michael pastujov

4/7/2022 – Denver 3, Michigan 2 (OT) – 31-10-1, Season Over 

They call the sort of overtime that is played in the NCAA Hockey Tournament "sudden death". The moniker makes logical sense- when a goal is scored, the game is suddenly over and the team that loses has died the "sudden death". That is the sort of death that the 2021-22 Michigan Hockey team suffered at the Frozen Four in Boston, losing on a Carter Savoie overtime "sudden death" winner against Denver. It came suddenly indeed, on a play that started as a mistake, with two Wolverines overskating a loose puck waiting to be cleared from the zone, before the Pioneers seized it and quickly turned it into a dangerous pass and then a goal. It was a quick departure from an overtime period that Michigan had largely controlled play in, and that's where the sudden nature is valid. 

But at the same time, the death that this hockey team died was not completely sudden. In some ways, it was slow. The slow death march of sorts began when the team took the ice for the opening puck drop and were completely devoid of energy. Throughout the first period, one could have said Michigan was as flat as the Iowa landscape. They were outplayed by Denver handily in the opening frame and though they had better second and third periods, Michigan was the lesser team in the entire sixty minutes of regulation. They amassed far fewer shots on net and scoring opportunities than Denver, using the magic of Erik Portillo and a pair of fortunate bounces to keep the game even and push it to the extra session. 

That sensation of never leading, frequently being on their heels, and struggling to keep up made it feel like Michigan was dying a slow death. Outside of two good looks in the overtime period, there were few moments where the fan pulse indicated that the Maize & Blue were going to actually come out of the game victorious. As the seconds rolled away, it merely felt like we were getting closer to finding out when the true moment of death would be. The Savoie overtime goal was just the final blow that sealed the slow death known as a lackluster performance in the biggest game of the season. From that view, it wasn't so sudden, but rather the final punctuation that made your author think "yeah, that seems right". 

[David Wilcomes]

Moreover, one, particularly someone with a longer sense of fandom for Michigan Hockey, may be able to argue that the slow death began when Michigan got to overtime in the first place, because NCAA Tournament overtimes have been downright disastrous for the Wolverines over the past two decades. Especially those taking place in the Regional Final or later. Starting with the 2003 season, Michigan is 0-6 in overtime games taking place in that round of the tournament or lataer. They also lost a game to Notre Dame in the Frozen Four in 2018 in the dwindling seconds of regulation, which at that point is essentially overtime, and were also stunningly upset in the first round of the 2009 tournament in overtime by Air Force. The only redeeming moments in that span are a pair of OT wins in the first round in 2011 and 2016. 

Getting to overtime in a round like the Frozen Four meant that to the most snakebitten of fans, the slow death began at that moment. We were doomed the moment the puck dropped on the extra session and the only sudden element of the death was the goal that put us out of our misery. Perhaps this was a particularly cynical view, but for the diehard Michigan Hockey fans, this was a mindset inhabited the moment overtime began. 

That is the nature of a loss with so many doom-related factors: a poor showing in regulation casting an ominous sense of failure, only to be tossed the dual-sided bone of hope and also hopelessness called overtime. The slow death began when we saw the performance the team put on in regulation, then continued when we started to realize the only way for *Michigan* to win the game was *overtime in a Frozen Four*, before a quick mirage of aspiration when Luke Hughes rushed down the ice on a 2 on 1, followed by the dashing of said mirage when the puck wound up in the chest of Magnus Chrona, and finally brought home by the Savoie goal. At that moment, as Erik Portillo stared down into the ice while experiencing the agony of defeat, it was full circle. The slow and sudden nature of this cruel death had converged, and the season was over. The torture of the Frozen Four, and overtime in that round, lives on. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Making peace with the end] 

3/19/2022 – Michigan 4, Minnesota 3 – 29-9-1 (16-0-5-3 B1G) – B1G Tournament Champions

August 20, 2021, was a balmy Friday night in southeast Michigan. The temperature peaked at 86° in the afternoon with little wind, and many spent the day outside. The Tigers were in Toronto that night playing the Blue Jays, and there was little else of note going on live in the sports world, aside from customary non-major golf and tennis tournaments. Most who read this site, those whose DNA is programmed to live and die by Michigan sports, probably were focused on the impending football season that was two weeks away, wondering if this was to be Jim Harbaugh's last season in Ann Arbor, how Mike Macdonald's new-look defense would perform, and how good of a quarterback Cade McNamara would be.

Yet, the most important development of the week in Michigan sports was to be announced that night, and it would have little to do with football, or golf, or tennis. Little did we know during the afternoon, but at 6:47 PM, the official Michigan Hockey account tweeted out final confirmation that Michigan's trio of rising sophomore stars, Owen Power, Matty Beniers, and Kent Johnson, who had been drafted 1st, 2nd, and 5th overall in the NHL Draft a month prior, would be returning for their second season in Ann Arbor. At that moment, the trajectory of Michigan's 2021-22 hockey season was changed significantly. 

Brian spent many years on this site spilling words about the dreaded Michigan Hockey Summer, when Michigan's star players would be ripped away from the roster, and other recruits may or may not decide to show up on campus. The bottom line implication is that after Michigan Hockey Summer, the roster in the fall would be a good bit worse than what our dream scenario was, because reality (and the NHL) delivered a splash of cold water to the face.

However, the summer of 2021 did not bring a typical Michigan Hockey Summer. Cam York announced he would be signing with the Flyers (something that was assumed during the season) and Strauss Mann declared he would be leaving for a pro contract that was eventually consummated in Sweden (something also widely speculated by connected internet scouts), but nobody else of consequence with a coin-flip probability of leaving opted to depart. 

[Marc-Gregor Campredon]

In returning nearly the entire team from the year before, and adding a recruiting class with two more first round picks, Michigan would ice the most talented roster (by NHL Draft status) in NCAA history. That was confirmed the night of August 20. The expectations when you assemble a roster with seven first round picks, plus one second rounder, one third rounder, and two fourth rounders, is a team that should hang banners. Saying that it's National Championship or Bust is cruel and perhaps unreasonable in a sport whose tournament is shaped in a way to dilute team quality and emphasize pure randomness, but that's not to say that such a goal, as well as reaching the Frozen Four, weren't expectations for this team. Perhaps slightly difficult expectations, but expectations nonetheless. Below that, the bare minimum expectation for the team was at least one Big Ten ring and it became that way on August 20. 

This past Saturday night, March 19, 2022, nearly seven months to the day from the moment those titanic expectations were bestowed upon the team, they met the bare minimum. After coming up short on the regular season crown, they went into Minneapolis and defeated a high-end Minnesota team, beating them soundly to win the B1G Tournament title. One expectation down, two more to go. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: We have a bracket!]

I was out of town this past weekend, having planned the trip a few weeks back on the assumption that Michigan Hockey would would finish first in the B1G and thus have a bye. It was a risky assumption, but I bet on the boys going into South Bend at the end of February and getting the job done. As we discussed last week, that did not happen. Still, despite having to play this past weekend, the Wolverines essentially got a bye: they got to play Michigan State. I don't love kicking teams when they're down, but it's absolutely deserved after the Spartans failed to beat Michigan again, falling to 0-6 on the season against their rival and possibly ending the Danton Cole Era in East Lansing. 

Because there's not much to say that hasn't already been said about Michigan beating MSU into the dirt, I'm only going to list a few bullets about the actual on-ice games (many of the notes are more about season stats than about these games). After that we're going to delve more deeply into NCAA Tournament seeding, and then we'll preview Notre Dame (again). 

HockeyBullets 

- Michael Pastujov is having an under-appreciated (super)senior season. This is a point I made on the HockeyCast (which will be released tomorrow), but buried below all the young stars on the Michigan roster is one of the oldest guys on the team, Mike Pastujov, who is quietly having a very nice season. He's got a 10-14-24 line in 37 games, very solid middle six forward production and it's especially nice to see from a winger who struggled in his career prior to 2021-22 to be a consistent producer. Pastujov would be in and out of the lineup, shuffled on different lines, and could never be considered a productive piece. That has changed this year, where he is one of three players to play in every game for Michigan, and has been a reliable goal producer, playing comfortably with more talented players in Michigan's top nine. 

Another under-appreciated element of his game is the defensive component Pastujov brings. He's not a checking grinder like a Van Wyhe or Moyle, but Pastujov's defensive positioning is very strong, he can help kill penalties, and plays a 200-foot game. I like him playing with Thomas Bordeleau because those guys are both good two-way forwards who provide a difficult front for the opposition to penetrate. It's been a nice year for Pastujov, who deserves recognition, and hopefully he gets to return to the Frozen Four, being the last member of the 2018 Frozen Four lineup to still be in the program (Luke Morgan was on the team but was not an active player, sitting out his transfer-mandated year). 

Samoskevich has come on strong [James Coller]

- Mackie Samoskevich could be a superstar as a sophomore. We haven't talked enough about Samoskevich this year, as he's also gotten buried below Beniers, Johnson, Brisson and Bordeleau. It took him a little bit of time to get acclimated to college hockey as a freshman, but since the start of 2022, Samoskevich has been terrific: 5-10-15 in 16 games. He's found a role that suits him next to Dylan Duke and Johnny Beecher, two players who are willing to be a bit more physical than him, with Duke offering the ability to play around the net and Beecher offering the skating ability to mesh with Samoskevich's legs. That line has been excellent since the Olympians left for China, and they have kept it rolling into March. And make no mistake, Samoskevich drives that line. He can really fly, is a good passer, and man is his shot sweet: 

Mackie Samoskevich an absolute rocket 🚀 pic.twitter.com/ij55PUk8xI

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) March 5, 2022

Samoskevich is now 8th on the team in points with 26 and if you look at the guys ahead of him, most won't be here next year, while it's widely assumed that Samoskevich will get a 2nd year in Ann Arbor. If he does, watch for him to be a 1st team All-B1G type player while leading a top line next to incoming freshmen forwards like Frank Nazar III, Adam Fantilli, and Rutger McGroarty. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Pairwise!]