Photos of the Yost Damage

MVictors made it over to Yost to take some snapshots of the damage. I can kind of see what they're talking about, but it seems like it would be kind of hard to spot if you didn't know you were looking for something wrong. Pretty lucky that the mason at the football practice facility spotted that before stuff started falling or before the damage got worse.

It's Game On! for tonight and tomorrow. Enough work has been done that people can safely use the East entrance. And Michigan is back to saying that they will issue refunds for the game if you can't make it Sunday.

Alumni Update: Andrew Ebbett had a goal and an assist for the Ducks last night. He's got 2-4--6 in ten games for Anaheim this season. I was listening to Home Ice on XM/Sirius on the way home last night and one of the people on there (I think it was a reporter from out in California, but I don't know that for sure) was talking about how they think we're going to see a lot more out of Ebbett this season.

Andrew Cogliano will participate in the NHL YoungStars Game during the All-Star break.

More Evidence an Outdoor Game is Coming

Andy Baggot, who seems to be pretty clued in to the Badgers, reports on BadgerBeat.com that "barring an unforseen hitch in negotiations", Wisconsin and Michigan will play hockey at Camp Randall in February of next year.

The Badger fans who have commented on a couple articles about the potential game actually don't seem that jazzed about it. It's absurd to think that they'll only get 30,000 if it's cold, though. Aside from the NFC Championship tailgate last year, I don't think I've ever been more cold than I was at The Cold War, and I had an absolute riot. Even if Michigan wasn't playing in the game, I'd be in attendance because, plain and simple, outdoor games kick ass. But yeah, if they put 40,000+ into Lambeau for Wisconsin/Ohio State, they'll sell out Camp Randall for Wisconsin/Michigan.

If Wisconsin returns the favor and plays us at The Big House the following season, even better!

Sidenote: There's probably a good reason why the USCHO poster said the problem at Yost was the roof and the commenter here said masonry and a problem with the egress on the East side of the building. They were both kind of right. The first part of what Puckhead posted pretty much meshes with what I heard.

I still think it's funny that we care about fire codes at Yost all of a sudden.

Friday Night's Game Postponed

According to MGoBlue, there was weather-related structural damage to Yost during the storms over break. The arena can't be made "fan-safe" in time for tonight's game against Miami, so the game has been postponed until Sunday at 4 pm. The really bad news is that tonight's game was schedule to air on FSN, which won't happen now. Time to cross our fingers and pray that MGoBlue's video feed works Sunday, because it would be awful not to be able to see this tilt.

Weird. And really disappointing, because I've been looking forward to this one for awhile. But maybe a happy side-note is that we'll screw up Miami's method of playing one goalie Friday and one on Saturday. You gonna start Reichard Saturday since he plays the first game of the series, or will you go with Knapp since he always plays Saturday? Bwahaha. (Not that it probably matters very much.)

At least Rust and Palushaj get one more day of rest!

Edit: Someone on USCHO is saying it's a problem with the roof. I have to believe this puts the whole weekend in doubt, since the 5-8 extra inches of snow expected in Ann Arbor tonight probably aren't going to help the repair job. It'll be interesting to see how this gets handled if they can't go since I don't believe Michigan has a weekend off the rest of the season. Hopefully they can get it fixed and this critical series can go on. What a downer...

Double Edit: Promising stuff from a commenter about the prospects of playing tomorrow.

It's not the roof. It's masonry on the State Street side. It'll be fixed today -- the only reason they can't play today is fire code, since they can't close the state street egress.

Can I just say that it's hilarious to see a game at Yost called off because of fire code? That has to be the most unsafe building on the planet with how impossible it is to move in there during the intermissions (and that's only with part of the crowd on the concourse). It got even worse when they built the new locker room.

10 More Things to Know About Miami

The #6 Miami Dynasty invades Yost Ice Arena this weekend for what can only be described as the biggest series of the season for us, thusfar. Michigan sits nine points behind the RedHawks in the CCHA with two games in hand. Sweep the series, and we're five back with the potential to be just one point back after we play our extra games. Anything short of two wins and you can probably say "Ohhhh cya" to the CCHA crown, barring Miami having a couple more weekends like they had last week.

Miami swept the Wolverines down in Oxford 2-0 and 2-1 in a series that saw some excellent goaltending, horrid officiating, lots of hitting, stellar penalty killing, and one of the most inept broadcasting performances in history.

Here are 10 Things to know about our series this weekend:
1) The RedHawks are 12-5-3 overall and 10-2-2-1 in the CCHA. They were ranked #2 up until last weekend when they took it on the chin, losing to Clarkson and Army (!) in the Ohio Hockye Classic. They sit second in the CCHA, one point behind Notre Dame (thanks to one extra shootout point for the Irish).

2) The guns are still the ones you'd expect. Carter Camper (and I swear I type Campfer every time) leads the team with 12 goals and 27 points in 20 games, good for 8th in the country in points per game. Pat Cannone ::cough::goon::cough:: is also above a point a game with an 8-14--22 line. Justin Mercier has five of his seven tallies with the man advantage. Freshman Chris Wideman is the only RedHawk defender that really gets on the scoresheet. He has 15 assist so far this year. No other blueliner has more than 4 points.

3) Their goaltending is still split right down the middle, and with the numbers that those freshmen have put up, why change anything? They've each played ten games. Cody Reichard is 5-3-2 with a 1.89/.925 and Connor Knapp is 7-2-1 with a 1.89/.917. They're 10th and 11th in the country in GAA. Reichard had gone seven straight without giving up more than two goals, but he got shelled against Clarkson, giving up 4 on just 19 shots. He plays the first game of the weekend. Knapp hasn't given up more than three in a game this year, but he also hasn't been tested very much. He's faced 30 shots in a game just one time all season, and hasn't made 20 stops since we last faced him.

4) Camper is on a roll with two four-point efforts in his last five games (and another multi-point game to boot). He's got 5-6--11 in his last five games. Tommy Wingels is usually very good against us. He has fifteen points on the season, but 11 have come in his last seven games.

5) The RedHawks have the #10 offense in the country at 3.35 goals per game. Defensively they're sixth at 1.90 gpg.

6) They've toned down the penalties since we last faced them. Before our last meeting, they were averaging 22 minutes a night. That's down to 19 a game, which puts them as the 10th most penalized team in the country.

7) Their PK is still outstanding. It's not at the 96% that it was when we last faced them, but they're still #2 in the country at 92.8%. The power play matches their offensive ranking, #10 in the country. They're clicking on 20% of their power plays, but have allowed five shorthanded goals. Only Mercyhurst, Holy Cross, and Nebraska-Omaha have allowed more. If you'll recall, the Michigan penalty killers were absolutely outstanding the last time we met. Miami had a couple of long 5 on 3s and a five minute major that the Wolverines were able to kill off. The RedHawks didn't score a PPG the entire weekend, though they did put one in a few seconds after a long power play expired.

8) Michigan leads the all-time series with Miami 66-20-3. Michigan is just 3-5-1 in the last nine against Miami, however. Brandon Naurato leads all Wolverine scorers with 4 career points against Miami. Aaron Palushaj is the only Wolverine with more than one career goal against them. He has a 2-1--3 line in five games. As for the goalies, Bryan Hogan is 0-1-0 all-time against our opponent, with a 2.04/.941 in the second meeting down in Oxford. Sauer probably won't play, but he's 3-3-1 with a 2.97/.901, largely aided by his stellar performance at the Joe in the CCHA Tournament last year.

9) Enrico Blasi is looking for career win #200 this weekend. Mercier (2-5--7 in 9 games) and Miele (4-2--6 in 5 games) have been the Wolverine killers. We've actually done a really good job on Cannone. He has just one assist in five games against Michigan.

10) Friday's game is a Maize Out and will be televised live on FSN Plus. That's channel 901 on Comcast, 738 on ATT, 452 on Dish Network (woot!), and 664 on DirecTV. If I remember right, it's somewhere in the teens on WOW. 13 maybe? Saturday's game is the usual: Live on Comcast 900 in Metro Detroit and the NHL Network in Canada, tape delayed on the NHL Network in the US on Sunday around noonish.

Other stuff:
-David Wohlberg was the CCHA Rookie of the Month for December.
-Mark Mitera is set to resume skating on his own, which is a really great sign as he tries to return from a torn ACL. Red won't put a timetable on his return, but the fact that he's skating in early January probably bodes well for him returning in time for the CCHA Playoffs at the very least. That's huge.
-The Under 17s won the bronze medal in the World Under 17 Challenge behind a hat trick from Jacob Fallon.

20 Games In...

...let's do some stat comparisons!

Last year, the 18-2 Wolverines were scoring 4 goals per game and allowing just 1.9. At the moment, the 08-09 squad is 13-7, scoring 3.4 a night and giving up 2.3. Clearly you're going to lose some games when the scoring margin dips by a full goal per game.

We scored fewer than three goals in a game just twice in our first twenty last year. This year, it's happened seven times. We've also given up 3+ nine times out of twenty, compared to five times at this point last year.

That being said, aside from the 7 goal disaster at BU, our goalies haven't given up more than 3 in a game (Alaska's fourth goal in our loss to them was an ENG). That's a good sign for the rest of the season, because with Hogan in net we haven't had any problems scoring goals. Clearly 3 goals allowed isn't what you're striving for, but if the offense is going, we should still win the majority of those games (and we are 6-3 this year when giving up more than 2 goals--and we scored just three goals total in the three losses, all with Sauer in net).

Let's put it in perspective how they've played in front of Hogan. As I said, at this point last year we were scoring 4 goals a night, and everyone thought our offense was ridiculous. Well we're scoring 4.7 a night for Hogan, including 27 goals in his last 5 starts. In front of Hogan, we're the #1 offense in the country by a long shot (Air Force has the overall mark right now at 4.05 goals per game). In front of Sauer, we'd be dead last in offense at 1.30 goals per game (Tech is last at 1.32 gpg right now).

This is impressive: The big duo of Porter and Kolarik had combined for 31 goals and 55 points at this time a year ago. Palushaj and Caporusso have 26 and 50.

Caporusso has already bettered last year's totals in goals, points, shots on goal, and PPGs. Palushaj's numbers aren't much better (8-17--25 this year vs. 6-16--22 last year), but considering he was second in the country in assists last year, how much improving are you really going to do (especially considering our power play has taken a big dip)?

Hogan has been very solid in his own right. He's not putting up quite the numbers that Sauer put up last year (1.80/.930 at this point), but he's in the ballpark. A 1.95/.917 is going to win you a lot of hockey games. He's been really steady, but he's also gotten a ton of support.

Even with only getting 17 games (out of a possible 60) from Mitera, Burlon, and Kampfer, we're giving up fewer shots per game this year than we did last year (24.9 vs. 26.2). Take out the ENGs and we've given up 7 more goals than this time a year ago. Really not all that bad, all things considered. There's also been a difference of 5 PPGs allowed, which is understandable when you're missing 3 of your top 4 dmen. We're also getting nearly identical production out of our blueliners on the offensive end. Last year they had 38 points in the first 20 games. Right now they've got 39 (again, with no Mitera, no Kampfer, and Burlon for about half the time).

Ten games ago, our opponents were converting on 22.6% of their power plays. Now it's down to 15.7% because we've only given up 5 PPGs on the last 55 opportunities. Clearly the PK is moving in the right direction. They're 26th overall, but after the hole they dug themselves, it's a major improvement.

The PP has been at a pretty consistent clip the whole year. They were 14.9% after 10 games, and it's 14.8% now. Not good enough, and clearly an area that needs to be improved in the second half. Last year's team was 20.4% in the first half and 20.5% overall. We're 32nd in the country on the PP right now. Gotta get that cranked up. I suppose it's a pretty good sign that we have the #8 offense in the country with our power play that far down the charts.

The special teams are probably the biggest difference between last year and this year (well, that and a strange inability to play in front of Billy Sauer). At this point last year, we were +14 in goals scored on special teams. This year, we're +1. You want the biggest reason for that goal per game difference in scoring margin, that'd be it. The power play isn't as good, the PK is worse. Though, ya lose Pacioretty, Porter, and Kolarik, it's tough to improve the PP.

Keep in mind that in the second half last season Kolarik and Pacioretty exploded. Kolarik had 18 goals in his last 19 games and Pacioretty had 10-11--21 in the last 19 games. Porter also had 32 points in the last 23 games. Turnbull also had a great second half, and Mitera shockingly had 17 points in his last 23. It's also worth mentioning, though, that our goals per game stayed exactly the same.

One guy who I fully expect to break out in the second half is Robbie Czarnik. He has one goal, but he's fourth on the team in shots (behind Caporusso, Hagelin, and Turnbull) with 45. He's been playing pretty well as of late and the most important thing is that he's getting scoring chances. They're going to start going in.

We need more out of Rust as well. He had 12-11--23 in 43 games last year and this year he has 2-6--8 in 17 games. He's only got 21 shots on goal so far and he's done virtually nothing on offense since Palushaj was moved off his wing. Since the two of them played pretty well together in the World Juniors, I'm hopeful that we'll see them reunited back in Ann Arbor. Caporusso doesn't need the "Palushaj boost". He was off to a great start before the duo was even put together. He was great in the GLI without Palushaj, and he clearly has some chemistry with Wohlberg. I'd love to see the Hagelin-Rust-Palushaj line back together, personally.

Those are the obvious ones. I'd like to see a few more goals out of Hagelin, but he's got 4 in his last 10. I'd like to see him up around 15 by the end of the year. He's got 5 right now.

So yeah, take what you want out of those numbers. Just thought I'd put them out there. Keep 29, 8, and 25 going bonkers, continued improvement in the PK, get the power play going at a little higher clip, and get Czarnik and Rust going offensively. Those are some of my keys to the second half.

I think this team is really primed to make a run. They're scoring a ton of goals and they're getting solid goaltending. The defense should be getting better and better as Kampfer, Burlon, and Pateryn get more comfortable back there. Summers also went through an adjustment period and he's been playing fantastic hockey. All the pieces are in place. The CCHA Championship is probably out the window (unless we sweep ND and Miami) but if they keep moving in the right direction I don't think anyone would be excited about playing these guys.

A Couple Former Wolverines Score Their First Goals

Max Pacioretty scored his first NHL goal in his first NHL game on his first NHL shot last night for the Canadiens.

Andrew Ebbett also tallied the first goal of his career for the Anaheim Ducks. He has 1-3--4 in six games this season.

With Pacioretty cracking the NHL, the Wolverines now have 22 players who have played in the NHL this season. And ya gotta believe Jed Ortmeyer makes it 23 in the near future. He's in the minors after a slew of injuries forced him to miss the end of last season and all of training camp. He has 7-5--12 in 15 games in Milwaukee.

That's 16 forwards, 5 defensemen, and a goalie. You could almost make an entire team out of former Wolverines who have played in the NHL this year.

Mike Cammalleri and Mike Knuble are tied for the "team" lead with 14 goals. If I were to ask you who was #3 on the goal list, would you believe it's David Moss? Crazy.

At least one person has Matt Hunwick in the mix for the Calder Trophy. He's tied for 19th in the league in +/- (with Nick Lidstrom) and is tied for 5th among defensemen. He also has 15 points in 27 games back on the blueline.

At Least the Under 17s Have Goaltending

So the Americans will fail to medal at the World Junior Championships again, getting knocked out in the quarterfinals by Slovakia. Flip the goalies and that's a 15-0 victory for the Americans. Thomas McCollum was brutal in net for the Americans (good thing the Wings still have Larsson and Howard) while Jaroslav Janus probably played the game of his life for the Slovakians.

USA lost that game in the first five minutes when they couldn't put the puck in the net despite at least a half-dozen grade A scoring chances, including a penalty shot. Then Slovakia comes down and scores a horrifically bad goal on what must've been their first or second shot of the game. I had a feeling at that point that things weren't going to end well for the Americans.

At least the Under 17 team is faring much better at the World Under 17 Challenge. The Americans are through the preliminary round with a 4-0-0 record, having outscored their opponents 29-5. Jack Campbell is 3-0-0 with a 0.67 goals against and a .971 save percentage in the tournament. I look forward to losing him for a couple of GLIs in the future. Maybe all the Americans need to bring the gold back is another Wolverine goalie! The Americans take on Canada Pacific tonight in the semifinals.

Edit: I guess I completely MATW'ed this one. USA lost 6-5 in overtime to Pacific (a team we beat 11-0 in an exhibition) in the semifinals. Campbell gave up 6 on 31 shots. The Americans were down 3-0, scored five straight in a ten minute span in the second, gave up a late goal in the second, a late goal in the third, and a goal five minutes in to overtime. They're playing West for the bronze right now, but Campbell isn't in. USA leads 1-0 on a goal by Michigan commit Jacob Fallon.

Little Brother helped the Wolverines out last night, scoring two late goals to beat Alaska 2-1. Those were MSU's first CCHA points since November 1. Alaska's loss leaves them 5 points in front of Michigan, but the Wolverines have 3 games in hand. The two will face each other again tonight, so worst-case, we're 7 back of the Nanooks with 4 in hand.

The Unofficial USHL Hockey Blog offered up a midseason report card of the Waterloo Black Hawks and had some nice things to say about future Wolverine Lee Moffie:

Lee Moffie is someone who has really stood out to me. When the pre-season rolled around, it sounded like Moffie was just there to get looked at and didn't have much of a shot to make the squad. He showed the coaching staff he was worthy, and he has been pretty impressive for such a young kid at this level. He is tied for the team lead in points by a defenseman with 14 and is a +5 on the year.

A reader created a Michigan Hockey fan page on Facebook. Here's the link if you'd like to sign up.

Lastly, I don't know how many people check the comments, but Wolverine in Exile posted some interesting information about the possible Michigan/Wisconsin outdoor game:

I know a guy in the right place in the AD and from what he told me is that the only hold up with the Wiscy outdoor game is Pearson is discussing the possibility of a home and home outdoor series with Wisconsin where the return match would be, you guessed it, a post GLI outdoor game between Michigan and Wiscy at The (remodeled) Big House. Apparently one of the benefits of the remods at Michigan Stadium is that the electrical power grid input to the stadium is being upgraded and the new infrastructure is good enough to power the refridgeration equipment and temporary lights. The Wings have made an inquiry to the AD about bidding for a future Winter Classic using Michigan Stadium and requested the infrastructure info.

That wouldn't be cool at all, eh?