3/29/2024 – Michigan 4, North Dakota 3 – 22-14-3 

3/31/2024 – Michigan 5, Michigan State 2 – 23-14-3, Frozen Four 

Twice this Easter weekend Michigan Hockey plodded onto the ice, through the tunnel that led from the shanty locker rooms to the playing surface inside this bizarrely small NHL practice facility in suburban St. Louis, facing the biggest twenty minutes of their season. Make it or break it to continue playing hockey with this same group of 26 men. On Friday night, Michigan was down 2-1 entering the third period against a team that was 20-0-0 this season when leading after two. On Sunday night, Michigan was tied 1-1 against a team that had, consistently in the season series, closed games better than they had. 

In both cases, Michigan authored a final period for the ages. Friday night's dramatic eruption, three unanswered goals (two in the first three minutes) against North Dakota to wrestle control of the contest, seemed like it was going to be the third period of the season. The one we look back on years in the future and think, "that third period was the best they played all season". But then Sunday's may have been better. Save for a two minute stretch that saw Michigan commit a stupid penalty and then give up a tying goal on an even stupider penalty kill coverage breakdown, Michigan threw haymaker after haymaker and asserted themselves as the better team on that day. They scored four times on Michigan State's vaunted goalie, and all of them were tremendous high skill plays that left the goalie little chance. 

On both nights, Michigan seemed to find a fire. They flipped a seeming switch and after two even periods decided "no, we're the better team in this game". The manner in which the Wolverines throttled North Dakota was astonishing, especially after two iffy periods preceding it. They outshot the Fighting Hawks 14-1 at one point in the third period and put the three goals in the net to flip the score from 2-1 to 4-2. There were a few wobbly moments in the 6v5 play, but that dominance was enough to get it done. At 5v5, Michigan was head and shoulders better than NoDak on that night, after they hadn't been at all over the prior 40 minutes. It left a Dakota team, which was so accustomed to comfortably slamming the door on games they were leading, stunned over what had happened to them. 

 

[UMich Athletics]

In the Sunday game, the true "flip the switch" moment came after the Spartans tied it at 2. Michigan had been the better team in the first half of the third period, but it was only by a nose and I don't think it was too out of whack from the first 40 minutes. The opening two periods were pretty even, each team getting some looks, scoring a goal and having their goalies look sharp to keep the score deadlocked. Michigan began to inch ahead in the third and went up 2-1, but gave it back on the penalty and subsequent PK blunder. The score was tied 2-2 with time perilously slipping away, anyone's guess on what was going to happen next. 

If you were a Michigan partisan, you may have had that sinking feeling based on how previous meetings this season between Michigan-MSU went. MSU, generally, had closed out games better. They also had, generally, gotten the bounces. No better example of this than the game last weekend. It felt in that moment that perhaps Michigan had blown their chance to put the game away with the power play goal they'd ceded. But then came the flip the switch moment, when Michigan's highest skilled players decided "enough with this nonsense, we're winning this game". Dylan Duke, known primarily for greasy goals and who fell in the NHL Draft three years ago due to his subpar skating, decided to look like Connor McDavid with a rush down the wing, toasting the defensemen, deking Trey Augustine, and slipping the puck by him far side.

And then, before you could pick your jaw up off the floor, Michigan took advantage of a scattered Spartan neutral zone right off the ensuing center ice face off to spring Frank Nazar III with a rush down the wing. Nazar pulled off the Deke/Pass of the Century going between the legs and then snapping a pass across to Gavin Brindley, past the MSU defender, and right in Brindley's wheelhouse. Brindley made no mistake and rifled the puck by the sliding Augustine, who had very little chance to come up with this one. Two goals in 12 seconds, 2-2 to 4-2 just like that. A 50-50 game to a 90-10 win probability game in the blink of an eye. Michigan's punishing 5v5 defensive structure salted the game away, MSU took a late penalty that Michigan scored on, and that was that. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Michigan's 2024 turnaround]

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[Vince Coughlin]

Michigan Hockey has made four Frozen Fours since I've been somewhere in the Michigan mediasphere. The one before that came when I was in the 6th grade. Of the four they've made, this one feels the most unlikely. 2022's was pre-ordained, the season an abject failure if the team didn't punch a ticket to Boston given all the historic returning talent on the roster. 2023's wasn't quite as obvious, but it was clear to me coming into the season that Michigan was going to have an exceptionally good player on the roster who could will the team forward and they had a good veteran goalie. That's always a good combination and the team was never ranked lower than #8 in the USCHO poll the entire season, snaring a #1 seed and being given a very favorable NCAA Tournament draw. By the time the tourney arrived, it felt like not making it to Tampa was going to be pretty disappointing. 

2018's was a unique case. No one at the start of that year, the beginning of the Mel Pearson era coming off the worst Michigan team in decades, would've set expectations at that level. For a lot of the year, Michigan didn't play like a Frozen Four caliber team. Hell, they weren't even ranked until January 19th. But the team went 10-3-1 to close the regular season and then went 2-1 in the B1G Tournament, leaving them at 12-4-1 in their last 17 games headed into the NCAAs. Of those four losses, three were to Ohio State, the lone team they couldn't beat. They did, however, sweep Notre Dame, who was a top 2 team wire-to-wire in that span. By the time the tourney arrived, Michigan, a 2 seed in a regional with a weak 1 seed, had as good a chance as anyone in that regional to make it to St. Paul with the favorable draw and how hot they were. 

That 2018 team was unlikely in the grand scheme, but the season was a clear and linear arc of improvement. As spring rolled around, they were clearly a freight train barreling down the tracks, one that could only be stopped by an awful penalty kill and for some reason, the Buckeyes. 2024's team was not that way. They came in with decent expectations but had a flop of a first half, a mix of late game meltdowns and injuries to key players leading me to author the headline "Hockey Weekly Assesses The First Half Damage" in early December, as Michigan went to the holiday break 8-7-3, ranked 15th in the USCHO poll. 

 

[Bill Rapai]

Hopes for classic Michigan Hockey second-half improvement were left in poor shape when Michigan went 5-5 in the first five B1G weekends to begin calendar 2024. At that point, after merely splitting with Penn State, Michigan was 15-12-3 on the season, sub-.500 against real teams (excluding Lindenwood/Stonehill). They were down to 17th in the poll and in a similar situation in Pairwise. College Hockey News calculated their probability of making the NCAAs to be just 34%. I ran the headline "Hockey Weekly Is In Big Trouble" after that weekend. Michigan was going to need to suddenly start ripping off wins and they needed to do start doing it against a team in a venue that always was a nightmare: Notre Dame at Yost. 

At that point in time, things looked precarious at best. If Michigan Hockey missed the NCAA Tournament with 10 drafted skaters and six of them in the first three rounds... that was going to be a total failure of a season. Their even strength defense was a mess, as it had been all year, and the goaltending was up-and-down. They would put 45 good minutes together but then throw the game away in the other 15. Michigan was a frustrating team to watch and it wasn't clear they had it in them to make a signature run. Turns out we were wrong. 

Michigan swept Notre Dame in dramatic fashion, playing exceptional defense (for the first time all year) and got good goaltending. A poor showing against Minnesota on Friday gave way to a terrific Saturday showing, one that saw the roster of skaters narrowly avoid a backup goalie-induced meltdown. Then they swept Notre Dame at Yost AGAIN, in two much higher scoring games. That more or less sewed up the NCAA bid, back from the brink. But just for good measure they played the best defensive game a Michigan team has played in years to defeat Minnesota in Minneapolis in the B1G semifinals. A B1G Championship Game against MSU marred by refereeing shenanigans wasn't a bad showing by the Maize & Blue and in a different context, they could've won it. 

It wasn't a bad outing and probably should've been enough to win, but holes in goaltending, poor defensive lapses still loomed. As they got shipped to the St. Louis suburbs for this weekend regional, it still didn't feel like "the year". Maybe with a different draw, but Michigan was in the Region of Death, with two top five teams in North Dakota and MSU in the region. In all likelihood, Michigan was going to have to beat both a team that was #3 in the rankings most of the season *and* a team they'd lost to 4 of 5 times. It didn't feel like the right draw, the right team, the right moment for another Frozen Four and so I picked the North Dakota Fighting Hawks to emerge in our tournament preview piece. Again, I was dead wrong. 

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[Vince Coughlin]

To whom does this season's story belong? Certainly Michigan's offense, their high skill scorers, deserve the most credit as the team's greatest strength. They were the pillar all year long. Brindley, Duke, Nazar, Rutger McGroarty, TJ Hughes, Seamus Casey, and Garrett Schifsky. They are the guys who will come to mind when we think of this team years in the future. But the turnaround is owed to the other half of the team, starting with the coaching staff. For Brandon Naurato, this was his first "big" test as Michigan's head coach. In his inaugural season, he was able to lean on a generational (for NCAA/Michigan purposes) talent in Adam Fantilli that could drive the offense and will the team forward, as well as a goalie in Erik Portillo who had a talent for making high-danger saves and covering up glaring defensive errors. That was head coach on easy mode. 

2023-24 was head coach on medium, bordering on difficult mode. No he wasn't having to coach Lindenwood or Alaska-Anchorage but in terms of Michigan's picture, this was a more difficult equation. Naurato had to deal with injuries, a possibly key defenseman being expelled for a violation of team rules, goaltending that wasn't predisposed to mop up defensive errors, and a generally less talented team than the one he had the prior year. Oh, and the B1G had gotten better, with Wisconsin and MSU now top 10 teams. 

For a while it didn't seem like the coaching staff was navigating it the best. They were able to hold up the end of the offensive bargain alright, but the defense... it was brutal. Breakdowns in structure, poor puck management, fundamental coverage errors, Michigan couldn't find six healthy defenseman they trusted and the team was out of sorts. When it came time to protect a lead in particular, it was a nightmare. The third period meltdowns were the story of the season for a long time, haunting Michigan over and over again and costing them in both the B1G standings and the Pairwise. There was also the penalty kill, which at one point reminded me of that 2017-18 unit, straddling the low 70% range which is BAD. 

 

[Bill Rapai]

But slowly things began to change. They fixed the penalty kill in the second half of the season (well until Sunday I guess), even before the overall turnaround began. What was once a glaring weakness became an almost strength as opponent after opponent got little traction against Michigan's PK. Then the 5v5 defense improved too. They began to control the neutral zone much better, cutting down on rush chances against, and play perked up in their own zone. It wasn't perfect linear improvement, but by late February if Michigan was giving up 4 or 5 goals, it was primarily attributable to the goaltending and not the defense. 

There were still bad moments and hiccups. Coverage lapses here and there, puck management issues in other places. But they weren't getting skated through up and down the ice, and they weren't handing games to opponents. They strung together those masterful games against Notre Dame and Minnesota and then delivered defensively against North Dakota and Michigan State. Michigan held a North Dakota team that averages 3.8 goals per game to 3 and a Michigan State team that averages 4.2 goals per game to 2. Jacob Barczewski was hugely pivotal in net, but Michigan's defense did a lot of work too. They worked together to keep two top ten teams in goal scoring to manageable numbers. Twice in the last four games, Michigan has played a top eight team in the country and held them to zero 5v5 goals. 

People looking back will remember the Duke rush goal and Nazar's pass as why Michigan got to the Frozen Four, but that was always the case with this group. High skill, highlight reel plays were always capable for players of this talent level. Their offensive output and ability to break down high end goalies with shots that even great goalies can't get to, that was always there. From game one of the season, or as I wrote in February, "these cats can score on anyone", after they lit up a stingy Wisconsin team. But the reason they're in the Frozen Four is this defensive turnaround and two strong Barczewski games. A transformation of defensive outcomes and a great coaching effort to fix the team's greatest weaknesses. Because when you marry a solid penalty kill and legitimate 5v5 defensive structure with a team that can zip an A+ pass to an NHL shooter between the legs... you get a top 5, national title contending team. It may not have seemed like it could happen six weeks ago, but that's what the Wolverines are right now. 

 

 

[Bill Rapai]

HockeyBullets

Jacob Barczewski, the biggest hero of the weekend. I included a bullet point in the "Keys" section of both previews this past weekend that read something like "have Jacob Barczewski be good" which is really hard hitting analysis, I know, but you can't say it wasn't right. Goaltending is always a huge factor in every NCAA Tournament game because it's the most important position in the sport. But for Barczewski it felt especially big, since he'd been pretty rough looking down the stretch and because Michigan was going to need him against two strong offensive teams. Back in his home metropolitan area in front of family and friends, Barczewski was 62/67 (.925) on the weekend. This save late will hang in my brain: 

Barczewski came to Michigan from Canisius to get the chance to play in big time games in his last year of college hockey. This weekend he played in his two biggest and he came up with two $$$ efforts when it mattered. Michigan didn't leave Barczewski out to dry, but you still need a goalie to make saves against teams who can score and he was dialed in in both games. No breakaways or highlight reel OMR saves, but the sorts of chances where a guy comes down the wing and has a window to shoot, or a quick look from the slot that appears, Barczewski was stout on those. They don't become etched in our memory unless they go in and none of them did. That was the difference between winning and losing for Michigan. 

The defensemen sans Casey, also heroes. It is also remarkable that Michigan got through this weekend, against two top five teams, playing 5/6 periods without Seamus Casey. The defenseman has his downsides on the defensive side of things but he's far and away Michigan's best offensive defenseman and his genius on the PP can't be overstated. More than anything, his absence from the lineup meant everyone else has to slide up a spot, which is not something to look forward to on a team that has had a lot of problems with their depth D. 6th and 7th defenders Steve Holtz and Luca Fantilli have been a bit of a rollercoaster this year, so there was reason to brace for impact. To the credit of both players, I went the entire five periods without Casey hardly ever noticing them which, for a bottom pair defenseman, is one of the best compliments you can give (a lot like a safety in that regard). Neither had a glaring error that led to Michigan getting scored on, like had happened the week before (in Luca's case). 

Those two players performing admirably was a huge part of Michigan's win. So did Tyler Duke, who deserves a shoutout for a massive shotblock late against North Dakota to preserve the win. But beyond defense, Michigan also needed their top defensemen to step up and take some of the mantle offensively. That happened, with Ethan Edwards, the most Casey-like of the remaining defenders, joining the rush and scoring Michigan's first goal: 

And then there was Jacob Truscott, navigating the blue line like Casey and making the pass of his college career to fellow defenseman Marshall Warren for a goal: 

Warren has proven himself to be a gamer and may be the living embodiment of Michigan's late season turnaround. For much of the year, Warren seemed to be a bit of a dud, falling short of the defenseman Michigan thought they were getting out of the portal. But over the past six weeks his defense has become much, much sharper and his off-puck reads offensively have improved dramatically. He scored the huge late goal to seal the sweep of Notre Dame that began the turnaround and again puts himself in good position here to score. Warren has played 169 college hockey games over five seasons in his career and next week's Frozen Four game, against his former team, will be his first in the Frozen Four. Pretty cool, and Warren will always get to hang his hat on being a key part of why his team got there. 

Penalty kill... REASON TO PANIC? How should we assess Michigan giving up two PPGs to MSU after so much dominance on the PK for the past couple months? I don't think there's a major reason to panic because they weren't getting routinely exposed by the MSU PP. The first PP they faced, Michigan killed off the first 90 seconds without much incident and the goal they gave up was a deflection. Maybe some nitpicks there in whether Duke should've been tying up his man better, but it is what it is. They killed the second MSU PP off alright, though Barczewski did need to come up huge. The third PP opportunity for MSU was also killed off well for the first minute, before the one glaring breakdown: 

This is on Mark Estapa (#94). I don't love both defensemen going into the corner but if that happens, the center has to be covering the netfront. It's even stranger for Estapa to be where he is because Brindley is shaded up the wall (as you'd expect a winger to be), the place Estapa is drifting towards. Did he think Brindley needed more help on an eventual play up the wall? You're the center, your D are in the corner, go to the net!! As bad as this was, I mostly just pin this on one guy messing up, rather than a structural team breakdown. Michigan needs to keep practicing the PK for the Frozen Four given who they're playing, but I wouldn't be too concerned based on one game. If anything, their play 5v6 against NoDak was far more concerning than anything they did 4v5 on the weekend. 

Let's admire the Nazar pass again. I mean, come on: 

People familiar with my work will know that I watch a lot of hockey, current and historical. Not much of a secret. That being said, this play is one of the craziest passes I've ever seen adjusting for situation and stakes. Going between the legs off the rush at high speed in a one goal ELIMINATION game (that you're leading!), and sticking the landing is insane. Kent Johnson used to try stuff like that all the time, it only occasionally landed and never in a moment like that, in the heat of the battle at that speed. That will be Nazar's eternal highlight at Michigan, the sort of Harlem Globetrotters play that shouts to MSU "we have players who can do this and you don't, suck it". 

 

[Dae Smith/LSJ]

Reflecting on the opponents. There are two separate funny narratives coming out of the weekend about the two teams that Michigan faced. In North Dakota land, there's the "FIRE BERRY!!!" chants that were echoing around social media in NoDak circles. Indeed, it is pretty disappointing for North Dakota to not have made a Frozen Four since 2016 given their blue blood status, but a lot of that is random too. Far more than even basketball, the regular season is the real barometer for whether you're a good college hockey coach, the full sample size of 40 games far more meaningful than just one or two games one weekend. And Brad Berry, for all the criticism, has finished 1st (or tied for 1st) in college hockey's hardest conference in 4 of the last 5 seasons. Come on now. They lost a comical 5OT game to Duluth in 2021 as the #1 overall seed. One bounce goes differently and maybe they win the title that year. You don't fire this guy. 

As for MSU, the narrative out of the weekend was disappointment at the ending but overall applauding a great season. That's the correct attitude. It had to have been disappointing for the MSU crowd for sure, but winning the B1G regular season and tournament crowns was a lot to be proud of. The dramatic progress they've made in just two seasons is a sign both of what good coaching can do and also what having the portal in this new era of college athletics can do for rebuilds. With Adam Nightingale in charge, MSU is in good hands. They will be a factor in the B1G for years to come and they will be in many more NCAA Tournaments. I was glad to have MSU back on the scene because the State of Michigan is a great hockey state and the other big name program should not be getting regularly humiliated. Michigan and MSU ought to be like BC and BU in an ideal world. I loved the intensity of these matchups and hopefully we're headed for a future with more. 

 

[David Wilcomes]

About the ESPN broadcast. Okay, we do have to talk about the ESPN coverage of this weekend. Wow was it bad. Everything about the NCAA Tournament we should expect to be stupid and wrong but even given that it was surprising how much the broadcast sucked. I'm not even going to approach the coverage of the other regionals, the blatant homerism for Hockey East teams and the lack of interest researching the non-HE teams in the Northeast regionals, because we got enough fodder in the St. Louis regionals alone. Among the lowlights from the weekend: 

- the broadcasters spending three minutes trying to figure out what the referees were reviewing in MSU/WMU and coming up with the wrong answer, believing they were looking at a high stick or a potential embellishment when anyone who has watched NCAA Hockey anytime in the last three years knows 1.) those aren't reviewable and 2.) if they're reviewing something randomly and not related to a goal, it's obviously a challenge for a major penalty. 

- the PxP guy's inability to pronounce the word "McGroarty" correctly. Seriously, how did no one tell him in between Friday and Sunday that it's not "McGroar-TEE"? 

- the bizarre ice-level camera angle that left you unable to see most of what was going on during the first minute of Michigan's opening penalty kill in the Michigan/MSU game. 

- the general inability of the camera people to follow the puck and keep it on screen at all times during the three games. 

A big reason why college hockey kinda sucks as a product is no one takes it seriously, including the people who have a vested financial interest in making it watchable, like ESPN. Not just did they put this regional in a 2,500 seat arena next to a casino, but they gave all those who wanted to watch at home a broadcast that made you want to throw the remote through the TV. Is it that hard to find two people who A) are familiar with the rules, B) have researched the two teams, and C) have some broadcasting talent? Is it that hard to find camera people who are a cut above the students who do camera work for BTN+? It's embarrassing for the sport but it's what we've come to expect. 

Song of the season? Is this the 2023-24 hockey team's version of what "Pump It Up" was to the 2021 football team? Quite possible: 

Michigan hockey team with the Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield post win victory song singing in the locker room 😂pic.twitter.com/eWxHdmk5L6

— Alex Micheletti (@AlexMicheletti) April 1, 2024

Perfect. 

 

 

[David Wilcomes]

Recapping the rest of the tournament

The bluest blood of all blue blood Frozen Fours has been convened as Michigan will be joined in St. Paul by three other teams that are the sort of teams an author would come up with if they were imagining a fictional Frozen Four for a novel, Boston College, Boston University, and Denver. They are, with Michigan, the three teams with the most Frozen Four appearances in history (M + Boston schools), as well as a fourth team who has the 6th most appearances but is tied for the most titles (Denver). No Cinderellas or weird teams this year, just three 1 seeds and a fourth team who is playing at a level worthy of a 1 seed (Michigan), all of them names that are the most iconic in the sport. 

As I have done the last two seasons in this position, I will give you a brief summary of what went down this weekend in case you are solely a Michigan fan who was not following broader college hockey happenings:

- Providence Regional: Much more intrigue than was expected took place in Providence, the site of #1 overall seed Boston College's first two games. The Eagles were tied with Michigan Tech well into the second period and were only up 2-1 heading into the third before eventually pulling away and then found themselves in jeopardy on Sunday against Quinnipiac. The defending champs edged past Wisconsin to set up a Regional Final matchup with the national title favorites and QPac had leads of 2-0, 3-2, and 4-3, the latter lasting until there were under 5 minutes to go in the game when Aram Minnetian's shot from the high slot beat Vinny Duplessis to tie the game. It went into OT and a bizarre play ended with a loose puck on the goalmouth that BC's Ryan Malone collected to send the Eagles to the Frozen Four. We ultimately got the expected result but 33-5-1 Boston College looked far more vulnerable than anticipated. 

- Sioux Falls Regional: Boston U took care of business in the first game against autobid RIT, but like their Boston brethren, didn't do it in the most convincing of fashion. RIT narrowed the score to 3-2 in the late second period before Macklin Celebrini took over to put the Terriers back comfortably ahead for good. Minnesota defeated Omaha in the 2/3 matchup, a game where I felt that Omaha was the better team, but several high leverage blunders led directly to Minnesota goals and had the Gophers moving on. The Regional Final was thus a rematch of last year's Frozen Four semifinal in BU vs. Minnesota, a frenetic, high event game that saw it tied 3-3 by the halfway point. Minnesota got the early lead but a combination of a middling game from Justen Close in net and the mind-bending skill of Lane Hutson and Macklin Celebrini combined to put BU ahead 4-3, a lead they hung onto until a pair of empty netters put the game on ice. 

- Springfield Regional: This was the one low scoring regional, just 10 goals total across the three games as 1 seed Denver proved they could win without their prodigious offense filling the net. The Pios played a very even game with UMass in the first round, one that bled into 2OT(!) and saw Denver goalie Henry Davis injured during a penalty kill, yet he stayed in the game(!!), killed off the penalty, and eventually Tristan Broz won it for DU at 12:28 of the second OT session. Cornell beat an uninspired Maine team 3-1 thanks to a sharp effort from Ian Shane in net, but Shane was not as strong in the second game, allowing a very soft first goal to tie it at 1 against Denver. Even DU's second goal, coming on the PP, wasn't great in my view. That was all Denver needed, as they clung to a 2-1 lead and survived Cornell, the team that upset them in the tournament last year.