Michigan Hockey Game #39: Michigan 4, North Dakota 3
CLICK HERE for Game Recap from Kristy McNeil and other pertinent information.
What just happened (TL;DR): After a couple of periods to forget, Michigan played their best third period of the season against an elite opponent in a big time game. After a little puck luck, Michigan’s jumbled line of Garrett Schifsky, TJ Hughes, and Dylan Duke assembled the prettiest goal of the season at the most crucial time of the season in what would be the game-winner. Michigan came from behind, flipped the third period on its head, shut down their opponent, and then held the fort to close the game. Who’s breaking narratives, now?
FINAL CORSI NUMBERS (www.collegehockeynews.com)
|
Total Attempts |
Even Strength |
Power Play |
Close (within 1) |
Even Strength % |
North Dakota |
48 |
48 |
0 |
32 |
47% |
Michigan |
56 |
55 |
1 |
36 |
53% |
Forward Notes.
-For the first two periods, Michigan couldn’t get much going. They barely had the puck during the opening half of the beginning frame. While they finally got some possession, they over-passed, and didn’t just shoot the puck on a beatable goalie. In the second period, they started doing so and got rewarded early. Once the third period started, the Wolverines were flying, dominating puck possession, shots, and attempts.They registered the first nine shots of the third period. Each period seemed to bring improvement with offensive creation. That’s what you want to see.
-Two of Michigan’s goal resulted from just throwing the puck on net. Both goals were deflections in front of the crease to open shooters at the side of the net. Steve Holtz fired the first one that Frank Nazar scooped up, beating Ludvig Persson. Tyler Duke fired the second one, hitting Garrett Schifsky on its way to TJ Hughes’s stick, giving Michigan a 3-2 lead. Another point in my previews was just getting pucks to Persson and making him make a lot of saves. Once the shot total started rising, the goals started flowing.
-Perhaps the prettiest goal of the season was the fourth and game-winner. Garrett Schifsky made a slick pass ahead to TJ Hughes, who softly sauced a pass across the low slot to Dylan Duke, who smoothly fired the puck in the net. Michigan bounced, jumbled, and blendered their lines seemingly all night. While there seemed to be a bit of discombobulation at times, it paid off watching the goal hit the back of the net.
-Michigan looked very much locked down for the first couple of periods. They overpassed a ton in the first. They also just didn’t create enough in the second. Major props to the coaching staff and players for figuring some things out and dominating the third period.
Defense Notes.
-Early in the first period, the Wolverines made the Big Mistake. For two periods it was the difference and on track to being what ended their season. On a 2v3, North Dakota made a simple scissor move, crossing their forwards upon entrance. Instead of just racing back to protect the house, Ethan Edwards chased Abram Wiebe to the boards. Marshall Warren did as well (same with Garrett Schifsky, who I don’t fault as much due to circumstances), leaving no one on Hunter Johannes streaking into the slot. Johannes fired into the top corner to open the scoring. A simple switch, an extra man back…didn’t matter. It ended with North Dakota’s best chance of the night.
-After that though, Michigan was really, really good defensively. They didn’t allow much, even less from dangerous areas, and pretty much locked down the third period, sans a play or two. Not too bad. Maybe they just needed to get one out of their system?
-Marshall Warren, again, was really good. He got back a few times to eliminate potential breakaways. He was strong and physical around the net and on the boards. He’s really developed into the player Michigan hoped they were getting last summer.
-Seamus Casey apparently took a big hit in the first period and never returned. That…is really bad news. I have no idea what the reason is, but not playing in the final two periods is not what we need to hear this time of year. The good news is that Luca Fantilli and Steve Holtz both played pretty well in his absence. It’s not often we’ve seen both of them play as much as they did tonight…but here we are. And we’re still standing!
-This will be known as the Keaton Pehrson Game. The former Michigan Wolverine registered two assists and scored a goal. I joked in the preview that he would score the overtime winner that would end Michigan’s season. Well, instead, he helped both teams. Two previous times in his career, he had a two point night. On Friday, he registered two assists for the Fighting Sioux and deflected a puck into the net for Michigan. His deflected goal came off of a play by Ludvig Persson hitting him with the puck. We’ll call it a three point night…the largest scoring night of his collegiate career.
Celebrations are always fun (Vince Coughlin)
SPECIAL TEAMS CHART
|
PP Opportunities |
PP Corsi For |
PP Shots/Minute |
North Dakota |
0/1 |
0 |
0/1 |
Michigan |
0/1 |
1 |
0/1 |
Power Play. Michigan got one power play all game…well, kinda. They got just over a minute of power play time before there was some 4x4 after Gavin Brindley took a penalty. Michigan attempted one puck on net and it went wide. Okay.
The thing about this game is that it is so different from the hockey we’ve watched all season. Penalties aplenty. Power plays, penalty kills, 5x3s, majors…and on and on. Not in the NCAA Tournament. No one gets a penalty. I kept bracing for so many whistles that never blew. I don’t think it’s really good or bad, but it’s very different and takes some adjusting.
Penalty Kill. As previously mentioned, Michigan barely had a power play. Well, North Dakota didn’t even register an attempt on net on theirs. Good for Michigan, I suppose. This is just a completely different game.
One thing I wonder is if Big Ten teams struggle when having actual referees because the game is called so differently, meaning they have to play differently. Michigan’s third period was very different from a physicality perspective. They hit like I haven’t seen them hit all year. I’m guessing because unless there was a decapitation, ain’t no one goin’ to the box.
Go DJ! That’s my DJ! (Vince Coughlin)
GOALTENDING CHART
|
Michigan Shots Faced (House) |
North Dakota Shots Faced (House) |
First Period |
7 |
4 |
Second Period |
10 |
11 |
Third Period |
10 |
15 |
Overtime |
n/a |
n/a |
TOTAL |
27 |
30 |
Notes. Jake Barczewski started in net on Friday night, and he was fantabulous. He was very solid positionally, didn’t give up major rebounds, and was just an absolute rock down the stretch. He snared one puck that had eyes, bouncing through multiple players from both teams, ending up on a Fighting Sioux stick right in front of him. At that point, you just knew he had the game locked. I don’t think he could have done much on any of the goals. A blown defensive switch, a ridiculous redirect in front, and an open shooter from the side of the net after an original stop? That feels like hockey to me. Alex and I both put in our previews that one of the keys to Michigan winning on Friday night was getting an NCAA Tournament worthy performance from Barczewski. Step up big time, he did.
ODD MAN RUSH CHART
Defense |
Rushes |
Advs |
Escape% |
Offense |
Rushes |
Advs |
Scoring% |
1st Period |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
|
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
2nd Period |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
|
1 |
4v2 |
0% |
3rd Period |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
|
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
OT |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
|
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
Total |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
|
1 |
4v2 |
0% |
Notes. Brian tweeted about remembering Michigan/North Dakota games ending 8-6 with wide open hockey. This was not that. Michigan got one OMR all game, a Not Very Dangerous 4v2 that ended with a Rutger McGroarty shot from a non-threatening angle…with no rebound. That was it. Oh, and North Dakota got nothing. Lol. Not like the days of yore…
FINAL THOUGHTS
Michigan beat North Dakota in an NCAA Tournament game! What do you think my thoughts are? AMAZING. You get so few shots at teams like this. Winning a game against a blueblood in an elimination game is always a Game To Remember. The biggest thing, though, is how they did it. The bugaboos that have killed them all year were all overcome and eradicated in this game. Good Defense (sans one goof)? Check. Goaltending? Check. Third period rally, lead, and hold? Checks all around. They also did it mostly without one of their best players. What a game.
Sparty is next, again. There are narratives, emotions, grudges, and scores to settle. Ride or Die. This is why you play. Sunday night, 6:30 EST, ESPN2/ESPN+.
March 30th, 2024 at 12:53 AM ^
Great comeback win. This team seems to be getting better as the season goes on. Beat state and off to FF
Nice bit of instant karma for Jackson Blake there at the end. The cherry on top......
I am going to award Karma a TKO at the buzzer. Still undefeated.
What happened with Jackson Blake....? I did not get the game on my service and was only able to see the highlights on youtube......
Blake tried to hit Brindley in the neutral zone as time expired, missed, and hit his head on the boards.
March 30th, 2024 at 10:11 AM ^
The coaching staff really needs to address the third man coming back on a rush. Over and over I saw them do the wrong thing. Fix this and it will save a goal or two a game. It's that bad. These where the real opportunities are coming from. Always a two man rush and trailing third defender effectively is out of play.
No hockey muppets?
SOON
i just disagree with your points re: goalie and defense. the d played great in the third but i felt they lacked focus in the defensive zone for the first half of the game, and barzo didn't make a big save until there was a minute left to play. at the end of the day there's no complaining about a tournament win but i'll need to rewatch to make sure i saw the same game you did.
March 30th, 2024 at 11:09 AM ^
Barzo made a number of pad/stick saves and seemed to be able to push the rebounds away from dangerous areas. I think he did fine.
Barzo has a habit of sliding all over the place out of control in extended scoring opportunities which has gotten him into trouble a lot. Two times in the first five minutes he slid far out of the crease in an overreaction to a second chance which leaves him super open to third chances. Ideally by the third chance your defense has the threat contained but.. that's just not always going to happen. The first goal certainly wasn't his fault, the second goal also wasn't his fault, just a stupid bounce and a great tip from UND. The third goal was a great finish but was the type of scrum type substance I was describing. None of the goals were individually terrible, but they weren't unsaveable either. I wouldn't describe his play as Fantabulous. It was about an average Barzo performance, which meant good enough to win a game against a fringe top 5 team where the bounces went Michigan's way.
I need to give a shoutout to his play at 15:17 in the third period to avoid the deflection off of the back wall which was a far more dangerous play than I'd initially recognized. The save at 0:40 was objectively a big save, and given my complaints about his ability to reposition I'll give a shoutout to the save at 0:21 as well.
I don't want to come across as a total downer, the offense was opportunistic and the defense made some good individual plays to limit chances that I didn't fully appreciate until my rewatch (blocking shots, making contact to take power off a shot, etc). More than anything UM controlled the flow of play in the neutral zone excellently and made Barzo's life easy, imo. There was a lot of good in this game. I just felt like David's recap was more sunshine and rainbows than I'd have written.
I think this Michigan team is good enough to win 3 more games. They probably won't, and that's ok. I'll enjoy the ride regardless.
Flipped the usual jump out and then hold on or blow it in the 3rd. Butt in the first period and only a one goal deficit was a good result. Ate em up in the 3rd for the win. Go Blue Beat State
Anyone remember this (from 2011)?
Oh yeah. My profile pic is Scooter 1 second before that. Still one of my favorite all time Michigan wins in any sport
March 30th, 2024 at 11:36 AM ^
I certainly do.
I found myself looking at a number of NoDak fans behind the glass during the game and wondering "who will be deploying the bird(s) this time?"
March 31st, 2024 at 11:39 AM ^
I love the dude in white trying to play it cool while realizing his buddy is a dumbass.
Lots of credit to the team for realizing that the refs were not going to call anything and changing up their game a bit. I hate that these refs would rather have seen 1990’s NJ Devils hockey rather than skill and speed, but we made it work.
I hear you, but I liked it better than the crap we’ve been getting from B1G refs all year.
Well, if you are setting the bar at “directly responsible for a two goal swing in our opponents’ favor” then yeah, I guess they cleared it. I do fear that if the refs check out against Sparty then we are likely to see cheapshots.
March 30th, 2024 at 10:11 AM ^
I don’t think a single penalty was called after the 1st period back to back ones.
Don’t know what happened in the locker room before the 3rd period but whatever it was worked! Completely dominated that last period.
March 30th, 2024 at 10:56 AM ^
Yeah ol coach really lit a stripe off em in the 2nd intermission. Would pay to see that locker room speech!
Anyone got more news on Seamus Casey?
Excellent summary of the game. Coaches deserve praise. Casey hurt, probably on a play where penalty should have been called for charging. Third pair on defense played well - tribute to coaching. Just a great win.
March 30th, 2024 at 10:59 AM ^
I barely remember seeing a late check near the corner on a breakout, Nodak guy went full speed into one of our guys who was basically standing still. Fastest I've seen anyone carry their check into the boards all year. Clearly not the way modern game is played. Hopefully that wasn't what injured Seamus.
I'm thinking I saw that play, where the Hawk was skating all the way (IIRC) from our left half boards, around the curve, behind the net to the other side, and slammed into our player, if it was Casey, I didn't catch that. The Hawk was striding the whole fucking way. WTF?! How is that not Charging?!?!
Wow! Beat expectations. Now beat Staee.
Hell yea! Go Blue!!
I didn't think of North Dakota as a blue blood until I just looked it up and my history was definitely off. I was thinking of them as a program with a lot of recent success (like UConn in basketball). I was wrong. Frozen Four appearances with championships as a secondary metric seems like the right way to think about it:
Michigan - 27 (9 champ)
BC - 25 (5 champ)
BU - 23 ( 5 champ)
Minn - 23 (5 champ)
North Dakota - 22 (8 champ)
Denver - 18 (9 champ)
Harvard - 13 (1 champ)
Maine - 11 (2 champ)
MSU - 11 (3 champ)
Wisconsin - 11 (6 champ)
I think Denver is the cutoff. If you prefer to prioritize championships, maybe you add in Wisconsin (4th). That is a reasonable approach, but one extra championship vs 12 appearances doesn't feel like as strong as an accomplishment so should be behind BU/Minn.
So, I'd say the order is: Michigan, North Dakota, Denver, BC, BU/Minn, and maybe Wisconsin.
Perhaps unsurprisingly there's a guy on USCHO who has done some exhaustive work on the topic. I have (at times publicly) disagreed with a few of his metrics but you can't argue with the work or most of what he's using. He exhaustively ranks each program from an all-time perspective.
Before last year's postseason North Dakota was narrowly #1 over #2 Michigan, but he stated in the thread that he expected Michigan to jump NoDak after last year's postseason. He has not since crunched the numbers, but this is a hobby sort of thing. You can find the thread here. It is, uh, six years long, the link should take you to his most recent comprehensive ranking. Which is:
The cream of the crop...
#1 - North Dakota - 523.3644 Points
#2 - Michigan - 521.1526 Points
#3 - Denver - 468.5456 Points
#4 - Minnesota - 459.7809 Points
#5 - Boston College - 396.6778 Points
#6 - Boston University - 390.0831 Points
#7 - Wisconsin - 353.5653 Points
#8 - Michigan State - 232.1877 Points
#9 - Minnesota Duluth - 213.1545 Points
#10 - Maine - 177.9004 Points
#11 - Cornell - 173.8406 Points
#12 - Michigan Tech - 168.3758 Points
#13 - Lake Superior State - 156.9998 Points
#14 - Harvard - 150.3905 Points
#15 - Colorado College - 146.4316 Points
#16 - Clarkson - 135.4556 Points
#17 - Rensselaer - 100.1573 Points
#18 - Providence - 93.876 Points
#19 - New Hampshire - 92.7097 Points
#20 - Bowling Green - 84.2827 Points
North Dakota didn't get started as early as Michigan, but they've been a power for many decades. Beating them this year is a big deal; they were a top four team for a big part of the year until they got ambushed by Omaha in the NCHC playoffs.
I guess how one views a blue-blood can vary. But I would consider MSU and UMD to be on that list; multiple decades of elite hockey, multiple titles, Hobey winners. MSU and Maine both having renaissance seasons this year helps both in this area; contrast with LSSU, which was elite for almost 20 years but hasn't been relevant since Jeff Jackson left.
That thread is ba-na-nas. Gotta love the devotion to the task.
March 30th, 2024 at 10:48 PM ^
You think this is crazy, find the "College Hockey Championship Belt" thread(s) on the same site. Ralph Baer finally retired from the task after something like two decades of it. A remarkable rabbit hole.
March 30th, 2024 at 10:27 AM ^
First game of the year and knew that third period was special. Complete domination until the final five minutes when NDak started to turn it on.
Beat State.
March 30th, 2024 at 11:09 AM ^
It was pretty crazy how right after Michigan went up 2 goals on that freaking BEAUTIFUL goal (wheels, snipe, celly, Boys!!!) NoDak seemed to flip a switch and were flying around. Glad the boys held on and got the W.
Now, BEAT STAEEE!!
What a win!
Love this, great pic.
"THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING"
All 900 of you.
So if Michigan would have beat State in the conference tournament, how would that of affected seeding in this tournament?
Not much. IIRC there was a negligible but nonzero chance of us being #8, a slim chance of #9, high probability of staying #10.
NoDak is 20-1-0 when leading after two periods this season.
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