Thursday, October 30, 2008
Porter Gets Goal #1
Congrats to Kevin Porter on his first NHL goal! He scored the 3rd Phoenix goal in their 4-1 win over Pittsburgh tonight. Cammalleri, Hilbert and Knuble also scored tonight. The NHL Wolverines have had a pretty good week.
10 Things to Know About tOSU
Aside from the things we all know (the fact that their fans are animals and they're a bunch of inbreds down there), here are 10 things to know about Ohio State.
1) OSU hasn't been above .500 since 2004-05 when they lost to Michigan in the CCHA Championship Game and fell to Cornell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Since then, they haven't won more than 15 games and were a horrible 12-25-4 last year (note: that's worse than what Michigan's record would have been if you removed every single goal that Porter, Kolarik and Pacioretty scored). This year, they're off to a 2-3-1 start (1-2-1-1 in their four CCHA games, and yes the new record format is annoying as hell).
2) They haven't gone about the 2-3-1 record the way you'd think. They split with Miami (though one of the wins was in a shootout, so it counts as a tie in the national standings and a shootout win (the "1" that's listed in the third and fourth column) in the CCHA standings) with each team winning their home game, split with LSSU at home, and then went on the road and split with the Denver Pioneers, who had been scoring goals like crazy. They showed some moxie in their win against Denver. They trailed 3-1 late in the second period before scoring three goals in the final 21 minutes to get a big W on the road.
3) It's kind of hard to figure out their goaltending situation. Joe Palmer has carried the load the past two seasons and he didn't put up overly horrible numbers (GAA right around 3, save percentage around 89, which isn't awful for a terrible team). He was a big-time recruit out of the NTDP (and I once ripped Holland for picking Daniel Larsson over him in the Draft; another in a long line of things I've been horribly wrong about). This season he's been yanked twice in his three starts, giving up 4 goals on 20 shots in each of them. He didn't even play against Denver. Sophomore Dustin Carlson has started two games, with a win (vs. LSSU) and a loss (against Denver, where he made 33 stops). He came in in relief for Palmer against LSSU and got himself yanked after giving up 2 goals on 6 shots. Freshman Cal Heeter then came in to mop up. He actually got their win against Denver, stopping 36 shots in his lone start of the season. So who will we see? Good question. Palmer won in Yost last year and Heeter is coming off a big win on the road last week. I say we see each of them.
4) Up front, senior Cory Elkins has led the way with 4-2--6 in 6 games. Peter Boyd, super freshman Zac Dalpe, and John Albert each have multiple goals thusfar.
5) They're a young team. Out of the ten players who have scored goals thusfar, just one is older than a sophomore. Just two of the 14 point getters are older than a sophomore. Boyd and Kyle Reed both had 10 goals as freshmen, the only returning Buckeyes who had double-digit goals last year. Boyd also led the team in game winners last year with four.
6) At the moment, OSU is in a tie for 20th in offense, with 3.00 goals per game. The power play matches their offensive rank, 20th, at 15.8%. They're 48th in defense, however, giving up a whopping 4.17 gpg. Strangely enough, their penalty killing matches their defensive rank, at just 74.4%. They've scored one shortie.
Sidenote: I have no idea how useful the "Combined special teams" stat actually is (I suspect not very), but Michigan is second-worst in the country at the moment, with a 38.1% success rate. Only Army is worse.
7) The Wolverines and Buckeyes have each played six games and they have the same exact number of PIMs, 121, good for 20.2 minutes per game.
8) The Wolverines lead the all-time series 61-28-11. The Buckeyes have earned splits their last two trips to Yost, however.
9) Tim Miller is our leading career scorer against OSU with 3-2--5 in six career games. Aaron Palushaj had three assists in our two meetings with the Buckeyes last year. Avert your eyes. Billy Sauer is 1-2-0 in his career against Ohio State, with a 4.65 goals against and an .835 save percentage. In his no decision, he gave up 5 goals on 26 shots before being lifted in favor of Noah Ruden just over a minute into the third period with the game 5-4 OSU. Michigan tied it up, Ruden then gave up a goal and took the loss. Bryan Hogan played the Saturday game against OSU last year and stopped a penalty shot en route to 26 saves and a win in his first career start.
10) Freshman defender Sean "Puff" Duddy hails from Ann Arbor. He played his junior hockey with the Wichita Falls Wildcats, whoever they are. Steven West (NTDP) and Corey Elkins (Sioux City) are also Michiganders. Erick Belanger is reppin' the Buckstache. It's a good one too.
That, my friends, is a solid Buckstache. And no, I wouldn't say that to his face. That's a big, scary-looking dude.
Tomorrow night's game will be shown on MGoBlue.com and I've been told that they will start archiving games. The tricky part, for me, is going to be getting to the archived video feed without seeing the score. Saturday night's game will air on Comcast 900 (or on the NHL Network if you're in Canada), with a reair on the Amercian NHL Network Sunday morning.
1) OSU hasn't been above .500 since 2004-05 when they lost to Michigan in the CCHA Championship Game and fell to Cornell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Since then, they haven't won more than 15 games and were a horrible 12-25-4 last year (note: that's worse than what Michigan's record would have been if you removed every single goal that Porter, Kolarik and Pacioretty scored). This year, they're off to a 2-3-1 start (1-2-1-1 in their four CCHA games, and yes the new record format is annoying as hell).
2) They haven't gone about the 2-3-1 record the way you'd think. They split with Miami (though one of the wins was in a shootout, so it counts as a tie in the national standings and a shootout win (the "1" that's listed in the third and fourth column) in the CCHA standings) with each team winning their home game, split with LSSU at home, and then went on the road and split with the Denver Pioneers, who had been scoring goals like crazy. They showed some moxie in their win against Denver. They trailed 3-1 late in the second period before scoring three goals in the final 21 minutes to get a big W on the road.
3) It's kind of hard to figure out their goaltending situation. Joe Palmer has carried the load the past two seasons and he didn't put up overly horrible numbers (GAA right around 3, save percentage around 89, which isn't awful for a terrible team). He was a big-time recruit out of the NTDP (and I once ripped Holland for picking Daniel Larsson over him in the Draft; another in a long line of things I've been horribly wrong about). This season he's been yanked twice in his three starts, giving up 4 goals on 20 shots in each of them. He didn't even play against Denver. Sophomore Dustin Carlson has started two games, with a win (vs. LSSU) and a loss (against Denver, where he made 33 stops). He came in in relief for Palmer against LSSU and got himself yanked after giving up 2 goals on 6 shots. Freshman Cal Heeter then came in to mop up. He actually got their win against Denver, stopping 36 shots in his lone start of the season. So who will we see? Good question. Palmer won in Yost last year and Heeter is coming off a big win on the road last week. I say we see each of them.
4) Up front, senior Cory Elkins has led the way with 4-2--6 in 6 games. Peter Boyd, super freshman Zac Dalpe, and John Albert each have multiple goals thusfar.
5) They're a young team. Out of the ten players who have scored goals thusfar, just one is older than a sophomore. Just two of the 14 point getters are older than a sophomore. Boyd and Kyle Reed both had 10 goals as freshmen, the only returning Buckeyes who had double-digit goals last year. Boyd also led the team in game winners last year with four.
6) At the moment, OSU is in a tie for 20th in offense, with 3.00 goals per game. The power play matches their offensive rank, 20th, at 15.8%. They're 48th in defense, however, giving up a whopping 4.17 gpg. Strangely enough, their penalty killing matches their defensive rank, at just 74.4%. They've scored one shortie.
Sidenote: I have no idea how useful the "Combined special teams" stat actually is (I suspect not very), but Michigan is second-worst in the country at the moment, with a 38.1% success rate. Only Army is worse.
7) The Wolverines and Buckeyes have each played six games and they have the same exact number of PIMs, 121, good for 20.2 minutes per game.
8) The Wolverines lead the all-time series 61-28-11. The Buckeyes have earned splits their last two trips to Yost, however.
9) Tim Miller is our leading career scorer against OSU with 3-2--5 in six career games. Aaron Palushaj had three assists in our two meetings with the Buckeyes last year. Avert your eyes. Billy Sauer is 1-2-0 in his career against Ohio State, with a 4.65 goals against and an .835 save percentage. In his no decision, he gave up 5 goals on 26 shots before being lifted in favor of Noah Ruden just over a minute into the third period with the game 5-4 OSU. Michigan tied it up, Ruden then gave up a goal and took the loss. Bryan Hogan played the Saturday game against OSU last year and stopped a penalty shot en route to 26 saves and a win in his first career start.
10) Freshman defender Sean "Puff" Duddy hails from Ann Arbor. He played his junior hockey with the Wichita Falls Wildcats, whoever they are. Steven West (NTDP) and Corey Elkins (Sioux City) are also Michiganders. Erick Belanger is reppin' the Buckstache. It's a good one too.
That, my friends, is a solid Buckstache. And no, I wouldn't say that to his face. That's a big, scary-looking dude.
Tomorrow night's game will be shown on MGoBlue.com and I've been told that they will start archiving games. The tricky part, for me, is going to be getting to the archived video feed without seeing the score. Saturday night's game will air on Comcast 900 (or on the NHL Network if you're in Canada), with a reair on the Amercian NHL Network Sunday morning.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Moffie USHL Defensive Player of the Week
Lee Moffie is kinda good. He was named Defensive Player of the Week in the USHL after helping Waterloo to two wins over the weekend. He had a goal and an assist in a 6-5 OT win Friday night and a pair of assists (including one on the game winner) in a 3-2 overtime victory on Saturday.
He's now tied for the USHL lead in scoring amongst defensemen with a 2-5--7 line in six games so far this year.
He's now tied for the USHL lead in scoring amongst defensemen with a 2-5--7 line in six games so far this year.
Monday, October 27, 2008
BU 7, Michigan 2
I have to admit, even though I was looking forward to this game the entire week, I didn't pay much attention when it came on. It was a massive kick in the junk that CN8 didn't stream the game like they did last year, and by the time I finally decided that it just wasn't gonna happen, we were down 2-0 and I was getting the same feeling I got during the Friday game up at Northern. I went to get some food, came back to find it was 4-0, and said "Peace."
This game was won and lost on the special teams. Michigan did manage to put in two power play goals after the game was pretty much decided, but that was on a whopping 12 PP opportunities. On those twelve chances, they managed just nine shots on goal. Michigan had three opportunities with the man advantage before the Terriers put in their first goal, but nothing came of them.
The Terriers on the other hand had 9 power plays, took 16 shots at the Michigan net, and scored five of their seven goals with the man advantage (it would have been six, but a Greg Pateryn penalty ended just two seconds before the puck ended up in our net). The PK had been pretty darn good for most of the season. It clearly wasn't on Saturday. I get what they're going for with this two-ref system, but I really don't want to watch games with 21 power plays between the teams. I doubt our fourth-liners like it too much either.
This is interesting: You're not going to find out anything from the +/- stats (and there are limits to that stat anyway) in a game when 7 of the 9 goals came on the power play, but look at who was on the ice for the BU goals:
Forwards:
Glendening-3
Fardig-3
Wohlberg-3
Winnett-2
Czarnik-1
Rust-1
Miller-1
Caporusso-1
Defense:
Vaughan-4
Llewellyn-3
Elmblad-2
Summers-2
Langlais-2
Pateryn-1
What's interesting about that to me is that the guys who you would expect to be our top penalty killing forwards (Rust and Hagelin) were out there for a combined 1 goal against. The defense was victimized pretty equally, but it seems that it was more "second PK unit" type forwards (or guys that don't usually kill penalties) that were out there for the goals. I'm sure the main guys were playing a ton of minutes due to the number of power plays, so that could have been part of it, but I wouldn't read too much into this disaster.
Tristin Llwellyn and Chris Summers both would have been ejected for too many penalties if this was beer league hockey. They put the Terriers up a man three times apiece. Speaking of ejections, Brian Lebler will have to sit Friday night after getting tossed for a fight with Vinny Saponari late in the third period. That would have been the only good thing about purchasing the PPV for this game.
Other positives: Caporusso kept rolling and continued his dominance in the faceoff circle (he's now 64.2% on the year(!), Czarnik got his first as a Wolverine, and I haven't heard of any players getting power-bombed over the weekend. That's about it.
I'll reserve judgement on the goalies since I didn't see the game and being that 5 goals were on the power play, there's at least a decent chance that they weren't really to blame. But our goalies have combined for (cover your eyes) an .869 save percentage so far this season. Yuck.
How bad was it? Bad enough that Michigan put just 7 even-strength shots on net the entire game, and 17 total.
It's definitely no time to panic, but it's certainly disappointing that they didn't bring it and give themselves a chance to pick up the future PWR benefits associated with winning our lone game against a HockeyEast team.
It's certainly looking like there will be no dominant team in the CCHA this year. Michigan looked pitiful against BU, MSU has lost to UMass-Lowell and has needed great play out of Lerg to have the record they've got, Notre Dame just got swept at home by a Miami team that took just 1 point from Vermont, and NMU failed to make the statement that "We're for real and we're going to contend" by splitting with Michigan at home and taking just a single point against MSU. Omaha and Miami are the only CCHA teams with less than two losses in the national standings, and Omaha hasn't played anyone.
Then again, Denver lost at home to OSU, CC tied Clarkson twice, UNH got throttled by St. Lawrence (who appears to be much better than everyone thought before the season), NoDak is 1-3, Wisconsin is 0-5-1 (on the bright side, they'd probably be like #6 in the PWR), and BC lost to Northeastern (granted Northeastern is 5-0-1, but it's still Northeastern). BU and Minnesota aside, pretty much all the usual powers have had games that they would like to have back in the early-going. Pretty interesting.
We fell to #8 in the latest edition of the USCHO poll. That's fine...
OSU this weekend. Friday night's game will be on MGoBlue.com, with Saturday's game on Comcast 900.
Other links of note:
The Hockey News interviewed me about the Steve Kampfer situation.
HSR live-blogged the Niagara game and caught what was the funniest moment of the night: A feature on the Buffalo Sabres' owner, who donated $10 million to the school. They presented him with a Niagara sweatshirt. I would've gone for the "I donated $10 million to Niagara and all I got was this stupid sweatshirt" text, but that's just me. Hopefully they at least validated his parking...
MHNet actually paid some attention to the game, which is more than I can say. He provides a much better recap.
The Daily also put up a couple of stories about the bad loss to BU: The game recap and an article about the goalie switch not really helping. Berenson said the first goal was a bad rebound but didn't blame the goalies after that. He said he made the goalie switch because "you can't pull the whole team".
Dwight Helminen has been called up to the Carolina Hurricanes and should make his NHL debut tomorrow night against Montreal.
This game was won and lost on the special teams. Michigan did manage to put in two power play goals after the game was pretty much decided, but that was on a whopping 12 PP opportunities. On those twelve chances, they managed just nine shots on goal. Michigan had three opportunities with the man advantage before the Terriers put in their first goal, but nothing came of them.
The Terriers on the other hand had 9 power plays, took 16 shots at the Michigan net, and scored five of their seven goals with the man advantage (it would have been six, but a Greg Pateryn penalty ended just two seconds before the puck ended up in our net). The PK had been pretty darn good for most of the season. It clearly wasn't on Saturday. I get what they're going for with this two-ref system, but I really don't want to watch games with 21 power plays between the teams. I doubt our fourth-liners like it too much either.
This is interesting: You're not going to find out anything from the +/- stats (and there are limits to that stat anyway) in a game when 7 of the 9 goals came on the power play, but look at who was on the ice for the BU goals:
Forwards:
Glendening-3
Fardig-3
Wohlberg-3
Winnett-2
Czarnik-1
Rust-1
Miller-1
Caporusso-1
Defense:
Vaughan-4
Llewellyn-3
Elmblad-2
Summers-2
Langlais-2
Pateryn-1
What's interesting about that to me is that the guys who you would expect to be our top penalty killing forwards (Rust and Hagelin) were out there for a combined 1 goal against. The defense was victimized pretty equally, but it seems that it was more "second PK unit" type forwards (or guys that don't usually kill penalties) that were out there for the goals. I'm sure the main guys were playing a ton of minutes due to the number of power plays, so that could have been part of it, but I wouldn't read too much into this disaster.
Tristin Llwellyn and Chris Summers both would have been ejected for too many penalties if this was beer league hockey. They put the Terriers up a man three times apiece. Speaking of ejections, Brian Lebler will have to sit Friday night after getting tossed for a fight with Vinny Saponari late in the third period. That would have been the only good thing about purchasing the PPV for this game.
Other positives: Caporusso kept rolling and continued his dominance in the faceoff circle (he's now 64.2% on the year(!), Czarnik got his first as a Wolverine, and I haven't heard of any players getting power-bombed over the weekend. That's about it.
I'll reserve judgement on the goalies since I didn't see the game and being that 5 goals were on the power play, there's at least a decent chance that they weren't really to blame. But our goalies have combined for (cover your eyes) an .869 save percentage so far this season. Yuck.
How bad was it? Bad enough that Michigan put just 7 even-strength shots on net the entire game, and 17 total.
It's definitely no time to panic, but it's certainly disappointing that they didn't bring it and give themselves a chance to pick up the future PWR benefits associated with winning our lone game against a HockeyEast team.
It's certainly looking like there will be no dominant team in the CCHA this year. Michigan looked pitiful against BU, MSU has lost to UMass-Lowell and has needed great play out of Lerg to have the record they've got, Notre Dame just got swept at home by a Miami team that took just 1 point from Vermont, and NMU failed to make the statement that "We're for real and we're going to contend" by splitting with Michigan at home and taking just a single point against MSU. Omaha and Miami are the only CCHA teams with less than two losses in the national standings, and Omaha hasn't played anyone.
Then again, Denver lost at home to OSU, CC tied Clarkson twice, UNH got throttled by St. Lawrence (who appears to be much better than everyone thought before the season), NoDak is 1-3, Wisconsin is 0-5-1 (on the bright side, they'd probably be like #6 in the PWR), and BC lost to Northeastern (granted Northeastern is 5-0-1, but it's still Northeastern). BU and Minnesota aside, pretty much all the usual powers have had games that they would like to have back in the early-going. Pretty interesting.
We fell to #8 in the latest edition of the USCHO poll. That's fine...
OSU this weekend. Friday night's game will be on MGoBlue.com, with Saturday's game on Comcast 900.
Other links of note:
The Hockey News interviewed me about the Steve Kampfer situation.
HSR live-blogged the Niagara game and caught what was the funniest moment of the night: A feature on the Buffalo Sabres' owner, who donated $10 million to the school. They presented him with a Niagara sweatshirt. I would've gone for the "I donated $10 million to Niagara and all I got was this stupid sweatshirt" text, but that's just me. Hopefully they at least validated his parking...
MHNet actually paid some attention to the game, which is more than I can say. He provides a much better recap.
The Daily also put up a couple of stories about the bad loss to BU: The game recap and an article about the goalie switch not really helping. Berenson said the first goal was a bad rebound but didn't blame the goalies after that. He said he made the goalie switch because "you can't pull the whole team".
Dwight Helminen has been called up to the Carolina Hurricanes and should make his NHL debut tomorrow night against Montreal.
Friday, October 24, 2008
10 Things to Know About Boston University
1) Boston comes into Saturday's game at 3-1-0 on the season. They slaughtered North Dakota 5-1 in the season opener, beat MSU 2-1 in a game where they outshot MSU 29-13, beat Merrimack, and then dropped a 2-1 decision at New Hampshire. Like Michigan, they won't play tomorrow night.
2) Nick Bonino leads the team in scoring with a 2-4--6 line in four games. I remember being really impressed with him last year when they came to yost. Six guys have at least three points thusfar, including defenseman Colby Cohen, who has 4 assists. Top returning scorer Colin Wilson has 1-2--3. He had 12-23--35 last year as a freshman, which was good for 9th amongst NCAA rookies.
3) Brett Bennett went back to the USHL and Karson Gillespie graduated, so they've got two freshman goalies and both are off to good starts. Kieran Millan is 2-0 with a 1.50 GAA and a .938, while Grant Rollheiser is 1-1 with a 1.51 and a .919. They've alternated games thusfar. It's Millan's turn in the rotation, so we'll probably see him.
4) They closed last season on a tear, winning 11 of their last 14 and just missing out on the NCAA Tournament, despite being one of the hottest teams in the country by the end of the season. Their slow start doomed them. They lost their two top scorers from a year ago, but still return a lot of good players. I expect they're going to be tough this year.
5) They were sixth in the country in offense (3.38 gpg) and 36th in defense (2.92 gpg) a year ago. The power play was pretty good at 20.5% (though they gave up 6 shorties, which would take their net power play down to 17.4) but the penalty kill was awful. They ranked 54th in the country at just 78.5% and only scored 2 shorties of their own.
6) Currently they're 20th in offense (3.25 goals per game), 8th in defense (1.50 gpg), 10% on the power play, and 87.5% on the PK (though they're 93.8% if you factor in their two shorties).
7) Michigan has won 3 in a row against the Terriers (including two last year) and leads the all-time series 13-8. Matt Rust had a pair of goals last year and Billy Sauer gave up 4 goals on 56 shots in the two games.
8) Colby Cohen is Jeremy Bloom's cousin. Speaking of family members, there are two sets of brothers on BU. Captain Matt Gilroy's younger brother Kevin is a freshman this year, and Vinny Saponari (from the NTDP) joins his older brother Victor. Matt Gilroy wears #97 in honor of his brother Timmy, who passed away in 1993, but wore #97 when he and Matt were on the same line in youth hockey.
9) If there's another program that recruits the NTDP as well as Michigan, it's BU who has seven players from the US National program.
10) The game won't be aired locally, but it is on CN8 in Boston and you can watch via PPV on BU's website for $7.95. Of course, the other option is to go to CN8's website, lie and say you're from the New England area (clicking the Connecticut link works for me), and then click "Watch Live" and you should be able to view the game on your computer. It worked for me last year when they aired one of the games from Yost. But you didn't hear that from me. ;-)
2) Nick Bonino leads the team in scoring with a 2-4--6 line in four games. I remember being really impressed with him last year when they came to yost. Six guys have at least three points thusfar, including defenseman Colby Cohen, who has 4 assists. Top returning scorer Colin Wilson has 1-2--3. He had 12-23--35 last year as a freshman, which was good for 9th amongst NCAA rookies.
3) Brett Bennett went back to the USHL and Karson Gillespie graduated, so they've got two freshman goalies and both are off to good starts. Kieran Millan is 2-0 with a 1.50 GAA and a .938, while Grant Rollheiser is 1-1 with a 1.51 and a .919. They've alternated games thusfar. It's Millan's turn in the rotation, so we'll probably see him.
4) They closed last season on a tear, winning 11 of their last 14 and just missing out on the NCAA Tournament, despite being one of the hottest teams in the country by the end of the season. Their slow start doomed them. They lost their two top scorers from a year ago, but still return a lot of good players. I expect they're going to be tough this year.
5) They were sixth in the country in offense (3.38 gpg) and 36th in defense (2.92 gpg) a year ago. The power play was pretty good at 20.5% (though they gave up 6 shorties, which would take their net power play down to 17.4) but the penalty kill was awful. They ranked 54th in the country at just 78.5% and only scored 2 shorties of their own.
6) Currently they're 20th in offense (3.25 goals per game), 8th in defense (1.50 gpg), 10% on the power play, and 87.5% on the PK (though they're 93.8% if you factor in their two shorties).
7) Michigan has won 3 in a row against the Terriers (including two last year) and leads the all-time series 13-8. Matt Rust had a pair of goals last year and Billy Sauer gave up 4 goals on 56 shots in the two games.
8) Colby Cohen is Jeremy Bloom's cousin. Speaking of family members, there are two sets of brothers on BU. Captain Matt Gilroy's younger brother Kevin is a freshman this year, and Vinny Saponari (from the NTDP) joins his older brother Victor. Matt Gilroy wears #97 in honor of his brother Timmy, who passed away in 1993, but wore #97 when he and Matt were on the same line in youth hockey.
9) If there's another program that recruits the NTDP as well as Michigan, it's BU who has seven players from the US National program.
10) The game won't be aired locally, but it is on CN8 in Boston and you can watch via PPV on BU's website for $7.95. Of course, the other option is to go to CN8's website, lie and say you're from the New England area (clicking the Connecticut link works for me), and then click "Watch Live" and you should be able to view the game on your computer. It worked for me last year when they aired one of the games from Yost. But you didn't hear that from me. ;-)
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Michigan 4, Niagara 2
As has been the trend for a few of our wins this year, it wasn't a perfect effort, but a decent win nonetheless.
Michigan got off to a good start, but Pagliero made some saves and outside of the first few minutes, the Wolverines kind of sleep-walked through the first period. Niagara got to the front of the net, a rebound squeaked out to the right of Hogan, and Caporusso slipped when he tried to tie up his man, so Baco had a tap-in.
In the first period, Michigan got next to nothing offensively from anyone not on the top line. Things were better in the second period. Wohlberg started jumping, Caporusso started jumping, and we were getting chances from all three of our scoring lines.
The big momentum shift came when Luke Glendening went all Chris Fragner and got kicked out for a hit from behind. The penalty kill was spectacular. In the first half of the penalty, Niagara didn't come near the Michigan net and the Wolverines had a pair of two-on-ones. Niagara took a penalty on the second one, and that about did it for the major penalty.
Another big play came when Chris Moran had Hogan dead to rights; he had a wide open net, but the rebound went into his skates. He golfed at it, but barely hit the puck and ended up flinging himself into the cage.
Shortly thereafter, Caporusso drew a penalty and Palushaj scored from the faceoff circle right off the bat on the PP. And as they did against NMU on a couple of occasions, Michigan struck again in quick succession. Caporusso and Vaughan passed it back and forth a couple times, Caporusso came in on the right wing, put a shot on net, grabbed his own rebound, took it behind the net and scored on the wrap-around.
Hogan robbed one of the Purple Eagles late in the period, but gave up a terrible goal a few seconds later. Niagara threw a shot on net, Hogie knocked it to the corner but was slow getting back to his post, and they were able to throw one in off of him from behind the goal line. Rough goal to give up late in the period when we had all the momentum. That was a power play tally. Michigan's PK was very strong in this game, but the hockey gods usually penalize you for stupid penalties, and Czarnik took one there. He popped a guy in the head after they fell to the ice. Needless, behind the play, and it's something he probably would have gotten away with if there was only one official.
I've gotta say, I was skeptical, but I don't really hate the two-ref system thusfar. They're calling more penalties, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The players will adjust. Then again, we're Michigan, so we're getting the bigger-name refs to do our games. I'm not sure how much I'd like it when it's two guys I've never heard of....
Caporusso struck again to put Michigan up for good, and it was another power play goal (!!!!!). He tried to stick-handle through the defense, it got knocked off his stick and went right to Naurato, who put it through his legs to absolutely no one. Luckily it hit off the Niagara defenseman and went right to Caporusso. Louie slid it underneath Pagliero and lit the lamp for the second time in the game.
Palushaj added an empty-netter and the Wolverines can head to Boston with a 4-1-0(-0) mark on the season. Both teams had some great chances down the stretch. Czarnik sprung Wohlberg and Wohlberg made a gorgeous deke, had Pagliero beat, but put it off the post. Then at the other end, Hogan tried to cover the puck on a harmless-looking play, but missed. Niagara had a wide-open net, but one of our defensemen turned the shot away. It might have been Vaughan.
The Niagara announcers bitched about the officiating constantly, but I thought both teams had some weak calls go against them, and some glaring ones were missed. One of their guys absolutely blasted our player into the boards--it was much worse than Glendening's hit from behind (which was rightly called a major)--and they didn't even call a minor. It was right in front of the ref. So whatever. I don't care that you think it's ok for a player to put his stick on someone streaking to the net, and that when he falls into the goalie it should be called goalie interference rather than a hook.
The guy who really deserves a call tonight is Tristin Llewellyn. I thought he was absolutely fantastic on the blueline. He had some really nice plays in our end, did a nice job on the PK for the most part...he was very good tonight. It might have been his best game as a Wolverine. He's really come on in the early-going this year.
Pateryn was panicking a little bit with the puck. He had a lot more time than he thought he did...he was too quick to just throw it around the boards. It led to a couple of turnovers in our own end.
Turnovers were a big reason we won this game though. Niagara had a lot of trouble getting the puck out of their own end. I bet it was double-digit times that they had a fairly good look at a clear and couldn't get it out.
Another completely random thought: I think Matt Rust is a very underrated passer. He's really good at finding guys streaking to the net when he's over by the side boards. I love that kid's game.
You gotta give Niagara credit. They played Michigan really tough tonight, without their best player. Ted Cook broke his hand and didn't make the trip. That's a huge loss for them, but they still gave us all we could handle. They've got some good players on that team. I really like that Baco kid.
We were really solid in the third period last year and they showed some of that again tonight. Michigan outshot Niagara 18-4 in the final stanza, turning a 2-2 tie into a 4-2 win. Hogan was decent in goal. He made some really good stops, gave up one really lousy goal, and scared the begeezus out of me on another occasion. He's just gotta get some consistency. He's been great in spurts and terrible in spurts. I like that we're getting him some time, but as I've said before, I still think Sauer is going to be the one who ultimately carries the load this season.
Michigan got off to a good start, but Pagliero made some saves and outside of the first few minutes, the Wolverines kind of sleep-walked through the first period. Niagara got to the front of the net, a rebound squeaked out to the right of Hogan, and Caporusso slipped when he tried to tie up his man, so Baco had a tap-in.
In the first period, Michigan got next to nothing offensively from anyone not on the top line. Things were better in the second period. Wohlberg started jumping, Caporusso started jumping, and we were getting chances from all three of our scoring lines.
The big momentum shift came when Luke Glendening went all Chris Fragner and got kicked out for a hit from behind. The penalty kill was spectacular. In the first half of the penalty, Niagara didn't come near the Michigan net and the Wolverines had a pair of two-on-ones. Niagara took a penalty on the second one, and that about did it for the major penalty.
Another big play came when Chris Moran had Hogan dead to rights; he had a wide open net, but the rebound went into his skates. He golfed at it, but barely hit the puck and ended up flinging himself into the cage.
Shortly thereafter, Caporusso drew a penalty and Palushaj scored from the faceoff circle right off the bat on the PP. And as they did against NMU on a couple of occasions, Michigan struck again in quick succession. Caporusso and Vaughan passed it back and forth a couple times, Caporusso came in on the right wing, put a shot on net, grabbed his own rebound, took it behind the net and scored on the wrap-around.
Hogan robbed one of the Purple Eagles late in the period, but gave up a terrible goal a few seconds later. Niagara threw a shot on net, Hogie knocked it to the corner but was slow getting back to his post, and they were able to throw one in off of him from behind the goal line. Rough goal to give up late in the period when we had all the momentum. That was a power play tally. Michigan's PK was very strong in this game, but the hockey gods usually penalize you for stupid penalties, and Czarnik took one there. He popped a guy in the head after they fell to the ice. Needless, behind the play, and it's something he probably would have gotten away with if there was only one official.
I've gotta say, I was skeptical, but I don't really hate the two-ref system thusfar. They're calling more penalties, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The players will adjust. Then again, we're Michigan, so we're getting the bigger-name refs to do our games. I'm not sure how much I'd like it when it's two guys I've never heard of....
Caporusso struck again to put Michigan up for good, and it was another power play goal (!!!!!). He tried to stick-handle through the defense, it got knocked off his stick and went right to Naurato, who put it through his legs to absolutely no one. Luckily it hit off the Niagara defenseman and went right to Caporusso. Louie slid it underneath Pagliero and lit the lamp for the second time in the game.
Palushaj added an empty-netter and the Wolverines can head to Boston with a 4-1-0(-0) mark on the season. Both teams had some great chances down the stretch. Czarnik sprung Wohlberg and Wohlberg made a gorgeous deke, had Pagliero beat, but put it off the post. Then at the other end, Hogan tried to cover the puck on a harmless-looking play, but missed. Niagara had a wide-open net, but one of our defensemen turned the shot away. It might have been Vaughan.
The Niagara announcers bitched about the officiating constantly, but I thought both teams had some weak calls go against them, and some glaring ones were missed. One of their guys absolutely blasted our player into the boards--it was much worse than Glendening's hit from behind (which was rightly called a major)--and they didn't even call a minor. It was right in front of the ref. So whatever. I don't care that you think it's ok for a player to put his stick on someone streaking to the net, and that when he falls into the goalie it should be called goalie interference rather than a hook.
The guy who really deserves a call tonight is Tristin Llewellyn. I thought he was absolutely fantastic on the blueline. He had some really nice plays in our end, did a nice job on the PK for the most part...he was very good tonight. It might have been his best game as a Wolverine. He's really come on in the early-going this year.
Pateryn was panicking a little bit with the puck. He had a lot more time than he thought he did...he was too quick to just throw it around the boards. It led to a couple of turnovers in our own end.
Turnovers were a big reason we won this game though. Niagara had a lot of trouble getting the puck out of their own end. I bet it was double-digit times that they had a fairly good look at a clear and couldn't get it out.
Another completely random thought: I think Matt Rust is a very underrated passer. He's really good at finding guys streaking to the net when he's over by the side boards. I love that kid's game.
You gotta give Niagara credit. They played Michigan really tough tonight, without their best player. Ted Cook broke his hand and didn't make the trip. That's a huge loss for them, but they still gave us all we could handle. They've got some good players on that team. I really like that Baco kid.
We were really solid in the third period last year and they showed some of that again tonight. Michigan outshot Niagara 18-4 in the final stanza, turning a 2-2 tie into a 4-2 win. Hogan was decent in goal. He made some really good stops, gave up one really lousy goal, and scared the begeezus out of me on another occasion. He's just gotta get some consistency. He's been great in spurts and terrible in spurts. I like that we're getting him some time, but as I've said before, I still think Sauer is going to be the one who ultimately carries the load this season.
Moffie Makes USA World Jr A Challenge Team
Lee Moffie was one of seven defensemen named to the US World Jr. A challenge roster. The tournament will take place in Camrose, Alberta from November 2-9.
Congrats to Lee!
Congrats to Lee!
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