2016-17 ohio state

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[James Coller]

[Note: Yeah, the picture above is from the first time these teams played this season. It’s a good picture, man. It’s also a picture of Evan Allen, who had a great series. Also, the screenshots from the first game are really grainy because the stream was OSU’s scoreboard and the quality was middling.]

Friday, February 24, 2017

#12 Ohio State 4, Michigan 2

1st period

ALLEN GOAL

OSU 0 UM 1 EV 12:12 Assists: De Jong

De Jong crosses the line just a fraction of a blade’s length ahead of his teammates, just enough to keep the play onside. As they cross, Allen starts to drop back to provide a passing option as the trailer while the other skater goes hard to the front of the net.

mich oh st fri 1-1

The defenders have to play this with a fairly large gap between themselves and the Michigan skaters due to it being an odd-man rush. Allen gets a ton of cushion when he drops back. Even though only one defender is going to carry the netfront skater, they both have to check where he’s going long enough to make passing pack to Allen the best choice for De Jong.

mich oh st fri 1-2

Allen makes the smart play here and pulls it around the defender, which creates the time needed for a screen to begin to take shape in front of the net. Allen shoots at this point and beats Frey…high? Low? Can anyone tell with this jumbotron feed? The puck went in, I know that much.

mich oh st fri 1-3

[After THE JUMP: I understand this season despite not understanding it at all]

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[Ryan McLoughlin]

Friday, February 3, 2017

Michigan 5, #11 Ohio State 4

1st period

ALLEN GOAL

UM 1 0SU 0 EV 08:21 Assists: Shuart & Winborg

Winborg wins the faceoff and knocks the puck to Shuart on his right. Shuart sort of accidentally shovels it forward to Winborg, but Winborg again scoops it up and back to Shuart.

m osu fri 1-1

With the puck now solidly on his stick, Shuart’s determined to do something purposeful with the puck. He shoots, and the shot is blocked by the OSU defender in front of him. The puck bounces off the defender and ends up to his left.

m osu fri 1-2

This next bit happens so quickly that I’m not sure whether Shuart passes to Allen or whether Allen picks up the loose puck himself. Either way, Allen has the puck. He splits two defenders and finds himself with a wide-open net, as Frey is still sliding across after squaring to Shuart’s shot.

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[After THE JUMP: 2015-16 redux (for 40 minutes at a time)]

Bracket Watch: The Other Bracket Looms



it us. [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

The outlook is grim. After everyone but Derrick Walton sleepwalked their way to a loss against a mediocre Ohio State team, Michigan is 14-9 (4-6 B1G) and out of the projected NCAA tournament field. The Wolverines have to climb out of an increasingly big hole and they may have already missed their chance; KenPom says they've played the easiest conference schedule of any Big Ten team so far, and that's about to change in a major way:

Michigan only has three home games left; of those, a more confident and rested Michigan State squad is by far the most beatable. The Wolverines have yet to win a road game this season; they'll need to take at least two, and quite possibly as many as all five left on the docket, to have a realistic shot at an at-large bid. They're 79th in RPI. I had to edit the second sentence of this post multiple times before it was family-friendly.

If they lose tomorrow night, NIT bracket-watching begins in earnest.

[After THE JUMP: Some good news! Really! Also some bad news.]