great lakes invitational

Whatcha see, Mel? [James Coller]

It's been a couple months since we've talked hockey on this site. After all, there isn't much reason to. It's the offseason! The vaunted Michigan Hockey Summer typically brings with it a wave of news, but in recent years, much of that news has been shifted towards the spring, as players make their NHL decisions. The NHL decisions were made and covered on this site back in April, but since then, various new developments have popped up. They include, in some order, transfer portal decisions, changes to the recruiting class, more than a month of waiting for the resolution to the coaching saga, and leaked details about the season's schedule. Rather than put up posts about each item, I decided to tackle them individually in this piece. 

 

The Mel Pearson Saga 

Today is the 40th day in which Mel Pearson is still the coach of Michigan Hockey but is not under contract. His deal expired at midnight of May 1, and most expected some sort of big announcement, but one didn't come. That day just came and went like any other, with no news from the athletic department. Journalists reached out for comment and management simply stated that Pearson did not have a new contract but that he remains the Michigan head coach. In a world where coaches in most college sports refuse to coach in the final year of a contract, it's very unusual that Pearson would continue to coach without a contract. And as the weeks have drawn on since the contract expired, there's been no further announcement from him or the university.

All the while, Pearson continues to act like the Michigan head coach. His Twitter account's bio still reads "Head Hockey Coach University of Michigan #GoBlue" and his feed is no different than any other time, frequently retweeting the accomplishments of various other Michigan sports (like baseball), as well as former UM players in the NHL (Zach Hyman playoff goals, Kyle Connor winning the Lady Byng, etc). He also retweeted an @umichhockey tweet showcasing the upcoming 100th anniversary shirt for this season, as well as a tweet about the Yost staff re-painting the ice to feature said 100th anniversary logo for this upcoming season. Those sorts of retweets, praising Michigan Hockey's success and highlighting changes to the promotions for this fall's 2022-23 season, do not indicate a coach who expects to be fired. 

So what's going on here? The smart reporting at the time of the contract expiration was that Michigan's athletic department has already heard a short summary (perhaps orally presented) of what the Wilmer Hale investigation will show, and have concluded that there is nothing egregious enough to remove Pearson from his position. However, they are not going to give him a contract or announce it until the report is finished and then made available to the public (via FOIA requests). That reporting seemed like a decent explanation at the time, and though each passing day without an announcement makes this weirder, I still think it's the most logical. 

[James Coller]

A second explanation is similar, that Pearson and the athletic department both expect the coach to be cleared by the report, but that neither have heard anything from Wilmer Hale. Though you'd like to believe that Michigan has been given cliff notes on the report, it is possible that they're in the dark but that they don't think the allegations have any fire to them. Likewise, this theory assumes that Pearson (obviously) expects to be exonerated and based on those two beliefs, they have kept him on. This explanation doesn't seem crazy, considering that Michigan let Pearson continue to coach the 2021-22 season while they were in the dark (for some duration) from Wilmer Hale.

I wrote at the time that letting Pearson continue to coach while the investigation rolled along was not typical. Generally speaking, if an athletic department feels a coach is problematic, they will be placed on administrative leave until an investigation is finished. But Michigan didn't do that, which at the time seemed like they felt that the allegations didn't have any legs, or at least were not firing offenses. Letting him coach the 2021-22 season sent the message that Michigan was willing to look into the allegations (by hiring Wilmer Hale) but were ultimately unconvinced they were true or not concerned even if they were. Therefore, letting him stay on as coach without a contract, and without any insight from from Wilmer Hale, wouldn't be terribly out of character for the Wolverine brain trust, given the way they've handled this entire saga. 

No one really knows when this thing will end, but you have to think that they need to either give Pearson an extension or let him go and promote someone else by the time the school year starts in late August. At the moment, there aren't many indications that this odd situation has hurt Michigan Hockey's recruiting, which isn't too surprising given that kids are committing three or four years out. The immediate coaching situation is less concerning to hockey recruits than it is in football or basketball, and guys who come to Michigan are generally committing because of the brand and its multi-decade track record of churning out NHL talent than they are to play for Mel Pearson specifically. Michigan was able to keep two blue chip recruits (Quinn Hughes, Josh Norris) in the class when the transition from Red to Mel happened, and so I wouldn't be too concerned about the recruiting effects of this stalemate.

[Patrick Barron]

However, I say that with the assumption that a contract will be signed by the end of the summer. If this were to drag on for a full year or something, that would begin to have more pernicious effects, I'd have to think. But a couple month stalemate? Not the biggest deal when you're recruiting kids who aren't showing up to campus until 2025. That said, they do need to get it done at some point. You can't go into next season with him as the coach if there is a not-insignificant chance that he would be axed midseason if the report is damning.

Having the coach fired midseason is a good way to derail a season and would be unfair to the players who want to focus on hockey. If there is even a slight chance Mel could be gone, you need to put him on administrative leave when it's time for the season. They haven't done that yet, which again leads me to believe that that slight chance is nonexistent, but they can't go into the season at the mercy of Wilmer Hale. Get a contract done by late August, or promote someone else in the interim, unless you're completely convinced that the findings will be a nothingburger.   

[AFTER THE JUMP: Portal, recruits, and GLI, oh my!]

Take that, Badger-man! [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

I had not initially planned to do a Hockey Weekly this week because we had one last week and there isn't much new news to report on-ice. The team bulldozed the Wisconsin Badgers this past weekend, as expected, and now coast into their bye week in first place in the B1G standings, sending their four Olympians off to China. Unfortunately, the reason I decided to write this piece is two elements related to the program that have come out in the past week, one being a FOIA request made public pertaining to the murky WMU GLI cancelation, and the other being an MLive article detailing an ongoing investigation into the program. This will be a shorter piece than normal, as I'll quickly share a few takes on the Wisconsin weekend before then talking (briefly) about both of those off-ice matters: 

 

Badger Revenge 

On-ice, the Michigan Wolverines swiftly took care of business this weekend against a bad Wisconsin team. It was sweet revenge for the worst loss Michigan has suffered this season, when they lost to the Badgers at home back on October 29. Neither game was particularly close, 5-1 and 6-2 victories, though the second game had a wild flurry in the second period that temporarily made it interesting. Here's a few HockeyBullets from the weekend: 

- Ethan Edwards, continued. Last week I discussed the terrific play of Ethan Edwards, who has been coming on strong. This weekend he had the highlight reel moment of his season thus far: 

Edwards continues to grow as the season rolls around and now it's showtime for him. With Owen Power out of the lineup attending a Team Canada Olympic camp in Switzerland, Edwards was bumped up to the top defensive pairing with captain Nick Blankenburg. That's a lot of responsibility for a freshman, because that pair will draw top assignments over the two weekends of games during the Olympics. Edwards seems up to the task, though, and I'm excited to watch him in this final month of the regular season. 

- Speaking of Edwards, the defense scores a lot of goals. The Saturday game saw the team's defensemen score 3/6 goals that Michigan scored and the team now has two defensemen with double digit goals in under thirty games played (Luke Hughes has 10 and Nick Blankenburg has 11). Add in Owen Power with 3 and Ethan Edwards now with 2 and, and that's a lot of goal scoring to come from your blue line. But scoring goals is not the only way that the back end contributes to the offense for Michigan. They are a central component of driving offensive play whether or not they're the ones who actually put the puck in the net, either by facilitating breakouts or controlled entries, joining the rush, or pinching down in the offensive zone to aid the cycle. That large role they play is why they get the goals, which often come on plays looking like this: 

Mobility is key for Michigan's blue line. An old-time(y) defenseman with skating issues isn't making the play that Luke Hughes makes. The goals Michigan's defensemen score look like that because skating are their big assets. The team has a stable of smooth skating defensemen who are comfortable moving up and joining the play, which is why they play a big role in the offense, and then sometimes they get rewarded with having the goals attributed to themselves alone. The Michigan Colorado Wolverines Avalanche, basically. 

- A nice weekend for the non-Olympic guys. It was decently reassuring that, in the last weekend of games before the Olympics, Michigan got some solid offensive contributions from players who will not be heading to China. After all, they are the players who will be leaned upon to deliver Michigan victories against MSU and OSU in a couple weeks. The first goal I really liked from that crew is this one: 

Keaton Pehrson brings the puck down the wall and below the goal line before losing possession. 5th year senior Michael Pastujov gets involved in the ensuing puck battle, winning it and shielding possession of the puck to move it to the forehand, then delivering a good pass to a high danger area. There, Philippe LaPointe sees the open ice, moves to it, and receives the feed to wire it by the goalie. Beautiful play all around from three guys who will be in the lineup next time we see the team at Yost. 

Another goal I liked was this one by Mackie Samoskevich: 

Edwards leads the entry, puck bounces around to Beecher on the far side, who slides down the wall and makes a nice pass to Samoskevich in the slot, who rips it by the netminder. Beecher, Samoskevich, and Edwards are all drafted players, but none are going to the Olympics, making them exactly the kinds of folks that will need to step up. This goal showcases how much skill will still be on the roster even when you subtract Beniers, Brisson, Power and Johnson. 

- Erik Portillo, still good. Thanks to this weekend's performance (three goals against in two games), he's now up to a .953 SV% and a 1.54 GAA in nine games since Christmas. Michigan is 7-0-2 in those games and he's allowed two or fewer goals in eight of the nine games. Pretty good! 

[AFTER THE JUMP: one more take, and some off-ice deliberation]

The big Swede in net [James Coller]

This weekend, Michigan Hockey completed the first half of their 2021-22 season following a pair of feisty games in Columbus. Friday's game saw the shorthanded Wolverines pull out a 5-2 victory, while Saturday was competitive until the wheels came off in a disastrous third period en route to a 6-1 defeat. With that, Michigan gets 2.5 weeks off before competing in the carcass of the Great Lakes Invitational in late December, representing the midway point of the campaign. Michigan has played 20 of their 36 scheduled regular season games, so this is more or less halfway. What have we learned? What can we expect going forward? 

 

Where things stand

Considering the history of Michigan stumbling through the first half of the season like a drunken sailor under Mel Pearson, going 14-6 (really 13-4-3 considering PairWise counts all OT games as functionally ties) is not bad. Though it remains a tad early to really care about national PWR, Michigan is #2 in that, which puts them in line for a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Wolverines also hold 1st place in the B1G, but only narrowly. Standings: 

Team Conf. Record Conf. Pts % Ovr. Record GD
Michigan 7-3-0-2, 23 points .639 13-4-3 +30
Minnesota 6-3-0-1, 19 points .633 9-7-2 +12
Ohio St 6-4, 18 points .600 9-6-1 +17
Notre Dame 4-3-2-1, 17 points .567 9-3-5 +25
Michigan St 4-5-1, 14 points .467 9-6-2 -1
Wisconsin 2-6-1-1, 9 points .300 4-11-2 -25
Penn St 2-7-1, 8 points .267 10-8-1 +13

The Maize & Blue are a nose ahead of the Maroon & Gold at the holiday break in terms of point percentage. The conference standings are a bit all over the place. Penn State has been horrendous in conference but cleaned up against a largely easy non-conference slate (although they did get a big win over North Dakota!) and thus maintains a positive goal differential. Notre Dame, who have been firmly mediocre in the conference, have the second best goal differential. Minnesota and Ohio State seem close to identical right now in terms of in-league record, but the Gophers' performances in the non-conference indicate they're much more of a national threat than the Buckeyes. Wisconsin is just really bad, while MSU has clawed back to the "respectability" category they were in a few years back. 

Looking at the national numbers, PWR likes the B1G a good bit. Notre Dame and Minnesota are solid tourney teams, while OSU is on the bubble in, and PSU and MSU are on the bubble out. Wisconsin is irrelevant, and as stated previously, Michigan is a top seed. Given all of this, it's hard not to like where Michigan is, but also still feel a little empty about where things could have been. The team's performances against Minnesota, Western Michigan, and Ohio State are all understandable given the quality of those teams and the circumstances of the games, but three contests in particular stand out as the kind of efforts Michigan needs to eliminate in the second half: the two against Notre Dame and the one loss to Wisconsin. 

Any way you slice it, that loss to Wisconsin was ugly. The Badgers are a terrible hockey team who are scoring a stunningly low 1.83 goals per game (!), yet Michigan allowed that Wisconsin team to put up four on them. The game itself was extremely annoying, with Michigan winning the possession battle 63.5%-36.5%, yet sloppy mistakes and lackadaisical play doomed the Wolverines to lose a game that is unacceptable to lose. Hockey is random, yes, but that loss was not random or the result of poor puck luck. It was completely avoidable. Simply flipping that result and giving Michigan an extra three points would put the Wolverines in a much more secure position atop the league. They cannot afford those sorts of letdown games in the second half if they want to emerge as regular season champions. 

Similarly, the two Notre Dame meltdowns are tough to swallow. Michigan led both games 2-0 and lost both games in OT, the first of which they were lucky to even get to OT. Notre Dame is a good team, but Michigan had them right where they wanted them and then fell asleep defensively. The concentration, effort level and consistency, especially with the fundamentals, just has not been good enough this season, and will need to be fixed moving forward. 

It’s hard not to draw comparisons between responses to Biles giving up a chance at an individual accomplishment because of a high likelihood of permanent injury or death, versus those for certain coaches who got out-big boyed by my four-year-old this week.

Markelle Fultz and Matisse Thybulle! 9-22!