extra point

Tuesday’s loss to Notre Dame wasn’t the final nail in the coffin for Michigan’s tournament chances, but things aren’t super great when a college hockey site’s models have to be consulted to make sure the pre-comma clause isn’t mathematically impossible. Conference tournament games are treated like regular season games as far as Pairwise is concerned, and while that leaves a little room for Michigan to bolster its resume, we can get an idea how much that will matter (read: do they need to win the tournament outright) thanks to the excellent charts at College Hockey Ranked. Michigan has four remaining regular-season contests, and the most likely outcome (28.0%) derived from four straight wins is the #19 Pairwise spot. The top 16 teams get into the tournament; Michigan has a 3.6% chance of finishing the regular season #16, 0.7% chance of finishing #15, and 0.1% chance of finishing #14. In other words, it’s exceeding unlikely they’ll play their way into a position to be heartbroken by some other team that’s out of it winning their conference tournament and stealing a bid (and even that assumes Michigan wins some but not all of their conference tournament games.)

With just six points separating the teams in second (Michigan) and sixth (Michigan State) place in the conference standings and four conference games left to play, projecting Michigan’s Big Ten Tournament opponent is an exercise in futility. We do have four games from earlier this season that could help us in analyzing how Michigan might be able to go about sweeping Ohio State and Wisconsin, their next two opponents, so we’ll turn to those for insight. Sweeping two opponents consecutively will be a big task for a team that went over three months between sweeps, but we can look at a few smaller components of quality play that make it possible. It’s not entirely unlike when my ten-month-old is in his high chair and flings himself forward to grab something I definitely didn’t think he could reach on the table and I’m like, hey, that would have been fine if I ripped it into pieces but as it stands you shoving it into your mouth whole just makes me look like a shitty dad. I mean, it’s not entirely like that but it’s not entirely unlike that, either.

[Hit THE JUMP for GIFs and such]

Another weekend, another split, another missed opportunity to stop the wheels from spinning and gain ground on a possible at-large tournament berth. In broad strokes, Michigan played to their 2019 standard in this weekend’s series with Penn State. After beating #6 Notre Dame on the road, Michigan dropped a home game to lowly Merrimack. After eking out a 2-1 win over #4 Ohio State, Michigan dropped the second game, 4-2. Then a 5-1 win over #15 Penn State got Michigan close enough to cracking the Pairwise top 20 that David was considering penning a rooting guide for this weekend’s games only to have those plans shelved after a 5-2 loss in the series finale.

It would stand to reason, then, that there must be two different version of Michigan Jekyll-and-Hyde-ing its way through the season, but the team that won handily Thursday and the one that got blown out Saturday are much more similar than different: periods of excellent shot generation, some stagnation where good teams get shots against M in clusters, and occasional difficulty exiting the defensive zone that’s related to the second point. Every game features a period or two where Michigan dominates, and more often than not it’s via forechecking pressure that leads to offensive opportunities. The one thing that seems to change is attention to detail; when Michigan’s engaged, they’re difficult to stop, and when they’re disengaged they’re likely to serve up supercilious turnovers, the kind that arrive at your table with an extra server, present the food from the left side only, and make a show out of rotating the plate. (If I got that wrong blame Google.)

Michigan got out to a sluggish start on Thursday night, allowing Penn State a Corsi-dominant first period (58% possession, 10 of 25 shot attempts from the House) before flipping the script in the second period (56% possession, seven of 19 shot attempts from the House). Michigan ended the second period up 4-0 and was able to drop guys back defensively and wait out the final 20 minutes. On Saturday, Michigan was four struck posts away from a series sweep—if not for a half dozen preventable turnovers. Michigan’s offense was excellent in the first period, its 30 attempts what was statistically its best period of shot generation of the series, including an impressive 14 from the House area in front of the net. Michigan ended that period down 3-0, though, and went down 4-0 within two minutes of the start of the second period. Drawing iron and seemingly every turnover being converted into a Penn State goal took the life out of Michigan, and they mustered a paltry 36% possession in the second period. A frame where Michigan dominates offensively and ends up down three goals with emotions torpedoed deserves a closer look, as does the manner in which Michigan coughed up the puck.

[Hit THE JUMP to see if there are common threads in Michigan’s post shots and turnovers]

What Happened? Michigan ground out a 2-1 win against #4 Ohio State in Columbus Friday night, then fell 4-2 to the Buckeyes (one goal was an empty-netter, so meh) on Saturday.

*Blank stare* Okay, yeah, context. Michigan beat Notre Dame in an outdoor game at Notre Dame Stadium January 5th for what appeared to be a win that could propel them to a second half akin to last season’s, then looked like a completely disinterested team during a rare Tuesday night game against Merrimack (the team, not the boat). Friday night’s win again left some hope for a second-half run, then Saturday night’s game… actually, Michigan didn’t look that bad Saturday night, either. There’s hope yet.

Things don’t look great from a Pairwise perspective, though. A cursory glance at the comparisons chart doesn’t reveal one big thing Michigan could do to make a move. They only have 11 games remaining and have to come as close to running the table as possible to steal some comparison points back. That would help, at least as long as the general volatility of the conference continues unabated; the top two teams, Ohio State and Minnesota, are 6-3-3 in conference play and third-place Michigan is 4-5-4. Beating Penn State in their next series (this weekend is a bye) would be a nice start, as Michigan is currently tied for the head-to-head comparison point. (If you’re looking for a Pairwise explainer, USCHO has a good one here.)

So this is another one of those years where Michigan has to win the conference tournament to earn a bid and gets matched up with Penn State, isn’t it? Sort of looks that way.

Anything to take from last weekend that might give us insight into what could happen during the stretch run? Seems like the kind of thing we should put after THE JUMP, no?

[Hit THE JUMP for weekend takeaways that might give insight into the stretch run]