jack johnson
It's been a couple years since I last wrote a "Wolverines in the NHL" update. David and I have done a segment during the season on the HockeyCast devoted to it the last couple years, but a written piece can have a wider reach and can also be more expansive. Also, since the NHL regular season recently ended, I figured this was a proper time to do it, rather than in the middle of the season like our podcast segment. With the recent explosion of Michigan players heading to professional hockey, this year's update is longer than ever, so it's being broken into two pieces. Today is Part 1, where we'll cover the established NHLers, the studs, complementary players, and role players. Tomorrow will be updates on the younger NHLers, recent retirees, and all the alumni who have fallen short of the NHL but are still playing pro hockey somewhere in the world:
The Studs
These are the players who are considered high end, All-Star caliber. They are one of the three or so best players on their given teams and are getting paid premium money in the NHL:
Quinn Hughes, D, Vancouver Canucks: Already the best defenseman from the University of Michigan to ever play in the NHL, Hughes is likely to set a new milestone (when the awards are announced in June), becoming the first Michigan alumni to ever win the Norris Trophy for the NHL's best defenseman. Michigan State (Duncan Keith), Harvard (Adam Fox), UMass (Cale Makar), Bowling Green (Rob Blake), Boston College (Brian Leetch), and Wisconsin (Chris Chelios) have all produced a Norris winner... it's about time that Michigan got one. Hughes is likely to do it, the capstone of a marvelous season that saw him score 17 goals and 75 assists for 92 points, leading the NHL in the latter two categories for defensemen (he was tied for 6th with 17 goals by a D).
Hughes became one of 12 defensemen in NHL history to ever score 90+ points in a season, which is what will likely cement his Norris case. Hughes is the engine for everything that the resurgent Vancouver Canucks do, helping the team win their division for the first time in nearly a decade. He's a dynamic offensive force and a puck possession monster who drives play over all 200 feet, which allowed the Canucks to outscore opponents 92-55 with Hughes on ice at 5v5 this regular season(!!). A brilliant passer who has evolved significantly as a shooter and defender during his NHL career, Hughes is a no doubt top five defenseman in the NHL during his age 24 season.
Dylan Larkin, C, Detroit Red Wings: Few players in the NHL may be as linked to their team's wins and losses as Dylan Larkin is to the Red Wings. Anyone who followed Detroit's season knows that, a team that seemed to be headed to the postseason before an injury to Larkin in March submarined their season. The team looked almost unrecognizable without Larkin and it's not surprising why that's the case. The Red Wings captain potted 33 goals this season, the best goals-per-game mark of his career (coming in just 68 games). He also finished above 1.00 points-per-game this season for the first time in his career, probably reaching his apex at 27 and that's fine. Larkin's a very good NHL player, an important leader off the ice and a speedy playdriver with good offensive talent on the ice, playing a premium position with legit finishing talent. Though perhaps not a superstar of the Quinn Hughes variety, there are no teams in the NHL that would turn down the opportunity to put Larkin on their roster.
[Bill Rapai]
Zach Hyman, LW, Edmonton Oilers: I listed Hyman as a complementary piece the last time I did this article, which is still probably true in the abstract (in the sense that he complements his team's superstars), but when you score 54 goals, you have to go in the stud category. That's what Hyman did this season, blowing by his career high goal total by a full 18 goals en route to a staggering total that ranked 3rd in the NHL The three seasons since Hyman signed in Edmonton has seen his goal total increase in linear fashion, from 27 to 36 to 54, this season being the apex of the 31-year-old's career. Hyman is simply the perfect fit to play alongside the NHL's best offensive player, Connor McDavid. He posts up around the net and gets fed the puck, shots in tight, tips, deflections. Very few of Hyman's 54 goals have come outside of ~5 feet from the crease, with 15 of his goals coming on Edmonton's devastating power play. It may be true that Hyman wouldn't score that many goals on a team sans McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, but the skill and hockey talent of Hyman is now undeniable. He's a really good NHL forward.
Kyle Connor, LW, Winnipeg Jets: Two years ago when I wrote this piece Connor was coming off of a season akin to what Hyman has done this season, scoring 47 goals for the Winnipeg Jets. His two seasons in the meantime have fallen short of that mark but Connor remains a high level NHL goalscorer. Connor has now played seven real NHL seasons and has scored 30 goals or at a 30+ goal pace (in the case of the 56 game COVID shortened season) in all seven of them. He remains a pretty nonexistent defensive player, instead a one-dimensional rush scorer but when you average ~38 goals per 82 games over a seven season period, it doesn't much matter what else you do. You're a legit stud.
Zach Werenski, D, Columbus Blue Jackets: Not a ton has changed for Werenski since the last time we updated this article. He remains a very good offensive defenseman, scoring 57 points this season (ranking 12th in the NHL by a defender) in 70 games. This was the most games that Werenski has played in a season since 2018-19, as injuries continue to minorly hamper him, but his play remains pretty consistent. Werenski plays on a bad team, puts up a good number of points, generally wins his minutes, and collects a huge paycheck (still earning $9.5 M annually, near the top in the league). Werenski's not an elite defenseman, but he's a good top pairing puck mover.
[AFTER THE JUMP: more players]
I'M IN FRANCE. Harbaugh in the city of lights.
Bonjour! Go Blue! pic.twitter.com/EoBL4i5Svh
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) July 11, 2015 This has no doubt angered many SEC coaches and Frenchmen. The number of people who have pretended not to speak English as Harbaugh increases his volume level to jet-takeoff levels must be truly prodigious. I would watch a reality show of this. "Football Coach Vacations." This is a million dollar idea.
Random. Denard Robinson retweeted this.
The best wordplay on @LilTunechi's #FWA http://t.co/PHIu6BBv4U pic.twitter.com/eUStRcaIb0
— HotNewHipHop (@HotNewHipHop) July 13, 2015 That Wiz Khalifa is a card.
Skate with Jack Johnson. August 1st at the Cube, for charity. MGoBlog not responsible if Jack Johnson turns you into a pylon or a bird or is just so pretty on skates that you forget how to drive. Jeff Moss will be there, too! You can find out if he is a real person or just a floating sack of anger!
TJ Weist, 1992. Via Dr. Sap:
Northwestern, 1981. Via Wolverine Historian:
Also 2002 Minnesota.
…Al? Syracuse used one cadence last year.
Since he was officially named the Syracuse Orange offensive coordinator for 2015, Tim Lester's been a bit of a sharer. We're fine with that since it's nice to actually get updates from the football staff, especially with the honesty and candor he seems to deliver it all.
Sometimes it's a point of debate.
Sometimes it's just a description of the Orange offense, compared to last year.
And others, it's a something that will send you into fits of rage, directly aimed at George McDonald, first and foremost:
If Syracuse tried other cadences, the linemen "wouldn't have been able to stay onside," because reasons. This makes me feel slightly better about Tyus Battle.
…Rich? Let's check in on Kansas.
The Jayhawks would finish 1-11 in 2012, and with the roster ailing, Weis desired a quick-fix strategy for what he once famously called a “pile of crap.” In early 2013, Weis signed 16 junior-college recruits in a 25-man class. If a majority of the players hit, Weis figured, perhaps Kansas could claw to respectability in a year or two.
The move was a massive failure. By last fall, just eight of those players remained in the program. The volume of junior-college players — many of whom were borderline qualifiers and academic risks — weighed down the program. Six of those junior-college recruits — including highly touted players Marquel Combs, Kevin Short and Chris Martin — never played a down. After senior safety Isaiah Johnson transferred to South Carolina in the spring, and defensive lineman Andrew Bolton left the team this month, not one of those 16 junior-college players remains on the roster.
So here we are, two years later, and just five players remain from Kansas’ 2013 recruiting class.
This fall, Kansas has 60 scholarship players. It's a self-imposed punishment twice as bad as anything that happened to USC or Penn State. Charlie Weis is the king of "people in charge of things are just in charge of them for no reason."
More on cable bubbles. The WSJ has an article on ESPN doing something they haven't even had to think about in a long time: belt-tightening. Cord cutting is on in earnest and it's no surprise that the most expensive channel is amongst the most affected:
Only the Weather Channel—which is now completely superfluous thanks to the internet—is suffering more. The WSJ attributes Keith Olbermann's departure to simple finances. It is not hard to trace a line from ESPN's current trend and the long-term contracts they have signed with sports leagues and find a point at which it is impossible for them to make money.
ESPN has lost enough subscribers that they have the contractual right to yank their channels from Dish's $20 Sling service. Meanwhile, they are limited in their ability to move to a Netflix/HBO model since if they introduce a stand-alone service cable providers can sell ESPN a la carte—a disaster for a channel that gets six bucks from my grandmother.
Fred Jackson was right! Sort of! Via Austin Roberts, another running back makes good after he departs Michigan:
Another “real bright spot” was running back Thomas Rawls, a 5-foot-l9, 215-pound undrafted rookie free agent out of Central Michigan.
“I love his style of running,” Carroll said. “He’s really a head-knocker. He really goes after guys and when you guys get to see him put the pads on you’ll see how physical of a runner he is. He had play after play in college of just smacking people and running and breaking tackles and all that. He showed very good feet, he caught the ball well, he’s going to be a very-willing blocker.”
All of those came against Purdue or at CMU. Remember when Michigan's running game was so good it got their running backs drafted too early? Those were different times right there. By the end Jackson was stealing money. And various beverages. Holding him over on coaching staff after coaching staff was a major sign of the complacency that overtook the program over the past decade.
Gary Danielson was not right and has never been right. Gary Danielson is pretty good at looking at one specific play and telling you what happened on it. Once you get any more abstract, he turns into a parody of sports commentary. The latest example is Danielson fretting that the SEC is going to lose its way because it might try to score some points.
“The big advantage the SEC had against other conferences was they were the most physical, NFL-like conference there was,” he said. “If they try to morph too much into becoming a fantasy league, they are going to cede their position as the toughest and best conference in college football.”
"Fantasy league." Gary Danielson saying that after Urban Meyer, who was rather successful in the SEC, blew Alabama to bits with his third string QB is a top ten "Is Gary Danielson Having A Stroke?" moment.
Etc.: Hire a Beilein, you get to play a Beilein. Brandon Graham back in town for a bit. You are on the Butkus watch list. Smart Football made another book, which you should buy. BLOOM COUNTY BACK? The Graham Couch bot is either becoming self-aware or has improved its trolling algorithm. Jim Hackett is the best.
Familiar music. Michigan replay promo, 1983.
Via Wolverine Historian, of course. Also: the 1983 Washington State game.
JMFJ. Jack Johnson is a fascinating NHL player, because stats hate him. There's a thing called Corsi that is basically a shot attempt ratio* while you're on the ice that the hockey advanced stats guys like because it takes the randomness of goaltending out of the equation. Jack Johnson has been anomalously poor in this department. He's bad at Corsi. Very, very bad. It's to the point that a Google search for "Jack Johnson corsi" results in various bloggers calling him the worst player in the NHL:
Despite this, Johnson has been a heavy-minutes workhorse for the Blue Jackets since his arrival, leading the team in ice time for two and a half years now. The Jackets made the playoffs with a +15 goal differential with Johnson as their undisputed #1 D, thus spurring the flurry of articles that caused me to muse on Jack Johnson and Corsi. Por ejemplo:
Johnson has logged heavy minutes and been instrumental in holding Penguins top guns Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin without a goal in the series.
"Jack has been very good down the stretch and these first three games," Richards said. "He plays like a man on the ice. He can log the big minutes. He played close to 40 minutes in the OT game in Game 2. And they're big, tough minutes. It's the opposition. He's playing against Crosby or Malkin most of the night. Penalty kill, he's one of the first guys over the boards and he plays power play."
ESPN also praises him:
"I would just say [he's a] machine. He's a different bird, man. On and off the ice, he's just a thoroughbred and he's always in the gym," Columbus forward Cam Atkinson told ESPN.com Tuesday. "You can tell he's elevated his game tremendously in this playoff series and he's been one of our best players, if not our best player. It's great to see and hopefully he can keep playing the way he's been playing."
This has no doubt set Corsi-fiends on edge, which is a lot like David Berri holding up whatever metric he's regressed into his butt and declaring subject matter experts to be idiots. You'd think something as rough as relative shot attempts would bring with it the humility to look at why a player with a bad Corsi might still be good at hockey.
#CBJ with Jack Johnson on ice Corsi: -11 (2-13) with Johnson off ice Corsi: +7 (20-13) But, he does have a goal.
— Scott Cullen (@tsnscottcullen) April 22, 2014 Nope!
*[It's shots on goal + missed shots + blocked shots for and against, expressed as a percentage. So a 50% Corsi means you're even and a 45% is pretty terrible.]
They may know what they're doing. Kam Chatman sees a significant ratings bump from another service, as Rivals flings him up the board to #25, one spot away from five-star status. Measuring in at 6'8" at that camo Jordan thing is kind of a big deal to these gents. All around him are coulda-beens, though: #22 James Blackmon, #26 Keita Bates-Diop, #29 Devin Booker.
On the other hand, DJ Wilson cracks the top 100 at #86 and grabs a fourth star, which isn't bad for a guy who seemed like the consolation prize's consolation prize when he committed over offers from Columbia and Gonzaga. They may know what they're doing, these guys.
Also they may acquire this other guy. It seems like Michigan's interest in Nevada transfer Cole Huff is genuine:
Huff met with Michigan assistant coach LaVall Jordan on Tuesday in Reno, Nev., and is now waiting for some scholarship dominoes to fall.
"The meeting was good," Huff told MLive. "It was nice of him to come out here and we had a good conversation. He talked about the opportunities they can offer, but really, when it comes to Michigan, you don't need a coach to talk to you too much because of all that tradition. It was just an added bonus to have coach Jordan come out here and give me the specifics."
Those specifics are: Michigan is waiting on Aubrey Dawkins, who has an offer and is following through on a promised visit to Dayton this weekend. If Dawkins takes the Michigan offer, they are out of room unless Mitch McGary declares for the draft. Yes, even though Austin Hatch etc., etc.
If Michigan does have room it doesn't sound like the "I want to play small forward" thing is going to be much of a barrier:
"It was more about how I was being used (in the system)," Huff said of his decision to transfer. "Nevada did a great job using me as a pick-and-pop player and putting me down low with my back to the basket, but that's not all of who I am. I think I can be used for more than that.”
Huff won't have to worry about playing with his back to the basket in Ann Arbor. Posting up is a foreign concept in a Beilein offense. Michigan has a couple of connections with Huff, one a team manager, the other his AAU coach, and it sounds like there is strong mutual interest. Huff would have to sit out next year and then would have two to play; as a 6'8" guy who hit 40% from three he is filed under DO WANT.
Huff won't have to wait long, as McGary will be in or out of the draft by the end of Sunday and it sounds like Dawkins is not going to extend the process much longer than it takes to visit Dayton. Via Sam Webb($):
"I knew I wasn’t going to commit on the visit. I already have a visit to Dayton (set up), so I knew that was going to happen too. I knew I wasn’t going to commit on the visit. I wanted to come back and talk to (my parents) and see what they thought and things like that.”
The rest of that article makes it sound like he wants to jump on the Michigan offer but has to fulfill a promise made to Dayton; that's just my speculation.
Schofield will be a middle-round selection. [Fuller]
Draft status (DON'T PANIC, NFL). Mel Kiper is bullish on Taylor Lewan, saying he could go as high as #2 overall and projecting him sixth to the Falcons. A couple of other grads are in line to get picked as well:
"Gallon ran better than I thought he would (at the combine), he made a lot of clutch catches, does a lot after the catch as a slot guy, to me he's worth a fifth round-type pick," Kiper said. "Schofield was a little underrated. He was solid pretty much all year at tackle, he could be a third- or fourth-round pick."
I'm happy that Schofield is going to get picked as he had a solid year that may have gotten overlooked what with the chaos around him. It's nice when the UFR process seems accurate about a player who doesn't have stats.
I'm less happy that Michigan had two NFL-worthy tackles last year and still looked like that, and is now trying to not look like that without them.
Ticket details. Take it FWIW, but an MGoUser asked the department how sales were going and got a number in response:
After I renewed my season tickets this year I contacted the Athletic Development Office and specifically asked what the renewal rates were compared to last year. Whether or not you view it as half full or half empty, the 8% difference from a year ago is down about 8,792 seats. Then there was the student renewal discussion which amounted to about another 1,200 - 1,500 seat renewal drop off. I know some of these will be picked up by new buyers but, I doubt they all go to new buyers. I think we will see the return of the ticket packs. Losing roughly 10,000 fans at the Big House is going to be very noticeable unless the AD gets creative. Having said that, I still think we see a sellout for most every game. I am hoping it is not as bad as it sounds.
An eight percent drop in one year is huge. How many will come back next year when the schedule has some actual attractions on it? This realignment went as poorly as possible for 1000 S. State Street.
Union vote tomorrow. Northwestern still telling their kids that a union will get them fired and strangle their grandma.
“Understand that by voting to have a union, you would be transferring your trust from those you know — me, your coaches and the administrators here — to what you don’t know — a third party who may or may not have the team’s best interests in mind,” Fitzgerald wrote to the team in an email.
"If you have a union that is comprised of you, you may not have your best interests in mind." That's some 1984 business up in there. I mean:
Players have heard warnings that the formation of a union would make it harder for them to land jobs after graduation; that Fitzgerald might leave; that alumni donations would dry up; that Northwestern’s planned $225 million athletic center could be scrapped.
All because the players want to negotiate about medical benefits and likeness rights. Andy Staples lays out a case that even if Northwestern's current players vote a union down, it doesn't really matter:
Also, if athletes are employees, some team at a private school somewhere will eventually vote to unionize. Not all coaches are as beloved as Fitzgerald. Not all schools treat their athletes as well as Northwestern does. Because of numbers, the chances are much greater that it will be a men's basketball team instead of a football team. On a basketball team, only seven of 13 scholarship players would have to agree to form a union. A galvanizing event such as the firing of a popular coach or the hiring of an unpopular one could easily tip the scales in favor of a union.
What matters is the NLRB's decision on appeal.
Etc.: Private Joe Paterno statue planned for downtown State College. Anyone want to see Spencer Hall vomit? AAAAAAAARGH. MLB cam is fascinating, vertigo-inducing. Talking with MAAR. How MAAR got to Michigan.
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