Michigan vs. The Dynasty Preview

Photo Credit: Bill Rapai

Red Berenson's troops head south this weekend to take on the closest thing to a hockey dynasty that this world has ever known: The Miami RedHawks. In actuality, the RedHawks have been positively un-dynasty-like so far this year. They stumbled out of the gate, losing their opener against Bemidji, and started 0-4 in CCHA play after getting swept by Ferris and Lake State.

Last weekend, they went up to Alaska and beat the Nanooks by a pair of 2-1 decisions, despite being outshot 30-14 on Friday night.

The lack of offense has been a problem. Miami needed to replace Andy Miele, Pat Cannone, and Carter Camper after last season, and the result has been an offense that has scored just 2.30 goals per game this year, down from 3.75 a year ago. They currently rank 43rd in the nation in offense.

Through 10 games, Reilly Smith is the only player on the roster with more than 2 goals (5-1--6). (To compare, Michigan has 8 players with 3+ goals.) Even Smith's scoring has been cut in half, though. He averaged a very impressive 1.42 points per game last season (28-26--54 in 38 games).

As you'd expect, the power play has also struggled. They're clicking along at 14.0%, good for 40th nationally.

The goaltending/team defense also hasn't been at the level they're accustomed to. Connor Knapp and Cody Reichard return for their senior seasons. Reichard is 3-3-0 on the year with a 2.46/.902. Knapp is just 1-3-0 with a 3.17/.888 (!!). The PK is at 81.4% and they have scored 3 shorties already this year.

Knapp has lost three straight starts, and after giving up 4 on 15 shots in less than 30 minutes of work against LSSU, he did not play against Alaska. Reichard got both of those starts and gave up just two goals total. It'll be interesting to see if Blasi gets back to his goalie rotation this weekend, or if Reichard gets both starts again. I suspect it will depend on how tonight goes. If Reichard shuts Michigan down, he may just keep riding the hot hand. Reichard typically plays Friday nights in their rotation, so he'd get first crack regardless.

I've always been more impressed with Reichard anyway. Last year, he held Michigan to two goals on 55 shots during a weekend sweep in Oxford. He was also in net for both games of their sweep at Yost in 09-10, again giving up just two goals on 49 shots. Michigan did beat him in the CCHA Semifinals during that magic run. Knapp was ridiculous in the tournament game where the quick whistle did Michigan in. He stopped 55 of 57 shots that night. Strangely enough, that's been his only start against Michigan since his freshman year, when he played the majority of three games.

Freshman Tyler Biggs was Toronto's first-round pick in this year's draft after spending two years with the NTDP. He has 1-4--5 so far this year.

This is a big weekend for the RedHawks. Despite their struggles, Miami could get back to .500 with a pair of wins. A Michigan sweep would put Miami at 2-6-0-0 in conference and 4-8-0 overall. That's quickly getting to the point of needing to put together a run to make the NCAA Tournament.

Miami has struggled, but you have to think they'll right the ship at some point. It seems like Reichard has gotten back on his game, but the offense has still be uncharacteristically quiet. A couple of the Wolverine killers (Miele and Cannone) are gone, which is nice. It'll be interesting to see how Michigan responds to the hostile environment down there. I like the chances for a good weekend. Michigan has only been held below 3 goals one time this season and Miami has struggled to the put the puck in the net thusfar. Reichard has been great against Michigan in his career, so if Miami is going to get some points out of the weekend, he'll have to keep that up.

Michigan Splits with Western Michigan

Photo Credit: Bill Rapai

For the second straight week, Michigan took on a highly-ranked CCHA opponent. This time, it marked the Yost debut of new WMU coach Andy Murray. In a battle of former St. Louis Blues head coaches, Murray's team drew first blood, but the Wolverines came back Saturday night to split the weekend.

On Friday night, Western jumped out to a 2-0 lead behind goals from Ian Slater and Brett Beebe. Slater banged one in off a faceoff win. Beebe's was off a 2-on-1 created by a Michigan turnover. Hunwick made the initial save, then appeared to kick the puck into the net. Mike Chiasson was, of course, on the ice for Slater's goal (marking the "minus" of his Michigan career), since it was mentioned in the media (including here, mwah mwahhhhhh) this past week that it hadn't happened.

Michigan came back with a pair of goals by defensemen. Kevin Clare tallied the first goal of his Michigan career when he picked up the puck by the side-boards and caught the goaltender still on the ice. Just over three minutes later it was Mac Bennett tying things up on a shot that Pisellini would really like to have back. The teams headed to the third period tied at 2. It remained that way until just after the students had said, "How....much....time....is....left?" Dane Walters popped one in with 57 seconds remaining, and that was all she wrote. I'm not really sure how that puck ended up in the net. There was a goalmouth scramble, Hunwick was down on his stomach, and then the Broncos started celebrating.

Nick Pisellini made 34 saves in the win, including all 14 that Michigan threw at him in the third period. Hunwick stopped 22 of the 25 shots he faced.

The loss snapped Michigan's 20-game home winning streak. The streak ended just short of the one-year mark. The last home loss was on November 12th of last year against Notre Dame.

On Saturday, the Wolverines got outshot by 11 but rode 30 saves from Shawn Hunwick to a 5-2 win to even up the weekend. That was WMU's first loss of the season (6-1-3).

Derek DeBlois extended his point streak to 4 games with a goal in the middle of the first period to give Michigan a lead. He cleaned up the garbage after a Guptill shot hit the post. WMU came back to tie it very early in the second period on a scramble in front. Balisy got the feed, Hunwick robbed him, but the defense was tied up and Balisy was able to lift one over Shawn on the rebound. WMU then took the lead on a Derek Roehl goal at 10:18. Like DeBlois, he buried one after the initial shot hit the post and skipped out the other side.

After that, it was all Michigan on the scoreboard. Alex Guptill got things tied before intermission. He parked himself in front on the power play and was able to bang in a rebound on a Pateryn shot from the point.

The Wolverines put up 3 in the third (including an ENG). Mac Bennett scored his second goal in as many games to put Michigan ahead for good. Sparks had the puck down low. He sent it back to Bennett at the point, and Mac's shot found it's way through traffic into the net. AJ Treais added some insurance inside the five-minute mark, and then Kevin Lynch added the empty-netter for the final margin of victory.

K. Lynch was rushing the puck and it initially looked like he held onto it too long. He was forced behind the net, but got the puck centered to Treais, who shot it home.

The win takes Michigan to 3-2-1-1 in the CCHA, which is good for a three-way tie for fourth place, four points behind conference leader Lake Superior State(!). All the teams at the top of the standings have played 6 conference games.

This weekend, the Wolverines head down to Oxford, OH to take on the Miami RedHawks. Blasi's team had lost five in a row, but righted the ship with a pair of 2-1 wins at Alaska last weekend. More on them later.

Ferris Wrapup, Newsish Stuff, and a WMU Preview

Sorry for the lack of content. I'm out in Billings, MT for work so I've basically been in work-eat-bed mode.

Ferris Wrapup:
Michigan ended up completing the sweep of Ferris last weekend, winning the second game by a 4-0 margin. Shawn Hunwick made 24 stops, the Wolverines killed off 7 Ferris State power plays, and got goals from four different players.

Alex Guptill got things going 5 1/2 minutes into the game. Luke Moffatt threw him a nifty little between-the-legs pass to complete a give-and-go and Guptill roofed one.

In the second period, Travis Lynch and AJ Treais struck a couple of minutes apart to blow the game open. Bennett's shot from the point bounced around and Lynch took it right off Wohlberg's stick. It looked like it surprised Motte a little bit.

PDG then blocked a shot and took off the other way. He centered it for Chris Brown. A sprawling Motte kept it out of the net, but he knocked it right to Treais, who lifted it up over him into the net.

Later in the period that same trio struck again. This time it was Brown putting the puck in the net. Di Giuseppe fed Brown and he lasered one high up over the glove.

That was all the Wolverines needed. Ferris outshot the Wolverines 9-3 in the third period, but Hunwick was perfect and the Wolverines had a sweep of the #6 Bulldogs.

Travis Lynch was 13 and 2 in the faceoff circle. He has been a really pleasant surprise, though you could say that about any number of the freshmen.

Mock Drafts, Honors, and Suspensions:
It was a fairly eventful week off the ice.

Phil Di Giuseppe's OHL rights were traded from Niagara to Windsor as part of a big trade that also involved Jack Campbell. Windsor is clearly not the team you want your player to be on if you'd like to keep him in the NCAA. The thought seems to be that we don't have that much to worry about this season, but expect Windsor to take a run at him during the summer. It sounds like he was more of a guy they were taking a flier on, since he's clearly turned into a helluva find.

Speaking of PDG, he was named CCHA Rookie of the Month for October. He has 5-4--9 and a +9 rating in 8 games. Hunwick was honored as CCHA Goalie of the Month thanks to his 6-0-1 record with a 1.37 goals against and a .949 save percentage.

Di Giuseppe was also mentioned as a potential first round draft pick in a couple of mock drafts released by NHL.com. Jacob Trouba was cited as a top-ten pick in all three of them. Boo Nieves is listed as a mid-to-late first round pick in all three of the drafts. Di Giuseppe goes 11th in one of them and 28th in another.

Also check out the link above for a roundup of how our recruits have been doing this season.

Defenseman Jon Merrill was allowed to rejoin the team in practice, but has had his suspension extended from 12 games to "indefinite". Credit Red Berenson for having the balls to suspend arguably his best player for what appears to be half the season. Also, we don't know what he did, but credit Merrill for sticking it out. It would have been the easy move to sign with the Whalers, but it appears he really wants to be a Wolverine. Hopefully he can get everything straightened out off the ice and get back to being the ridiculous defenseman that we know he can be.

One player who has benefited from Merrill's absence is Mike Chiasson. The rookie blueliner is +14 and has not been on the ice for a single goal allowed this year. He also leads the team in blocked shots with 11. It's hard to believe that Michigan could have expected any more than what they're getting out of Chiasson. I was really impressed with him (Lynch, and Di Giuseppe as well) during the Niagara game, and they've all continued to be impressive as the season hits the 20% mark.

Stat Watching:
The Wolverines already have 12 players with 5+ points. If you would have told me that 8 games into the season Kevin Lynch, Zach Hyman, and Luke Moffatt would have combined for 3 goals, I would not have liked Michigan's chances to be ranked #3 right now and rank #2 in offense. They're getting goals from everywhere right now, and that's a great sign given that three of Michigan's really talented players haven't cranked it up in the goals column just yet (though 2 of them are still averaging .5 ppg, which certainly isn't bad...that projects to a 20-21 point season).

Hyman and Lynch look like the new Rust and Caporusso in the faceoff circle. How do you replace two of the best faceoff guys we've had? By bringing in two freshmen who are killer in the dot. Hyman is at 65.1% (!) right now. Lynch is just behind him at 62.1%.

WMU Preview:
This weekend Michigan welcomes in the fourth-ranked Western Michigan Broncos. They come in 5-0-3 under Head Coach Andy Murray. (Side note: Whoever gave Yale a first place vote should have their ballot rejected. Didn't we learn that lesson last year?) Western has played to a win and three ties on the road so far this year, a pair of ties against Union and a win/shootout win up in Alaska. They swept NMU last weekend at home.

WMU's 5-2 win over Michigan in the CCHA Tournament Semifinal last year snapped a 7-game Michigan winning streak in the series. Michigan has won 18 of the last 21. 

Chase Balisy returns after a 30-point freshman campaign. He currently leads the team with 3-6--9 on the young season. Classmate Shane Berschbach had 29 points last season and has 4-4--8 so far. Every skater who has dressed aside from Matt Stewart (one game played) has at least a point. Defenseman Matt Tennyson had 7 goals on the PP last season. He's yet to tally a PPG this year, but he does have 5 points. He'll be one to watch when we're down a man.

Junior Nick Pisellini and freshman Frank Slubowski have split the netminding duties so far this year. Pisellini is 2-0-2 with a 1.68/.931. Slubowski is 3-0-1 with a 1.47/.918. Pretty stout, the both of them. They haven't gone with the Friday/Saturday split. Pisellini got both games at Union and one at Alaska. Slubowski played both ends of the NMU sweep. Western actually held NMU to 29 shots the entire weekend.

They're the #12 offensive team and rank 4th on defense, giving up just 1.62 goals per game. Their power play is just 15% on the year, possibly because they haven't gotten Tennyson going just yet. The PK is at 88.6%.

If Michigan is going to get Kevin Lynch out of his slump, this might be the week to do it. He has 3-5--8 in 5 games against the Broncos. 

Friday night's game will air on Fox Sports Detroit, while Saturday's contest will be on Comcast Local.

Michigan 5, Ferris State 2

Jared Rutledge's commitment wasn't the only good news for the Wolverine hockey team tonight. On the ice, they downed the sixth-ranked Ferris State Bulldogs by a 5-2 margin. Coming in, the Bulldogs had allowed just 5 goals in the previous six games combined. In a battle of the #3 offense against the #1 defense, Michigan's offense got the upper hand tonight.

After a scoreless first period, the Wolverines put three on the board in just over five minutes in the middle of the second period.

On a Michigan power play, Phil Di Giuseppe scored his first of two on the night. Wohlberg's shot from the point hit a defenseman's glove and deflected to Chris Brown. Brown was able to corral the loose puck and slide it to the other side of the net where Di Giuseppe was waiting to bury it.

With the goalie pulled on a delayed penalty, Travis Lynch made it 2-0 as he tipped in a Bennett shot from the point. Then--thanks to the rule that if you score on a delayed penalty the violation still gets called--the Wolverines were able to capitalize again on the man advantage. This time it was David Wohlberg with a beeeeeautiful wrister up under the bar from just inside the top of the faceoff circle..

Ferris would close back within two on a couple of occasions but the Wolverines were able to answer. After Billins made it 3-1 on a nice rush, Derek DeBlois lasered one just under the crossbar for his first of the year. Ferris scored another power play goal to draw within two again with 7 minutes left, but Chris Brown passed up an empty-netter, feeding Di Giuseppe for the final margin of victory. That was a great all-around play by Brown, as his stick lift in the Michigan end prevented a scoring chance and got Michigan possession of the puck.

Shawn Hunwick made 28 stops in the win, as Michigan was outshot 30-28.

Lindsay Sparks now has 5-6--11 on the season and 3-5--8 during a five-game point streak. There are only two players in the country with more points than Sparks has. PDG is tied for the team lead in goals with 5. Kyle Rau is the only freshman in the country with more goals (6).

The Wolverines now have ten players with 5+ points on the season (and 3 more with four points apiece). Not bad for being 7 games in.

In other happy news, LSSU knocked off Miami in overtime. The RedHawks are now 2-5 overall and 0-3 in CCHA play.

The Wolverines and Bulldogs will resume their series tomorrow night at Yost. CJ Motte will likely get the start for Ferris State.

Having a Seat Over There: Jared Rutledge

For the third straight year, the Wolverines have picked up a commitment from an NTDP goalie. Like Jack Campbell and John Gibson before him, Jared Rutledge has verballed to Red Berenson. Hopefully unlike the other two, he will wear the Maize and Blue next season. He had been mentioned as a possibility for the Wolverines over a year and a half ago.

Rutledge is listed at 5'11", 167 lbs and like Connor Carrick, he hails from Illinois.

This season, he is 3-2-1 with a sparkling 2.34 goals against and a .918 save percentage.  His two losses have come against Michigan and Colorado College, two of the top 4 teams in the country. He made 33 stops against Michigan in a 3-1 loss and 38 against CC, though USA fell 5-0.

Last season with the U17s, he put up very solid numbers. He was 17-9-1 with a 2.57 goals against and a .905 save percentage. Internationally, in the Vlad Dzurilla tournament, he was 2-0-0 with a 1.00/.957 en route to the tournament title. He was in net for the final game and stopped 24 of 25 shots.

He was also 2-0-0 with a 2.00/.844 in the Four Nations Cup. In the World Under 17 Challenge, he was 3-1 with a 2.57/.844. The Americans fell 5-3 to Team Ontario in the gold medal game. Rutledge didn't get the start, but stopped 10 of 12 shots in about 48 minutes of relief work. One of the goals he allowed was on a penalty shot.

He played with the Chicago Young Americans prior to joining the NTDP and led the league in wins. His head coach said the following:

"His anticipation for what a shooter is going to do and his reading of a situation so he can best position himself in the net are definitely his strengths," Young Americans head coach Bruno Bragagnolo said. "He's able to analyze his weaknesses about as well as any goalie I've ever coached. And then I think his movement across the crease and his play out of the net are underrated." 

 The Skokie Review had a neat story about how his dad has helped his career along.

“I took (Jared) to NHL goalie coaches, read everything they wrote and watched every DVD. There was a tremendous amount to learn,” said Johnny, who works full-time in the music business. “I videotaped every one of Jared’s games, watched the videos and analyzed his game. It was an intensive training process. By the time (Jared) was 14 years old, I started backing off. By the time he was 15, I let him go.”

His dad now coaches other young goalies.

Dan Sallows, a scout for the Indiana Ice, had some kind things to say about him:

Rutledge is technically and positionally very sound, is excellent at controlling rebounds, handles the puck well, competes hard, has a good glove, doesn’t get phased on the rare occasion he does let in a bad goal, and is extremely good at anticipating the play. Though he isn’t overly big, he challenges exceptionally well, and makes life miserable for shooters.

I'd still imagine that Michigan will bring in a second freshman goalie for next season. I don't know that they'd risk the possibility of getting whammied three years in a row.

NMU Revisited and Ferris State Preview

The "top ranked" Wolverines went on the road for the first time to take on Northern Michigan last weekend. They lost on Friday night before rebounding with the first shootout win in program history on Saturday. That dropped them to a more-reasonable-but-still-probably-a-little-high #4 ranking.

Halfway through Friday night's game, Shawn Hunwick had made 17 saves and the score was 0-0. Hunwick was run into and reacted poorly. I haven't seen a video clip, but it looked like he clocked an NMU player with his blocker. He was given a 5-minute major penalty for contact to the head and was ejected. Luke Moffatt and Andrew Cherniwchan were also given fighting majors and game DQs in the altercation.

After the fight, NMU scored 4 goals on their next 14 shots. The Wolverine battled back from a 3-1 deficit to tie the game with under 4 minutes to play in regulation, but the Wildcats scored just over a minute later and added an empty netter to win 5-3. Sparks, Hyman, and T. Lynch scored for the Wolverines.

The next night, the Wolverines got out to a 2-0 lead behind goals from Treais and Sparks. NMU scored a pair of power play goals to tie the score, before Kevin Lynch put Michigan back ahead heading to the 2nd intermission. NMU tied it back up in the first minute of the third period and it stayed that way the rest of the game. Michigan had a power play for almost the entire overtime session but was unable to capitalize. Treais scored the only goal in the shootout, and Michigan was able to salvage two points on the weekend (out of six).

#6 Ferris State comes to town for a Thursday/Friday series at Yost. The Bulldogs are 6-0-0 on the season and just swept The Dynasty last weekend in Big Rapids, which helped them jump 8 spots in the USCHO poll and got them a first-place vote. They've given up just 5 goals in six games and held the high-powered Miami offense to a pair of goals.

One positive: The Bulldogs played a pair of games against St Lawrence (on the road) and beat them 4-2 (with an ENG) and 5-1 (in a game that was 3-1 with under 5 to play). Michigan beat them 10-3 at Yost. They then blanked RPI by 4-0 and 2-0 scores. Last weekend, the Bulldog duo of Tyler Nelson and CJ Motte out-dueled Cody Reichard and Connor Knapp.

The Bulldog power play was the difference in that series. They went 4 for 13 with the man advantage and held the RedHawks scoreless on 8 opportunities. Both of their goals in the 2-0 game came on the power play.

As you'd expect, since they've only given up 5 goals, the goaltenders have fantastic numbers. Nelson and Motte have split time this year and are both 3-0-0. Nelson has a 1.34/.943 and Motte has a ridiculous 0.33/.986(!).

Only 8 players have scored for FSU (which matches how many we had against SLU), but Travis Ouellette has 6 (second nationally with four on the PP) and Kyle Bonis has 5. They haven't gotten any goals out of their defensemen, but Chad Billins had 6 assists.

Overall, they're 14th nationally with 3.50 goals per game. Clearly 0.83 goals per game defensively is #1 in the nation. Only five other teams are even within a goal of that. The power play is humming along at 25% and they've given up just one goal on the penalty kill, which is good for 96.4%.

Easy Canvas Prints

I was recently invited to try out Easy Canvas Prints, a company that puts pictures on canvas. They suggested that I might like to blow up one of my photos from a Michigan hockey game. Unfortunately, when I was in school, I had a really crappy film camera, and replaced it with an okay Kodak Easyshare after hockey season my senior year. By the time I had a real disposable income to get a nice camera, I had moved away and have only gotten to a couple of hockey games since then.

One game that we had the nice camera at was the media game for The Big Chill at The Big House. I thought it would be fun to take the opportunity to blow up one of the photos that my fiancee took me there.

There's the finished product, and I think it's pretty awesome. The canvas is a really high quality, the colors pop, and they've got the ability to do some photo-shopping and other image-enhancing on your pictures if necessary. It's got a hanger built in as well.

I also had the option of having a solid border or having the photo wrap around. I went with the latter option, because it looks much cooler that way and luckily the photo was taken in a way that it wouldn't cut off any of my head or the logo on my jersey to do so.

It arrived at my doorstep less than a week after I placed the order, and it was packaged really well. It actually took me a little doing to get it out of the box!

According to their website, due to the archival-quality material that they use, even in direct sunlight, the canvas should last for "decades to come".

Their website will let you know if your file is of a good enough resolution to be blown up, and if it isn't, then they offer a service as minor-retouching to help increase the resolution. Magic.

So yeah, thanks to Easy Canvas Prints for the offer! I'm really happy with how my print turned out. I've always loved the look of art on canvas. I was actually thinking about getting a couple of prints done before this offer came along, so I was really excited to take advantage and get this one printed!