Jack Johnson: Awesome

Back from another business trip that prevented me from writing about the CRHC, getting any info other than tweets about the BGSU game, or previewing the UNO series.

Before I get into tonight's 4-3 loss to the Mavericks (that'll come tomorrow)--really entertaining hockey game by the way--this deserves it's own post.

The opening ceremony for the Vancouver Olympics was tonight and the NHL has not yet gone on hiatus. Typically this prevents the hockey players from attending. JMFJ decided that if he was playing in the Olympics, he wanted the full Olympic experience. You never know when the NHL will put the kabosh on the NHL stars playing (because who wants to grow the game by having the best in the world play on an international stage?), and with the next Olympics in Russia, who knows if he'd have the chance again.

So Jack chartered a plane and he and his family flew up to Vancouver, went to the ceremony, and now he's headed back to LA in order to make the morning skate tomorrow. In doing so, he became--according to USA Hockey--the first active NHL player to march in the opening ceremony.

ESPN LA sent a reporter along for the ride. She chronicled the journey is a really good story, which includes some video.

Johnson also saw some air time in an interview with Dan Patrick before the ceremony began and he came across really well--like he really gets the whole point of the Olympics and wasn't concerned with how difficult it was to arraign because he wanted to be a part of the whole experience.

Kings GM Dean Lombardi commented: "Jack has always been an integral part of the U.S. program and he has now reached its highest level -- a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to march with the colors. USA Hockey should be thankful that the LA Kings turned him into the hockey player he is."*

USA Today, the LA Times, CTV and the AP also had stories about the former Wolverine. CTV has a picture of him that would make J Lehman proud.

Go get 'em, Jack!

*Maybe I made that last sentence up.

Don't Forget, BGSU Tonight

The Wolverines will have a rare Thursday game against at Bowling Green against the Falcons. The game will be streamed on the B2 Network for a fee.

Quick facts:
-BGSU is 4-18-4 this year.
-One of those wins was against us.
-That win is still their only win away from home this year. They're 0-11-3 in the other 14. Nice, guys.
-They beat WMU in a shootout and won the other game last weekend.
-Before that, they had only won one of the last thirteen. (They also beat ND in a shootout in there.)
-Leading scorer: Freshman Jordan Samuels-Thomas. Hyphen has 9-12--21 in 26 games.
-Nick Eno has played most of their games in net. He's 4-10-3 with a 3.20/.897. Freshman Andrew Hammond is 0-8-1 with a 4.14/.885. Eno made 29 stops in their earlier win against Michigan.
-#53 offense in the country at 2.12 gpg. Only Holy Cross, Tech, WMU, American, and "The" UConn have worse offenses. #54 defense. Only Clarkson, UConn, American, and Tech are worse.
-12.9% on the PP. Ehht. 75.0% PK. Ehht.

I probably should have written something about the second game of the weekend against Michigan State.

Maybe it wasn't the most well-played game in history, but that was one hell of a hockey game. I have to admit, that team showed me something. I had them written off completely ("Game over. Season over.") after FYS came from 3-0 down to take a 4-3 lead. Then Carl Hagelin makes a game (and season?) changing play, stealing the puck from Drew Palmisano and finding Matt Rust for a short-handed goal. Chris Brown banged one in a couple minutes later and the Wolverines had a 5-4 win.

We're still a retarded hockey team. We take some of the dumbest penalties. Four days later and I can think of several off the top of my head: Vaughan and Caporusso both took penalties for running the goalie for no reason. Hagelin (of all people) took a terrible penalty for bopping Krug by the bench. State scored on that power play. It's just a constant string of stupid play. Even with a great penalty kill, it still doesn't help.

I thought we did a pretty nice job of getting pucks to Brian Lebler in the slot this weekend. We might not have anyone on the team that can really one-time it, but Lebler did a pretty nice job in the Pacioretty role this past weekend. He got off several really good chances, and buried one of them.

Running out of time to make a move for the tournament, short of winning the CCHAs. That loss Friday night really hurt. Dammit.

MSU 4, Michigan 3...ERRRRR, MSU 3, Michigan 2

I can give you two reasons that Michigan isn't going to the NCAA Tournament this year and why they don't belong there anyway:

1) Our goaltending is horrifically inconsistent. Yes, as a whole Bryan Hogan played well tonight. You can't fault him on the first goal, and he gets a pass on the second goal because it sure looked like it hit Brandon Burlon's stick. Yes, he made some great stops when it was 0-0. Yes, he even made some great stops when the game was 3-0. But that third goal....it was the type of goal that's been killing us all year. 2-0 you've still got a chance. 3-0 is going to take a minor miracle--and a miracle that we almost got--to win on the road. It's not going to happen very often. The third one tonight was a shot that dribbled off his pads to the right, getting back to Tropp's stick just in time for him to slide it into the net before he went behind the goal. You can't leave that rebound. It's that type of goal--or the shorty against FSU last weekend--that are going to keep us out of the tournament. We're not winning CCHA's because there's no way in hell Hogan's keeping it together for four out of five games. No way.

2) 3 games, 3 goals, 3 points, 2 game-winners. Those are Captain Douchebag's numbers against the Wolverines this season. The fact that the Green Bay Packers let Brett Favre tear them up twice this year--including once in their house--told me everything I needed to know about the 2009 Packers. The fact that Michigan has let Corey Tropp beat them twice--once in their building, on a play against Steve Kampfer of all people--tells me all I need to know about this team. You can't let that guy do that to you twice. I don't care if Andrew Rowe beats you. I don't care if Dustin Gazley beats you. I don't care if Chris Summers shoots the goddamn puck into his own net six times or if Bryan Hogan Statue of Libertys the game winner. You can't let Corey Tropp beat you. And you definitely can't let him beat you twice.

Now, let's talk about the officiating. I'm not sure I have the words to describe what went on in the last three minutes of that hockey game. I think my buddy Kevin might have put it best in a text to me: "What is this clown show?"

I do know one thing: If you ever need a prime example of why Steve Piotrowski needs to lace up the skates again, it's the fact that the ref who is widely regarded as the best ref in the CCHA blew a call like that in a game as big as that.

But let's back up.

With just a couple of minutes to go in a 3-2 hockey game, Michigan State came down on a 2 on 1 that turned into a 3 on 2, after a Chad Langlais turnover in the MSU end. Rowe spun around Summers and sent a pass into the slot. Hogan made the initial save, but despite having it hit him in the chest, the rebound popped into the air and Hogan flailed to try and recover. Summers was in the crease and tried to bat the puck out of the air with his hand. As he was attempting to do that, Andrew Rowe came in and drilled him in the back. The puck hit the ice and Rowe jammed it in.

The official right on the play--Mark Wilkens--pointed goal. Chris Summers had his arms out asking for a hitting from behind call even before he stopped sliding. He immediately got up and went bonkers on Wilkens.

They go to the replay (at least I think they did....maybe the four blind mice just got together and "replayed it in their heads") and there doesn't appear to be anything to overturn the goal on. At best you're hoping they rule the puck left the crease so Rowe didn't have a right to be there anymore, or something. Yes it was a penalty, no the goal shouldn't count, but the ref on the ice called it a goal. There's no goalie interference to overturn it.

They waived it off. Not only did they waive it off, they gave Rowe a penalty! I would love to hear the explanation for that one. Surely we're going to get some line of bull that the back referee--Shegos--was trying to make a call and it just got overlooked. Spath's article indicates that Shegos blew it dead from center ice. And if that's the case, fine.

(This assumes they looked at the replay) But then why look at the replay? To determine if the puck was in before the call? It couldn't have been. They may be saying Shegos blew it dead at center. I can't say I ever heard a whistle. At this point, it sure looks like the CCHA just went to replay, overturned a goal, and assessed a penalty.

(If they didn't go to review) If they didn't go to review, then what took so long? Either someone blew it dead or they didn't. This isn't the NFL. You don't get to discuss plays with the whole crew and then retroactively make a penalty call--even if it ended up being the correct one.

Let's be perfectly clear. They got the call right. Rowe deserved a penalty and the goal shouldn't have counted. I just don't have the foggiest clue how they justify making that call after either going to the replay or discussing it amongst themselves. Either someone made the call live or they didn't. If they did, great. If they didn't, they're all blind, but it should still be a goal.

So now Michigan has a man-advantage with just over two minutes to go and a chance to pull off a huge comeback on the road. Just after the penalty expired, Chris Brown was standing in the slot. The puck hit him and bounced down, through the legs of Drew Palmisano, and into the net. Like, straight through the legs of Palmisano. We're not talking pinballing. We're not talking the puck died between his legs but was still loose and someone jammed it in. It hit Chris Brown, bounced down, went right through Palmisano into the net.

Shegos somehow missed this and blew the play dead within milliseconds of the puck going underneath Palmisano. The whistle may not have gone until the puck was in the net (I'm not sure), but thanks to the most retarded rule in sports--the play is dead when it's dead in the referee's mind, not when he blows the whistle--you can't review it.

That's a missed call. You can see from the behind-the-net cam that the puck was never even remotely covered. And the guy who is widely considered the best ref in the conference--as if that's not like saying someone is the prettiest ugly girl (by the way, there were options in the crowd tonight....for as many good-looking girls as there are supposed to be at Michigan State, they must have found every fug in the bunch during the crowd shots tonight....holy buckets)--completely blew it.

I'll say this once again, Miami fan: You can bitch all you want to about Matt Shegos officiating Michigan games even though he's a Michigan alum. We'd gladly ban him from doing our games as well. You can't waive the "favoritism" banner around ever again when you see something like that. That blown call might have put the final nail in our tournament chances. (Though to be fair, that just gets us to OT.)

It's too much, especially on the day the NFL said "Oh, yeah, about that NFC Championship? Yeah, we completely effed that one up." I'm sick of games getting decided this way. I'm sick of quick whistles (I'm thinking of Scott Hansen yet again, thank you Shegos), I'm sick of kicked-in pucks counting, I'm sick of good goals not counting.

This one was big. If Michigan comes back and wins that game, they've got a chance to flip the comparison with Michigan State tomorrow and it's a HUGE boost to the tournament chances. We're running out of chances, but we probably don't belong in The Dance anyway.

What else can you really say? Some quick hitters:

-The power play put in a couple, but one goal was a two-minute 5 on 3 and the other was kind of off a nothing play. They passed the puck well on a couple of PPs, but never had a lot of chances and there were at least 3 or 4 of those power play opportunities that completely went by the wayside without a hint of a scoring chance. Up until our fifth power play chance, I don't think we had one that you could even consider decent. Even the four minutes we had left on the five-minute major after the first goal...we didn't get a whole lot going and that was a chance to really turn the game.

-Hogan did make some very good stops in the first half of the game. That third goal was just a head-scratcher though.

-A few silly penalties when we certainly didn't need them. Greg Pateryn took a needless one about 30 seconds after MSU killed off a Michigan power play, so you know they're looking anyway. Dumb penalties by Tristin Llewellyn got Pateryn into the lineup. You don't want to find yourself back in the press box because of the same thing. Kampfer took a dumb late run at somebody in the third period. Unless it's Corey Tropp you have to be smarter. He didn't even get his money's worth. It was a cheap call, but you can't give them the opportunity to call it, especially when they've shown they're calling everything.

-Over half the game was spent with one team on the man advantage. That's way too much. Michigan had 19:23 in power play time. MSU had 13:20. Aside from the Gazley/Treais kerfuffle, I didn't even think it was an overly chippy game. Definitely not one that warranted 33 minutes in power play time, which would've been 36 without penalties ending on power play goals. You're talking almost TWO FULL PERIODS of man advantages in that game. I sure am glad we have the two ref system, so they can call literally everything but miss the most obvious call of the game: that Drew Palmisano never covered that puck.

-The goal on the 5 on 3 was quite nice. Moffie at the left point down to Lynch on the left wing. He centers for Rust, who one-touches it to Hagelin back-door for the goal. That's the way to do it when you've got two extra men.

-A lot of odd-man rushes. And a lot of odd-man rushes both ways.

I really don't know what the hell else to say. The officiating in this league is a complete joke, and it's a complete joke that Corey Tropp's able to touch the puck without getting drilled into next week, let alone the fact that he's scored two game-winners on the Wolverines this year.

10 Things to Know About Michigan State

First off, I have to give some pub to a great new college hockey site that was the brainchild of Bob Miller and Mike Spath from The Wolverine. It's called College Hockey 24/7 and they've been pumping out some really great articles since the site launched.

On the front page right now is a story about NTDP U-17 defenseman Michael Paliotta, who has Michigan in his final four along with BC, Notre Dame, and Harvard.

They just came out with some rankings of the current recruiting classes and have the Wolverines at #2, behind Minnesota.

It's another great addition to the college hockey world.

Michigan takes on Michigan State this weekend. They'll play at Munn (despite the fact that it was recently destroyed by UA's flying polar bear) Friday night before heading to the Joe for Saturday's game. The game tomorrow will air on the Big Ten Network, while Saturday's game is on FSN Detroit.

Now for 10 things to know about the Spartans from Michigan State.

1) Their new logo sucks.

2) They come into this weekend in second place in the CCHA (though with Ferris's games in hand, they're more likely in third place) with a record of 16-8-4 (11-5-4-1 in conference). They currently site 10 points ahead of the Wolverines, though Michigan has two games in hand. With non-shootout wins being worth three points in the new-fangled CCHA, if Michigan sweeps this weekend, they're in prime position to pass the Spartans in the standings. MSU is also teetering very close to the bubble. They're 13th in the PWR right now. Two wins for Michigan this weekend would be absolutely huge for our chances to steal a PWR point from the Spartans. As it stands right now, a sweep would flip that comparison.

3) MSU has been up and down at times. They started off 9-2-2, then lost four out of five. They then ripped off five straight wins, but have only won one of their last five (a second game they won in a shootout). MSU is just 3-6-3 against teams under consideration.

4) One thing they have been doing a lot of lately is scoring goals. They went through a stretch beginning with the second Michigan game where they only scored 11 goals in 7 games, but since then they've scored 43 in their last ten contests (and that doesn't count the 8 they scored on the NTDP in an exhibition game). On the other hand, they've given up 18 in their last five after giving up just 19 in their 9 games before that.

5) Captain Douchebag Corey Tropp hasn't really cooled down after his hot start. While he hasn't scored a goal in the last seven games, he hasn't been held off the scoresheet in consecutive games all year and still has 8 points in the seven games he's gone goalless. He leads the team with 17-19--36 in 28 games, good for 17th in points per game nationally. JM Liles is the only Spartan to hit 50 points since the 2000-2001 season (and he had exactly 50). Tropp will have a chance. If, you know, he can resist the urge to slash someone in the neck this weekend.

6) Freshman Derek Grant (10-17--27) and Andrew Rowe each have double-digit goals. After a dismal sophomore season, Jeff Petry has 21 points and his +/- is 36 points higher than it was a year ago (+5 vs. -31). Tropp and Grant each have six power play tallies.

7) Drew Palmisano (HE'S FROM ANN ARBOR, HEY DID YOU KNOW HE'S FROM ANN ARBOR?!!!) has played 22 games this year and is 12-7-3 with a 2.17/.927. He also leads the team in Fox Sports Detroit features. He's been chased a couple of times this year (Wisconsin and Ohio State) but has overall been very solid, giving up 2 or fewer in 13 of his 20 starts. In four of his seven losses, he's made 30+ saves. He's 12th in GAA and 8th in save percentage.

8) The Spartans rank 12th nationally in goals per game at 3.29. They have the #11 defense in the country, giving up 2.39 goals per contest. Kind of interesting: Their goal differential (per game) is just .01 ahead of the Wolverines.

9) They're middle of the pack in terms of penalty minutes, taking 14.7 minutes per game, though only four teams have been shorthanded more times. (Keep in mind that no team in the country has played more games than the Spartans.) They have a very middle of the pack penalty kill at 82.8%. They're also middle of the pack on the power play, at 18.5%.

10) Top Spartan Killers: Chris Summers (13 points in 17 games), Louie Caporusso (8 points in 11 games), and David Wohlberg (7 points in 5 games). Bryan Hogan is 5-2-0 against the Spartans with a 2.15/.903.

Michigan State's top performers against Michigan have been Andrew Rowe (7 points in 7 games) and Dustin Gazley (6 points in 11 games). Those are the only two players with multiple goals against the Wolverines. Jeff Petry is -7 against Michigan in 11 games. Drew Palmisano--who I'll have you know is from Ann Arbor--is 2-1-0 with a 2.55/.925.

The last time MSU won 3 in a row in the series was in the 2000-01 season. They haven't won 4 in a row since the 97-98 season, when Michigan ended up winning the National Championship.

One thing non Michigan/MSU related: This fight didn't go well for Eric Nystrom. I'm not sure I've ever seen someone get clubbed in the head with their own helmet before.

Outdoor Game at Michigan Stadium is On!

Just a couple of weeks after some comments by Michigan State cast some doubt on if the outdoor game between the Wolverines and Spartans would actually happen, it sounds like the game is on for good.

There will be hockey played at Michigan Stadium on December 11, 2010 at 3 pm. It will be awesome.

Also according to the article, Wisconsin has sold 42,000 tickets for the upcoming Culver's Camp Randall Hockey Classic and they expect to have the lower bowl sold out for the game.

Killing Our Own Power Plays?

During my recap of the Ferris State game, I mentioned that it seems like Michigan takes an awful lot of penalties while they have a man advantage. In Saturday's game, the Wolverines cost themselves 1:51, 1:29, and 1:28 in power play time due to taking quick penalties after they had been given a man-advantage.

I decided to figure out how many times we've killed off our own power play and see how many goals it has cost us over the course of the season thus far. I'm not a math major, so be kind if I say anything stupid.

What I found is that we have had 151 power plays, accounting for 231 minutes and 26 seconds with the man advantage. We have scored 30 PPGs. That works out to a goal every 7 minutes and 43 seconds of power play time.

On 21 occasions we have taken a penalty to wipe out a power play chance prematurely, which accounts for 25 minutes and 9 seconds of lost power play time. That means over the course of the season, the math says that we've cost ourselves about 3 1/4 goals.

That doesn't actually seem like very many, but take into account the games where we really killed ourselves:
-Against BU, we ended 3 of our own power plays, costing ourselves a whopping 5:57 in power play time. We lost 3-2.
-Against FSU, we ended 3 of our own power plays, costing ourselves 4:48 in power play time. We lost 3-2.
-Against OSU, we cost ourselves 1:41 in power play time. We lost 5-3, but the 5th goal was an empty-netter.

That's 12 minutes and 26 seconds in those three games alone. All one-goal losses (essentially). Based on our season-average (granted our PP sucked at the start of the year), you would expect about 1.6 goals in that amount of power play time. It would be expected that one or two of those losses could have ended differently, minus the penalties when we were up a man. In a season where we're going to be fighting tooth and nail for a tournament slot, that's big.

As for context, I don't really know what it means. I didn't run the numbers to see if our opponents have been comparable, or if this is similar to previous years' totals. It's far too late at night for that. I was just curious to see what it could have meant to this year's team.

Edit: Yay for doing math well at 1 am! A commenter pointed out that I didn't factor in that even with blowing a power play, we could still score even-strength. Based on re-running the numbers quickly (and including short-handed time in our points per minute) we've cost ourselves about 2.3 goals over the course of the season instead of 3.25, and in the three games I mentioned, you would expect 1.1 goals, not 1.6. Those numbers are still a tick high because I kept the short-handed time in there.

So, really, it seems like it's more of an annoyance for the fans (and probably Red) than a true difference-maker, though if it could have swung a game against a team like Ferris, that could have been big for our chances. I still think it's interesting to see that we've blown over a period's worth of time with the man advantage over the course of the season.

Michigan 2, FSU 0 - FSU 3, Michigan 2

Well if that wasn't a microcosm of the season, I don't know what was.

Friday night was a dominant performance by the Maize and Blue, showing the talent level of this team and performing the way that was expected coming into the season.

Saturday was a throwback to the first half of the season: Dumb penalties, turnovers, missed opportunities, shaky goaltending...

First, Friday night:
Friday's game was a stellar performance. The defense was great pretty much all night. Hogan didn't have to stand on his head, but was very solid all night (including a great save off a Michigan turnover in the second period) and he didn't have any "avert your eyes" moments, which is a win. Luke freaking Glendening had a pair of goals--both great wristers up over Pat Nagle's glove.

I thought Kampfer was really solid all game. He had a couple of beautiful pass break-ups, including one very early on in the game that probably saved a goal.

Ben Winnett had a lot of jump out there. That was more than I've noticed him in a long time. I kind of like the lines we're putting out there.

A couple of weeks ago, I lamented the fact that I hadn't seen us use anyone in the Tomas Holmstrom role on the power play. At least on one occasion, Chris Brown went right to the net and parked himself there as Kampfer got a shot through. I'd like to see more of that. Brown is a big boy and he's hard to move.

I thought David Wohlberg looked pretty good all weekend as well. Hopefully he's getting healthy and will be back to playing the way he did last year. That would be a big boost.

The key to the game was when Michigan killed off a two-minute 5-on-3 chance for the Bulldogs. That kill was a thing of beauty. Lynch brought it into the FSU zone, had nothing, and passed it back to a defenseman down in the Michigan end to kill some time. Hagelin had the puck in his own zone with no FSU pressure so he took a lap around the zone before icing it. Hagelin also would've sprung Rust on a possible breakaway but Rust got hauled down. You don't have to ask if they called it.

Michigan's first goal was set up by some tic-tac-toe passing. Wohlberg brought the puck down the middle of the ice and slid it to Caporusso on the left-wing. Cappy found Glendening streaking down the right side and Luke uncorked a wrister up over Nagle's glove.

Not even five minutes later, the Wolverines took a shot that was blocked. The carom came right to Glendening who had almost a carbon-copy of his previous shot into the net.

Ferris nearly got back within one on what looked to be a nothing play. Their guy chipped a puck up over a diving Chad Langlais and found a teammate breaking in. Hogan went for the poke-check, which forced a shot. It rang off the bar and Michigan maintained their two goal lead.

Langlais then had his chance from about 40 feet out. He beat Nagle cleanly but also caught iron.

Actually not all that much happened in the third period. Glendening had a chance for the hat trick when Nagle was on the bench for the extra man, but his shot was blocked by a defenseman. "Bet-ter Goal-ie" was the chant from the crowd. Niiiice.

Then came Saturday (an abbreviated recap since Blogger ate my first one...awesome):
Nothing much happened out of the gate, until Ferris put a harmless looking wrist shot on net from about 60 feet out that somehow beat Hogan far side. That goal might have been worse than the one he gave up against Air Force. Not the type of goal you want to give up to a team that had shown no semblance of an offense the entire weekend thusfar.

The teams swapped a bunch of power plays and nothing much came of any of them, save for one shot that a guy missed on where Hogan would have had about a 2% chance of stopping it.

There was an amusing sequence of events early in the second period for those of us watching on TV:
-Ferris shot wide by a couple of feet but the goal judge turned the light on. The horn sounded in the arena as well.
-Matt Shepard, the play-by-play man, cracked a couple of good-natured jokes at the goal judge's expense and they zoomed in on the goal judge sitting in his box of shame.
-Not two minutes later, the Wolverines broke in and Wohlberg hit the post. Shepard yelled "SCOOOOOOORES!!!!" and after an awkward silence said, "They're going to have to review that one."
-After a commercial break, they showed the replay which clearly showed the puck not going in. Shepard cracked, "Alright, I'll call myself out for that one."
Pretty great moment in karma right there, but not as great as this old classic:


A few minutes later, however, Wohlberg actually did score. On a power play, Treais's cross-crease pass got partially broken up, but it had enough steam to get to Wohlberg and he lifted it up over Nagle.

Kampfer then broke in and Hagelin hit him with a pass. Billins got back to tie up Kampfer or he would have had an easy tap in. Instead, the puck glanced off the post.

Hogan made a couple of huge saves in the second period. One was a stop on Alexander after he broke in around Burlon. He had a couple of biggies on a flurry at the end of the period as well.

Matt Case scored a gorgeous goal to put Ferris up 2-1. Ben Winnett was going to take possession off a defensive-zone faceoff, but got hauled down. The puck slid out to the point. Winnett recovered to get out on Case, but Case absolutely walked him with a beautiful move. He stepped into the slot and fired one past a screened Hogan. Hogan wanted a goalie interference call. I didn't have a problem with the goal standing, but it was absolutely absurd that there was no trip call on the faceoff when Winnett got taken down. The refs called everything last night and to miss a call like that? Good ole McInchak.

Summers started the third period by absolutely CRANKING a Bulldog who had his head down. Michigan then came in and I'm really not sure how Chris Brown missed.

Brandon Burlon made a beautiful play to break up a Ferris 2-on-1. He baited the guy into passing the puck and then knocked the pass away. Can't play it any better than that.

After a second crease violation in thirty seconds on Ferris, the rink mic caught a fan yelling "You're TERRIBLE!" at one of the referees. They showed a replay and the guy never went near the crease. He skated by Hogan, who threw a shoulder into him, and the ref blew it dead. Classic.

Zach Redmond put one off the bar and then Michigan came down on a 2 on 1, and Nagle made a nice play.

Michigan then tied the game at 2 after a Redmond penalty. Wohlberg fed Lebler in the slot and Lebler tipped a puck (GORGEOUS tip) by Nagle.

True to form, McInchak called a penalty on us not 15 seconds later, with under 1:30 to go in the game. Kampfer stood up his man who was rushing the puck, the ref looking right at it let it go, but DickInchak (out at center ice) blew it dead.

With about thirty seconds left, Summers had a horrifically bad turnover when trying to break the puck out and Michigan was never able to clear again. Ferris centered one for Redmond and he put a shot through Hogan's 5-hole from the high slot. Ugh. Don't get beat 5-hole after we just tied the game, please.

That did it, and Michigan fell 3-2.

Other thoughts:
STOP DOING THAT!It seems like Michigan has had a penchant for taking penalties when they are on the power play. It happened three times last night. If you're a 20% power play and you lose 1:51, 1:29 and 1:28 in power play time, there's a pretty decent chance that you're costing yourself a goal. I'm not doing the math, but it seems like it must be upwards of a 50% chance that you're taking a goal off the scoreboard by not playing disciplined hockey.

JMFJ vs. Lombardi:By now you've probably heard about Dean Lombardi's comments about Jack Johnson and Red Berenson, but in case you haven't, Lombardi was giving an interview about JMFJ and made the following comments about Jack and the Michigan program:
"Michigan is the worst."
"Red Berenson doesn't coach."
"[Jack] was an awful hockey player."
That's just the tip of the iceberg. It's worth reading.

As expected, Red didn't comment and laughed off the question. Jack, on the other hand? You had to know he wasn't happy. He fired back at his GM, citing the fact that Michigan has put more guys into the NHL than any other school and defending his former head coach. My favorite quote:

For my general manager to rip me as a person and criticize me as a person and as a player and call me an awful hockey player is irresponsible and unprofessional.

Kill Jack, Kill! God I love that kid.

Lombardi has since tried to say that the quotes were taken out of context and were meant as background and not meant to be published. He ripped the blogger for posting it. The funny thing is that whether or not the quotes were meant to be published, he said them. And either way it means he's got a completely ignorant opinion of one of the great coaches--and great men--in the history of hockey. And he possibly alienated one of his up and coming stars.

Johnson was asked if Lombardi's quotes damaged his relationship with the GM. Johnson responded, "I don't know", which probably means yes.

Kids Doing Stupid Things...errr Allegedly:At the start of the season, Michigan had 5 players committed from the NTDP. Jack Campbell de-committed, taking the total to 4. Now Jacob Fallon has left the team after an alleged sexual harassment incident at his high school. Two other future Wolverines--Jon Merrill and Kevin Clare--are suspended until the end of the month.

There was speculation that Fallon would join the Seattle Thunderbirds of the WHL, killing his college eligibility, but he has joined the Indiana Ice of the USHL so he's still eligible to come to Michigan.

Skate at Camp Randall:If you'll be arriving in Madison early for the Camp Randall Hockey Classic, there is an open skate at the outdoor rink on Friday night. There will be four 30-minute sessions, at 7:00, 7:30, 8:30, and 9:00. It's free, but you have to have a ticket to get in. Those tickets go on sale tomorrow morning at 8:30 CST. There's a max of four per person. Note that there is no skate rental available.