GLI Preview

After a disaster of a first-half, the Wolverines come back from the Christmas break looking to get back to the program's usual winning ways. A shutout win over Western Michigan to close the semester was a nice start. Now they'll take on Michigan Tech and either Michigan State or those same Broncos in the 48th Great Lakes Invitational.

The tournament was originally supposed to take place yesterday and today at Comerica Park, but because this is a lockout year in the NHL it was moved back indoors to the familiar confines of Joe Louis Arena and shifted to the current Saturday/Sunday format.

Michigan's first opponent is the Michigan Tech Huskies, and this will be the first time that Red Berenson has gone head-to-head against longtime assistant coach Mel Pearson, now the head man for the Huskies, as well as Assistant Coaches Steve Shields and Bill Muckalt.

In his first year, Pearson took the Huskies to just their second 15-win season since 98-99 with a 16-19-4 record, more wins than the previous three seasons combined. This year hasn't gone nearly as well, though. They currently sit at 4-10-3, bad for 11th in winning percentage in the WCHA. They do have a win over Minnesota to their credit. The other three have come against Bemidji State (2) and LSSU.

The Huskies are winless in their last seven contests. In their most recent action, they lost 6-1 and 4-1 at home against North Dakota. They've also only scored 7 goals in their last five games.

They're led in goals by sophomore Blake Pietila's 10. Pietila, however, is playing for Team USA at the World Junior Championships in Russia and will miss the GLI. To even things up, Michigan will be missing Jacob Trouba for the same reason. The Huskies' next leading goal-scorer is Dennis Rix with five. Both freshman Alex Petan and sophomore David Johnstone have 13 points on the season (4-9--13 lines) to lead the team. Petan has gone scoreless in his last five games, but Johnstone has been on fire. He has 10 points in his last eight games. All of Jujhar Khaira's 3 goals have come on the power play. Steven Seigo has 4 goals and 8 points on the blueline. They don't get a lot of offense out of the rest of them.

In net, they haven't been so dissimilar to Michigan. Freshman Pheonix (sic) Copley is 1-6-0 with a 4.36/.851 (this is the part where you say "Oh hell, those numbers are better than Rutledge's" and start cursing John Gibson and the bank account of the Kitchener Rangers*) and Jamie Phillips is 0-1. Senior Kevin Genoe is 3-3-3 with a 3.28/.902. Copley has only played one game since early November and has given up 3+ goals in every game he's played this year. Phillips's start was on 12/4, but it's been mostly Genoe over the last two months. I'm guessing we'll see Genoe because, yeah.

The Wolverines have won 10 in a row and 18 of 19 against Michigan Tech. All of the GLI games will air on either Fox Sports Detroit or FSD+.

On Sunday, the Wolverines will draw either the 5-10-2 Spartans or the 11-4-1 WMU Broncos, in a rematch of a really entertaining series at Yost from a couple of weeks ago. I'm not expert, but it seems like we're going to need all the PWR help we can get, so it'd be a nice boost to get wins over Michigan Tech (WCHA opponent) and Western Michigan (RPI, record against TUC), even if realistically the Wolverines are probably going to need to win the CCHA Tournament to make the NCAAs unless they get on a mega-run.

In other news, Mike Spath reported that Jon Merrill is skating with the team, and could return as soon as next weekend, pending the outcome of a doctor visit on 1/2. Again, that would be huge for Michigan's chances of getting this thing turned around. The defense has been part of the problem and adding one of the best defensemen in the country certainly helps with that.

Trouba is over in Russia at the World Junior Championships. Team USA is 1-1-0 after dropping a 2-1 decision to the host team today. Trouba has goals in both games, and was named Team USA's most outstanding player after today's game.

There have also been a couple of recruiting tidbits bandied about. Spath mentioned that the team is evaluating options in net for the future. As he said, it's too late for 2013 and they'd have to get cracking to find someone for 2014, but the play in net has been too poor and too inconsistent to chance it that one of the two will be the long-term answer. I still think it's too early to give up on either Racine or Rutledge (though I firmly think that Janecyk should be given every chance to steal the job). We saw how bad Sauer was when he started out and he was a pretty darn good goalie by the end of his time at Michigan. Some improved team defense combined with a couple of good outings in a row would probably do wonders. The problem is that they probably waited too long for them to play their way out of it and the margin for error is completely gone. Berenson has indicated that it isn't a given that Janecyk will get the start (he wanted to see something in practice today) but I'd be shocked if he's not between the pipes given how the season has gone for the freshmen and how Janecyk fared in his last start.

The other tidbit is that Keith Tkachuk and his son Matthew were at Yost visiting. Spath thinks there's maybe a 30-40% chance they land him.

*Because who likes people with money? I'm certainly not implying that the Rangers paid Gibson or did anything untoward in getting him to come play for them. Don't sue me, bro.

Wolverines Earn Split with Western

Yeah, you're damn right I found a picture of Janecyk from last year! (Thanks, Bill!)
Photo: Bill Rapai

On Friday night, the Wolverines were again beaten on their home ice in front of a national-television audience as the Broncos took a 4-1 victory. Michigan got off to a good start, registering the first six shots of the game, and then generated next to nothing else over the next 40 minutes or so. The Broncos tallied 21 of the next 25 shots in the game and built a 3-0 lead on goals by Ben Warda, Luke Witkowski, and Justin Kovacs. The Wolverines would draw back within two on Phil Di Giuseppe's second of the year, but despite a 13-3 shot advantage in the third period, they were unable to get the puck past Frank Slubowski again. Dane Walters added an empty-netter to reach the final margin of victory.

One the Broncos' first goal, Steve Racine was screened in front by Brennan Serville and Kovacs, but Warda's shot trickled through his five-hole as he went down. Then with the Broncos on the power play, Witkowski snuck in front the right point and Racine got most of his shot from the middle of the ice, but it had enough juice to make it over the goal line. I think he'd probably want both of those goals back even if he didn't really see the first one. It'd hard to see something go five-hole when you're already down on the ice and not sliding in one direction or the other. 

In the second, just to show that there's plenty of blame to go around, the team completely hung Racine out on the third goal. WMU had the puck around their own blueline and a good 3-4 of the Wolverines went for a line change, leaving Chiasson back by his lonesome. He couldn't do anything to take the pass away as Western hit the late man and Kovacs deked his way around Racine. 

Di Giuseppe had a really nice goal to give the Wolverines some life. He won a battle in the corner, then circled back out by the left dot. They got the pass to him and he ripped one into the top part of the net. That one looked like it felt really good. They need to get PDG going again. 

The story of the game may have come in the first period when the Wolverines had a long 5-on-3 power play. Not only did they not score, they didn't generate a shot on goal. Not only did they not generate a shot on goal, but WMU had the best scoring chance. On a breakaway. By a defenseman. Haar made a nice read and got to a pass in the direction of the point man that wasn't nearly had enough. He chipped it by and was off to the races. Racine forced him to go wide and Haar hit the post. 

Racine did make a few nice saves in the game, and 3 goals on 28 shots (especially with 9 of them on WMU's high-powered PP) isn't bad. This team isn't good enough right now, though, to overcome many goals period, let alone soft ones.

Now, I don't get to say "I told you so" very often. It's exceedingly rare as a matter of fact. But I was firmly on the "Give Janecyk a shot" bandwagon from about the 6th game on. I'm well aware that Michigan's problems are a lot greater in number than just the goaltender(s). We've seen it too many times in the past, though, how a new goalie can spark a team (Hunwick coming in three years ago) or how sometimes a team will play in front of one guy and not another (Billy Sauer's senior year). It was clear something had to change. You had two freshmen struggling to stop pucks with a sluggish team in front of them. At the end of the bench, though, you had a guy who was really solid in two of his three appearances last season, who has at least shown that he can keep the team in the game on a given night (and who has a nice goaltending pedigree in the family--his dad played about 100 games in net in the NHL). It made sense to me that you should throw him in to see if he can spark something.

On Saturday night Adam Janecyk finally got that chance. He made his first start of the season and it went really well. The game wasn't televised (at least not in Wisconsin), but from the sound of it it was one of the best team games they've played the entire season. Janecyk was solid between the pipes, making 25 saves in a 2-0 win, earning the #1 star for his first career shutout. He quickly credited the team's play in front of him, but part of the team playing well is having a goalie making the saves that he should make, and Janecyk did at least that. 

After two scoreless periods, Brennan Serville got the Wolverines on the board with the first of his career, a shot up under the bar after Copp's initial shot was blocked. 

One of the hidden plays that doesn't really show up in the boxscore but was critical in the game: Trouba tried a wraparound but slipped coming around the net and the puck laid right out in front. WMU had a chance to clear the zone, but PDG picked Haar's pocket and kept it in. He was hooked, which put Michigan on the power play. Trouba would blast one home to give the Wolverines some breathing room. It was a nothing play but Di Giuseppe makes a nice play, turns it into a power play chance, and Michigan finally was able to capitalize. PDG showed up in the highlights on quite a few occasions this weekend. Maybe the goal he had on Friday night helps get him going again.

They were able to complete the shutout and head into the GLI being able to feel good about themselves. And maybe, just maybe, they found the spark that will start the turnaround. 

What I really loved seeing was the confidence expressed on Twitter after the game, and the number of guys who voiced their happiness for Janecyk. (I especially loved seeing Rutledge and Racine tweet support for him. Pure class all the way out of those two. That's being a great teammate even when your own seasons haven't gone the way you'd want them to.)

They'll be off for a couple of weeks again. The next game will be against a struggling Michigan Tech team in the GLI, and then they'll either get WMU again or FYS in the championship/consolation game. This is a very, very winnable tournament, though Michigan will be without Jacob Trouba (World Juniors). Win the GLI and it could spark something in the second half. 

Their room for error is completely gone and they may have to win the CCHA Tournament even with a great second half, but at least for one night there's hope. They needed something to go right for them, and getting solid goaltending and a full team effort in taking down one of the better teams in the country just may be it. It's probably expecting too much for lightning to strike twice and for Janecyk to turn into another Hunwick, but if he can stabilize the back-end, maybe they can get this season turned around. They've still got problems. The power play is 1 for their last 34. There are still plenty of guys not producing offensively like they need to. But if you keep the goals against down to 2 or so, you're going to be in the game most nights. It all starts on defense and they got that phase working against a good offensive team. 

There's still a long way to go in order to right the ship, but I'm not quite ready to write them off just yet. Friday I was close. I really thought Janecyk was the last hope to get it turned around and it looks like he'll have a shot.

In other news, I picked the winner in my Verizon Droid RAZR HD giveaway. After picking a couple of numbers for ineligible entries (one person didn't comment about the device itself and one was my comment), here was the winning number:

Congrats to Holly Marie on winning the RAZR and the $50 Verizon gift card. Be sure to let me know how you like it! Thanks again to Verizon for offering my readers this opportunity. That was a lot of fun.

Just a reminder: I have a relationship with Verizon through their Midwest Sports Blogger program. They've given me a couple of devices and service for five months in exchange for bringing my readers my honest opinions about the devices. Periodically I get to do fun things like giveaways as well!

Verizon Wireless Giveaway - Win a Free Droid RAZR HD + Gift Card

As you all know, I'm a big fan of Verizon Wireless. They sponsor Will Power, my favorite racecar driver, I love their service, and earlier this year they offered me an opportunity to be a part of a group of bloggers who get to try out some of their devices for free in exchange for bringing our readers our honest opinions about them.

I've been playing with the Droid RAZR M for the past couple of months--I'll have a post coming before too long about that--and now they've given me a prize pack to give away to a lucky reader of this site: The winner will receive a new Droid RAZR HD as well as a $50 Verizon gift card. 

The RAZR HD launched as the most compact 4.7" smartphone on the market and contains such features as:

• An 8-megapixel camera and HD display that makes movies, photos, magazines and websites appear with vibrant clarity.
• Circles Widget makes it easy to view battery life, text notifications, missed calls or weather updates, right on the home screen.
• Near-field communications-enabled, so customers can use Android Beam to share contacts, documents and maps directly to compatible phones.
• A battery that allows for up to 32 hours of normal use and double the internal storage (of older RAZR phones) to 32 GB.
• Runs over 4G LTE, combined with Chrome for Android, meaning customers can enjoy blazing fast speeds that make downloading documents or surfing the Web a breeze.
• Device is Global Ready, so calling home or sending emails is possible from more than 205 countries around the world.

It's also built with Gorilla Glass and KEVLAR fiber, so it's a durable little bugger! 

In order to enter the sweepstakes, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post before December 14th (I'll cut off entries at 8 am CST on 12/14) that answers the question: "What Droid RAZR feature are you the most excited about?" 

To enter, you must be a resident of the United States. Also, given that I allow anonymous comments on this blog, you must either log-in to leave your comment in a way that includes your email address or otherwise leave me some way to get in touch if you win. Also, please only enter one giveaway and only leave one comment. Duplicate entries will be disqualified. 

Each comment will be numbered (comment 1 = #1) and at the end I will use a random number generator to pick the winner. I won't re-number the comments in the case of ineligible entries or comments that aren't actually entries into the contest, I'll just draw again should their comment number be pulled. And my decision is final.

I've really enjoyed using the RAZR that Verizon Wireless gave me earlier this year. It's fast to load everything, the service is awesome (even in the semi-rural area that I live in), the camera is solid, it's got a lot of memory, and the screen is really nice. It just got upgraded to Jellybean and that's an awesome operating system. 

The phone that I'm giving away a step up from the RAZR I've been using, so I'm sure whoever wins it will really enjoy it! 

Good luck to all, and thanks to Verizon!

Looking Ahead to Ferris

Photo: Bill Rapai

After a semi-fairly comfortable win over Bowling Green last Wednesday, Michigan traveled to Madison Square Garden to take on Cornell, the team that knocked them out of the postseason last year. They did not come away with the same result as their basketball-playing classmates, getting rolled 5-1 by a Cornell team that hadn't won in almost a month.

What do you even say at this point? Is the problem the goaltending? Team defense? An offense that's suddenly ice-cold and has fallen to 10th nationally? Unfortunately it's probably all of the above, which means there's a lot of work to do if the Wolverines are going to keep their NCAA-record tournament streak alive.

This week Michigan goes on the road for a two-game series against Ferris State. Last year's national runners-up is 6-4-2 on the season and sitting at 5-3-0-0 in the CCHA, which is good for a three-way tie for second place, one point behind Miami (or, more accurately, two games in the loss column behind Notre Dame). The Bulldogs are coming off their first sweep of the season, against Bowling Green, and have won three in a row. They've actually played an exceptionally weak schedule to this point (RPI, Mercyhurst, Alaska, Miami (the one tough opponent), LSSU, BGSU), so they may not be as strong as the CCHA standings indicate. RPI beat them and tied them, and just recently won another game.

The outstanding Taylor Nelson is no longer on the team, but they are still just fine in net. CJ Motte, brother of 2012-13 Michigan signee Tyler Motte, has played all but 20 minutes for the Bulldogs. He has a 2.20/.928 on the year. He hasn't given up more than 3 goals in a game, but he has done that on seven different occasions. He has shut out Miami twice in two years, so he can step it up when it matters. He posted very similar numbers a year ago, despite most of his action coming on the road.

Chad Billins (a 29 point-scorer from back on the blueline) is also gone, as is leading scorer Jordie Johnston. The Bulldogs' top returning scorer, Matthew Kirzinger, hasn't played all year. 19-goal scorer Kyle Bonis is back, and in fine form. He leads the team with a 6-5--11 line in 12 games, with 4 PPGs. Cory Kane had 11 points as a sophomore, but already has 9 this year. Simon Denis had 13 points in 30 games on defense last year. He's already got 8 points.

The Bulldogs rank 17th in scoring at 3 goals per game and 20th in defense at 2.5 goals per game. They're fifth on the power play, largely thanks to Bonis, at 25.6%. The PK is pretty good as well at 85%.

Michigan needs to start getting sweeps, but this feels like a split. And it feels like I'd be happy with that.

Ferris offers streaming video, so each game can be purchased for $7.95. Yup. Even a bitch-school like Ferris can offer streaming video..........

Wolverines Swept By Irish, Now 4-6-1

Trouba in happier times, against FYS
Photo: Bill Rapai

UGH.

After looking like they may have turned a corner with a 5-1 win over Michigan State last Friday night, the Wolverines have lost three straight and now find themselves two games below .500 and with an ugly 2-5-1-1 record in CCHA play, bad for 9th in the conference.

This past weekend, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish came into Yost and skated out with 3-1 and 4-1 victories, both of which were closer than the final score indicated, though that's small consolation. With something along the lines of 80 former players in town for the Yost rededication ceremony, that wasn't the weekend Michigan was hoping for.

On Thursday night in a nationally televised game, the Wolverines came out and played an excellent first period, They took a 1-0 lead on the first goal of Justin Selman's career after Robbie Russo's clearing attempt went right to him. Selman walked in alone and put one past Steve Summerhays and up under the bar. Shots were even at 9, but the Wolverines largely carried the play.

After that, though? It was all Notre Dame. Just as in the first period, the shots were even (13-13) but one team more or less dominated, that being the Irish. They tied the game up on a Mike Voran short-handed goal early in the second, and Michigan seemed fortunate to get out of the second period with the game tied. On the goal, the Irish took control deep in their end and hit on a long pass to Tynan at the far blueline. It looked like Michigan had gone for a change, so it was Voran and Tynan against one Wolverine. The pass got across and Voran blasted a one-timer past Racine.

In the third Michigan never seemed to get anything going in the offensive end. The Irish outshot Michigan by a 10-3 count and added two goals late in the contest to earn a 3-1 victory. Bryan Rust scored on a wraparound with just over five minutes left in regulation and then Peter Schneider was given credit for an insurance goal with about 1:30 remaining when a shot that was well wide deflected in off Mike Chiasson's shin pads. It's been that kind of season so far for Michigan.

Steve Racine made 29 saves in the loss and was decidedly not the problem. He was spectacular at times, keeping Michigan in a game that they had no business being in after the first period. He made a couple of fantastic post-to-post stops. At one point, I made the joke on Twitter that he had committed so many robberies that Mark Dantonio told him he could be on the practice field on Monday.

The Wolverines actually missed a few chances to get out of the first period with a much larger lead. Jacob Trouba ripped one off the post, Justin Selman just missed a post by a couple of inches on a puck that slid through the goalmouth, Boo deked his way to an empty net and had the puck roll off his stick, Copp rung one off the bar, and that was all in the first period. After that? I don't know what happened. The SHG had to be deflating, but they never mounted anything resembling an offensive attack the rest of the game.

The next night was pretty similar. We're 1-1 after two periods, shots are 15-12 Michigan, and things just came apart late in the third period. This time, the Irish scored 2 1/2 minutes apart to build a 3-1 lead and then added an empty-netter for the final margin of victory. Jacob Trouba scored unassisted for the Wolverines off another ND turnover. The puck rolled to the faceoff circle and Trouba absolutely uncorked one into the net. Michigan nearly took a lead when PDG came in on a partial breakaway, but after a nice move he hit it off both goalposts. Again, that kind of season.

The Irish regained the lead off a bad turnover by DeBlois that got dumped into the Michigan end, where Moffie had a brutal turnover behind the net. Rust centered it for Costello and he easily slid it by Racine. Mario Lucia added another goal when Chiasson tried to shovel the puck out of the slot and put it right onto Lucia's stick. He roofed one. No chance for Racine, and another home loss for Michigan, making 4 on the year.

On the plus side, Racine was really good in net Thursday night and you couldn't fault him for the goals that got past him Friday either. They also had tie games deep in the third period against a really solid Notre Dame team when they weren't really playing that well. I suppose that's a positive, even though both games got away really quickly.

In the minus column? Sloppy turnovers and absolutely nothing in the way of offense outside of the first period Thursday. (I didn't see Friday's game, but there weren't a whole lot in the way of highlights of scoring chances, outside of one Selman look.) Both goals were off bad ND turnovers, so they didn't create a whole lot on their own.

It's still only a quarter of the way through the season and there's plenty of time to right the ship (North Dakota does this every year, seemingly). But with a road-heavy schedule in the second half, they really need to start playing better sooner rather than later.

Michigan returns to the ice on Wednesday for a single game at Yost against Bowling Green. The Falcons have struggled this year, but they do have Andrew Hammond in net, so they're always an upset threat. They haven't scored more than 3 all season, so hopefully this will be a good way for Michigan's beleaguered defense to get back to playing sound hockey in their own end. There is no more College Hockey Showcase, but the Wolverines will head to Madison Square Garden to play Cornell on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Hopefully the Maize and Blue faithful will get to see three wins at MSG this holiday week, with the basketball team playing there twice as well.

Last thing: The signing period is underway and the Wolverines have recieved LOIs from Evan Allen, Bryson Cianfrone, and Michael Downing at the very least. Those are the three that have posted on Twitter that they've signed. Allen, though, is said to be considering going the OHL route. Unfortunately one of the usual suspects, Windsor, holds Allen's rights, so I'm sure that's a battle that will be going until the very end.

Zach Hyman will be playing in the Maccabiah Games, the "Jewish Olympics", over the summer.

Michigan State Preview

Wrapping up NMU:
Michigan took just two points against the Northerns last weekend, and they were probably lucky to get that much. On Friday night they trailed 4-1 after two periods before mounting a miracle comeback that culminated in AJ Treais's goal with 0.6 seconds left in regulation. Michigan then won in a shootout on another Treais goal. Saturday it was more of the same. The Wolverines trailed 4-1 after two for the second straight night and for the second straight night they mounted a comeback. They fell just short, however, by a 4-3 score.

The big story of the weekend was Jacob Trouba getting a five-minute major and a DQ for absolutely wrecking Reed Seckel. Video has surfaced:

With the way the game is called these days and with the emphasis on preventing concussions, that's going to be a DQ. Truth be told, though, the guy has his head down, he's leaning forward, and Trouba is a big dude to start with. He's going to hit him in the head whether he wants to or not. I get that they are putting the onus on the hitter to do it safely and with the way the rule reads that's the right call, but man....get your head up, son.

That's the way I skate, and I could never play in a checking league because I would die within five minutes. I don't have a problem with the DQ and subsequent game suspension, especially because the hit was with just over five minutes left in regulation, but if he had gotten any more than that I wouldn't have been happy. It's going to end up being just like in the early 2000s when they ejected players for any hit from behind, no matter how insignificant it was. I remember Porter getting tossed for one that was just comical.

In other news, AJ Treais has seven goals in seven games, which puts him third nationally in that category behind guys from Dartmouth and Yale. So that puts him first nationally in that category. Only Giancarlo Iuorio from Niagara has more goals. Mac Bennett is second national in points per game amongst defensemen with 9. Trouba is first amongst rookie defensemen and 6th nationally amongst freshmen in points per game. And destroyed Northerns.

So. Remember in my season preview when I wrote this:

What I'm getting at is that this isn't likely to be a Michigan team that is going to win games 5-4. The strength of this team is unquestionably the blueline as opposed to having blue-chip talent up front or a Hobey-candidate between the pipes.

That couldn't possibly have been more wrong. Currently the Wolverines rank first in the nation, scoring a whopping 4.43 goals per game. The downside? They're 50th nationally allowing 3.43 goals per game.

Jared Rutledge will be back between the pipes Friday night and we're going to see what he's made of. It's hard to imagine more pressure being on a young goalie in a regular season game in the second month of the season. He needs a good performance and it's a rivalry game against FYS. I really hope the crowd is supportive and doesn't get on him or get audibly anxious if he gives up a bad goal in the early going.

The Spartans rank 38th in offense (2.50 goals per game) and 39th in defense at 3.00 goals per game. As I'm sure you can imagine with numbers like those, it hasn't been a good start to the year for the young Spartan team, which features just four NHL draft picks. Minnesota did to them in their opening weekend what Alabama did to our football team. The only difference is our players weren't on Twitter saying that Jerry Sandusky would be proud of what Minnesota was doing and saying that Mike Szuma could play goal for them. Since then, they earned a win and a tie against Niagara before splitting with LSSU and BGSU.

They're led offensively by sophomore Matt Berry and freshman Matt DeBlouw, a draft pick of Calgary, with 3-4--7 lines in the eight games they've played. They combined for 8 of those 14 points in their 6-1 win over BGSU last Saturday. All of Berry's goals have come with the man advantage. In fact, 9 of FYS's 20 goals have come with an extra attacker. Their PP is 25.7%, good for 9th nationally. The PK is 23rd at 85.7%.

The Spartans also have a freshman named David Bondra. Like, Bondra Bondra, son of 2x 50-goal scorer and former Detroit Viper Peter Bondra. He has 1 assist in 8 games.

On the blueline, freshman John Draeger has chipped in with four points. Matt Grassi is their senior leader. In net, DREW PALMISANO IS FROM ANN ARBOR has graduated. Will Yanakeff WHO ALSO PLAYED IN ANN ARBOR AT USA is still there and is 2-3-1 with an ugly 3.49/.884, which was no doubt hurt by that awful weekend against the Gophers. Freshman Jake Hildebrand is 1-1-0 with a 1.72/.938. He picked up a win against the Lakers and was in net for a 1-0 loss to Bowling Green last weekend.

Friday night's game is at Yost. Saturday's game will be at the Munn Memorial Library. Both games will air on Comcast, grumble grumble.

As always, FYS.

NMU Preview

Jack-O-Latern Johnson (courtesy of my friend Natalie) 

Michigan travels to Marquette this weekend to face their first road test of the season with a pair of games against the Northerns. #20 NMU is 3-3-0-0 on the young season with a sweep of Wisconsin, a split at Nebraska-Omaha, and a 5-2, 3-2 sweep at the hands of Notre Dame last weekend. They follow that up with a series against Michigan and then a series vs. Miami. Who'd they piss off in the CCHA office? Yikes.

The Wolverines will be without Brennan Serville this weekend. He's not making the trip and Red said he has a "facial concussion", whatever the hell that means. Mike Szuma will dress, and it's especially critical that no defensemen get hurt, as the Wolverines are once again back down to six.

Steve Racine will get the nod on Friday night and apparently if he plays well he'll go again on Saturday. Take that for what you will.

As far as the Wildcats go, Junior Jared Coreau is manning the nets full-time this year after Reid Ellingson graduated. Coreau was gradually stealing playing time away last year and now he's the unquestioned #1. Despite his current 2.78/.907, he's a hoss. Last year he went 12-7-2 with a 2.22/.928. Michigan got to him last year, however, scoring 7 goals on 56 shots in a win and a tie.

Back on the blueline, the Wildcats return their entire defense corps from a year ago, including CJ Ludwig, son of NHL veteran Craig and the winner of NMU's top defenseman award a year ago. Kyle Follmer had 4-22--26 a year ago and was named to this year's CCHA Preseason Second Team.

Matt Thurber put up thirty points last year and he's off to another good start this year, with 6 points in as many games (1-5--6). Sophomore Ryan Daugherty has already matched last year's goal total (3) to tie for the team lead with freshman Cohen Adair, a big forward out of the BCHL who has been a pleasant surprise.

NMU's power play is 2/22 on the season and they've allowed a short-handed goal, so their net total is actually under 5%. (Speaking of, Quinnipiac is 0/24 and have allowed 4 short-handed goals. Ouch.) The PK is 17 for 20.

A year ago, AJ Treais had 2-3--5 in four games against NMU. Lindsay Sparks and Lee Moffie also averaged a point a game. Moffie leads the Wolverines with six career points against the Wildcats. No Wildcat player has scored more than two against Michigan.

Unlike SOME SCHOOLS THAT I KNOW OF, Northern offers streaming video of their games for $7. You can also buy a season pass for $75, and if you're reading this blog, don't have season tickets, and claim that you wouldn't fork out that much for a Michigan version of the same thing, I will call you a damn liar. It's 2012 and this is Michigan fergodsakes. We shouldn't have less access to video of games than Northern Michigan fans. Just saying.

Other Stuff:
-The Daily caught up with Shawn Hunwick, who is playing for the South Carolina Stingrays in the ECHL.
-Mike Legg's goal made #7 on Sportscenter's list of the Top Ten Trick Plays of all-time. Too low, but it was also the only hockey representation on the list. #1 was the Music City Miracle.