jake slaker

is this a back half of a hockey season or a witch convention amirite [JD Scott]

2/14/2020 – Michigan 5, Michigan State 1 – 9-8-2 Big Ten, 14-12-3 overall

2/17/2020 – Michigan 4, Michigan State 1 – 10-8-2 Big Ten, 15-12-3 overall

Will Lockwood burst out of the zone with the puck by himself, chased by three defenders. None could catch up but the best-positioned had enough of an angle to push Lockwood a little wide and force a shot. John Lethemon, amongst the national leaders in save percentage with a .942 before this series, was able to come out and cut the angle down.

It was a decent chance; it was Michigan's second shot. It squeezed through Lethemon somehow. Goal.

Michigan hockey's twitter account is pretty good about posting videos of all goals no matter how obscured they are by student camerawork—looking at you, unnamed Penn State sophomore—and this one didn't make it to the internet, because… eh… I mean, MSU scored immediately afterwards and it wasn't the kind of goal that absolutely had to get up. Michigan's third was in a similar vein and did get up:

Clever play by Blankenburg to see Lethemon looking to the wrong side of the very small person trying to screen him. Also not a .940 goalie play.

On the other end of the ice, Strauss man flung a desperate stick at a shot headed for an otherwise empty net. The deflected puck spun wildly, plunking first one post and then the other before Nolan Moyle swept it off the goal line on an incredibly improbable return trip along the goal line. If Moyle wasn't there the puck might be pirouetting from one post to the other still. It was one of the damndest things you'll see in a hockey game, but it was not a goal.

It's worth exploring how in the hell Michigan has gone from dead in the water to an 8-1-1 surge that is two-thirds of the way towards one of the more unlikely postseason bids in Michigan history. What changed? A fair chunk of the answer is that stupid crap stopped happening to Michigan and started happening to the other team.

This series transpires twice a year. The first edition was another weird schedule event—a Thursday-Saturday home and home—but otherwise completely different. In the first outing Michigan was up 3-1 in the last minute of the second period, then gave up three straight goals to lose. On Saturday Michigan had a 5-1 edge in power plays and outshot MSU 35-26; they did not score in a 3-0 loss. Since I noted that Michigan's even strength shooting percentage was an absurdly low 5.8 they've started flinging in one or two long-rangers per game; they're up to 7.1.

Pucks bounce.

[After THE JUMP: the other half of the equation is scoring rad goals]

3/24/2018 – Michigan 3, Northeastern 2 – 21-14-3
3/25/2018 – Michigan 6, Boston U 3 – 22-14-3, Frozen Four

I've seen NCAA tournament games like Sunday's before: one team gets down, and gets desperate, and dumps all that energy into a relentless pursuit of the puck. Sometimes it's Michigan overturning a 3-0 deficit against Denver to win. Sometimes it's Boston College dominating just about every second despite being down 2-1. Most of the time when this team gets even, they keep going. BC's tying goal in 2004 was game over even if it took overtime. Shots were 45-17 in a game Michigan led the vast majority of. If North Dakota had scored on Shawn Hunwick, that was also game over.

So: Sunday. After about 30 minutes where Michigan had the edge in zone time and staked themselves to a two-goal lead, BU scores on a wraparound, then amps up their forecheck. The ice tilts their direction. When Quinn Hughes isn't on the ice, Michigan barely attempts a controlled zone exit, instead flinging the puck up the boards to BU defensemen. They dump it back in to continue the cycle. The game started to feel like Michigan's recent Big Ten playoff outing against Wisconsin, which this space called Michigan's worst of the year despite the fact that they won it.

And BU scores. They score when Josh Norris flips a pass back to Joe Cecconi in the face of two forecheckers. Cecconi makes a bad situation worse by trying to fling the puck up the slot. Turnover, unchecked guy directly in front of goalie with puck, goal, tie game, game over feeling.

The ensuing three minutes are more of the same; Michigan does not register a shot attempt and BU has a couple of dangerous chances. Then Slaker takes the puck out of the zone—a tiny flag is waved—and gets rubbed out on the boards. This is about the least threatening way hockey players can be configured:

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Slaker duly follows up on the defenseman the puck is wandering towards, and then something magical and very very stupid happens. That guy's attempted D to D pass gets caught up in the snow around the bench and turns into a perfect lead pass for Slaker. Horrified, the defenseman explodes in a shower of equipment and collapses to the ground, where he remains even now. Slaker then skates into the slot and shoots a puck off the other defenseman's shin that goes straight into the net. Various larger flags are waved.

That's more or less it. Michigan puts up an insurance marker a bit later but in a game like hockey even when you're playing badly and giving up a bunch of zone time to the opposition, a one goal lead is usually enough with 13 minutes left. They put up a stat at the beginning of the third that Michigan was a brazillion and one when leading after two and BU was 2-6 when trailing. 

Slaker's goal combined with Michigan's second, which bounced off the end boards and behind the goalie directly to Brendan Warren, and the BU wrap-around goal to lend the proceedings the distinct whiff of Barely Weighted Hockey Plinko. This is why it was very exciting to get in the tournament: it's usually pretty random and this year there is no dominant team that threatens to make it less so. The top seed got blown up by Air Force, which is a movie we've seen before.

Once you're there, though… I have to admit that mixed in with the hope and nervousness is a certain nihilism, because of this terrible format and hockey's failure to address the goalie revolution that shot save percentages skyward. I shook my fist at hockey plinko when Northeastern scored to even a game in which Michigan had a 2-to-1 shot advantage, and muttered something positive about it under my breath when Michigan scored on a harmless-looking play to retake the lead. They don't quite even out.

But here they are, no more or less deserving than Carl Hagelin or TJ Hensick or dozens of other Michigan hockey players who had the misfortune to have the puck bounce the wrong way instead of the right way. Cooper Marody, Tony Calderone, and Dexter Dancs wiped out the best line in the country in game one; Quinn Hughes spent the weekend looking like he had rockets in his skates; the team as a whole mercifully stayed out of the box for the vast majority of both games. Insofar as it's possible to earn anything in single elimination hockey, Michigan has earned their way to their first Frozen Four in seven years.

May our continued existence continue to entertain the hockey gods.

BULLETS

PONCHO TIME? Hockey borrowed something from basketball.

I'll allow it.

This is too random. Some randomness in a tourney is fun. Without it there's no point in playing. Too much randomness and the format is clearly broken, with annually unsatisfying champions that have no real claim to being the best team. This is too random:

After going 12-0 against No. 4s in the first three years, No. 1s are 31-21. A No. 4 seed has won at least one game against a No. 1 in each of the last 13 seasons. Since realignment came about, No. 4 seeds have won eight of 12. …

In the case of those four seeds that became national champions — Yale in 2013 and Providence in 2015 — they were the last teams in the tournament. Providence qualified by .0002 RPI points over Bowling Green in 2015. This year, Duluth was the last team in by .0001 points over Minnesota. In any other year, UMD would've been a No. 4 as well. However, BU, Princeton and Michigan Tech winning their conference tournaments changed all of that.

Air Force turtled against SCSU and got lucky, like they did against Michigan some years back. The prevalence of blocked shots and super high save percentages makes that strategy pay off way too often; the sport should take radical steps to increase scoring, so that individual games are more indicative of who's actually better at doing hockey.

Stayed out of the box! Four power plays against on the weekend. One fairly badass goal from Northeastern and that's it. Given the margins here any more would have been disastrous.

But it was rough against BU. Per College Hockey News, Michigan was out-shot-attempted 63-31 at even strength. M helped bridge that gap by blocking almost a third of BU's attempts (19); BU only blocked 6 of Michigan's. Michigan benefited from the randomness this year. Hooray.

I take solace in the fact that Michigan played ND dead even this year and it didn't seem like the Irish were ever able to lock Michigan in their own zone like BU did, even when they trailed in both games of the Michigan sweep.

If Michigan does get OSU that's… sort of okay? 0-5 on the year is far from ideal, but the playoff outing was just about even at 5v5, and even though Michigan was swept in multi-goal games in late January they had huge ES Corsi advantages in both games. (55-31 and 43-23.) I ain't scared of those guys.

Hughes. Before this season my personal ranking of defensemen I've seen play for Michigan went like this:

  1. Jacob Trouba
  2. Mike Komisarek
  3. Zach Werenski
  4. Jack Johnson
  5. Jon Merrill

Hughes is flying up the list despite not even being drafted yet. He's… #3? I think I'd take him over Werenski. His absurd skating nullifies most of his size deficiencies…

…and late in the year he's learned what he can do at this level. He's still a bit wild and will turn the puck over in a bad spot a couple times per game, but that's because he's trying—and largely succeeding at—stuff that nobody else has the ability to even attempt. Here's an excellent twitter thread highlighting some of the things he did in the BU game.

Etc.: Michigan, those loveable underdog scamps. Berenson watched from the stands.

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[Bill Rapai]

Friday, March 2, 2018

#3 Michigan 6, #6 Wisconsin 5

[Note: numbers refer to BTT seeding]

1st period

CALDERONE GOAL

UM 1 UW 0 EV 1:40 Assists: Marody & Cecconi

Cecconi puts some mustard on a backhanded clearing attempt and gets the puck out of Michigan’s defensive zone.

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The puck stays more or less on the wall and looks like it’s about to be stopped by Tischke’s skates.

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until it somehow gets through. You can see Marody locked onto the puck in the screencap above, and he’s in perfect position to pick it up and go once it gets past the UW skater. To Tischke’s credit, he makes the right move once the split second he realizes the puck is past him. He turns and moves to get into a position where he can take away Marody’s passing lane to his right.

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That doesn’t mean Tischke’s actually able to take away said lane, though. Marody gets the pass through to Calderone, who’s perfectly aligned. This is extra dangerous for Wisconsin because Calderone is a right-handed shot, so he’s going to get the puck on his on hand.

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It’s also extra dangerous because there aren’t many skaters at this level who can lift a puck from in tight like Calderone. This isn’t the closest to the net that I’ve seen him go top shelf this season, but it’s still impressive because he does it at full speed while allowing the puck to slide past the midpoint of his body to where he wants to shoot, slightly outside his frame to his right.

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[Analysis of the other 743 goals after THE JUMP]