year I wouldn't bet on it, even though he's clearly the best player in the country at this point. He leads the country in goals, points, and PPGs, is the best captain we've had since Ortmeyer, and is a great defensive forward to boot.

Media Roundup: University of Alaska Sweep

News and notes from Michigan's fourth straight sweep and this week so far:

The Michigan Side:

The big news is that Louie Caporusso injured his knee in practice today and will be out "a while", reports the Michigan Daily. Carl Hagelin will play center in Capo's absence, which is fine, especially since he's a great back-checker. It's definitely a blow to lose a guy who is our fourth-leading scorer, however. Hopefully "a while" is more like "a month or two" and not "the season".

Having played nine games he's probably ineligible for a medical hardship waiver, should this be a season-ending injury. You're only allowed to play in 20% of games, so we'd need to play 45 for him to be eligible. And the only way that's possible is if we don't get a first-round bye in the CCHA playoffs and continue on to the National Championship. Pretty unlikely.

During Friday night's win, the Wolverines held UA without a shot during Brian Lebler's 5 minute penalty. That's pretty hard to do.

Billy Sauer was named CCHA Goaltender of the Week and Aaron Palushaj was honored as CCHA Rookie of the Week.

The last time Michigan was 9-1-0 to start a season was 1999-2000. If we sweep the Lakers, it will be our best start since 1961-62.

MGoBlue has an excellent feature on Mark Mitera. Last week, I suggested that one of the video features The Wolverine is working on be about Mitera and what it's like to now be "The Guy" and how it is not having an everyday defense partner. This article answers all these questions and more.

Chad Kolarik is playing well enough that the Nanooks used their annual cheap shot against us on him, rather than our goalie for once. He's still going bombs away, with a full 33% more shots on goal than the 2nd place person on the team. Can't complain when he's playing that well.

Billy Sauer went 30 minutes longer without giving up a goal than he ever had at Michigan. If this was last year, I'd be making a "Wow, he went 31 minutes!" joke. But he's playing great, so I won't do that. I'm not prepared to live in a world where both Billy Sauer and Chris Osgood can be considered top goalies. He now has a 2.19 goals against (!!!!!!!!!!!). That'll do pig. That'll do.

The student section also got a "We hate Comcast" chant going during Friday night's televised game. I'm guessing only part of that had to do with the TV timeouts. Matt Rust was out with "flu-like symptoms" Saturday night. Please God don't let that actually be the flu (or something of the like) and not mono.....

Kolarik and Berenson are really impressed with the energy and spirit of this team. The lead of the article indicates that this is our best start since the turn of the century. That sounded a lot more impressive until I remembered that he's talking 2000 and not 1900. I feel old.

Of all the guys to score an overtime goal on a breakaway, Mike Komisarek's probably not the guy you're thinking of.

Stat Hunting:
Michigan has scored first in 8 of their 10 games this season. I guess that'll happen when you've only given up 4 first-period goals all year. They're 8-0-0 in those games.

Statistical oddity: We're 6-0-0 when allowing a power play goal.

Matt Hunwick became the 18th Wolverine to suit up for an NHL team this season, making his debut for the Boston Bruins. He had 1 shot on goal in 15+ minutes of work. He's now back in the AHL with Aaron Ward's return, but it's nice to add another Wolverine to the list of NHLers.

I laugh every time I pull up our statistics PDF and see "14,127" listed as the attendance for our game against Boston College. There were maybe, maybe 1,000 people in the building for that one.

Kevin Porter is the only player on our team with multiple power play goals, and he has 5.

I gotta post this again. Billy Sauer has a 2.19 GAA!

Maybe it's the number. Chad Langlais leads the team in assists with 8 in 10 games.

We have 12 players averaging at least a half a point per game thusfar.

The Opponent's View:

It's pretty darn tough to have a series against the defending National Champions and then play the #2 team in the country in their barn. Their coach says he's happy with the effort even if they haven't been rewarded with wins yet.

Two key members of the Nanooks sat out Saturday's first period after missing the bus to the arena when their alarm didn't go off in the morning. Add that in with a few injuries, and another player leaving the team for the WHL, and they were facing an uphill battle from the get-go.

The Nanooks always play hard, but that second goal Friday night was a back-breaker.