Goal-by-Goal Analysis: Notre Dame

[Fuller]

Friday, January 5, 2018

Michigan 1, #2 Notre Dame 2

1st Period

Hellickson goal

UM 0 ND 1 PPG 4:44 Assists: Morrison & Burke

Hellickson passes to Evans, whom Slaker tries to close on. Evans turns on the puck and fires, which causes Slaker to drop in an attempt to block the shot. It gets through, but Lavigne makes the save.

Not without giving up a long and, if you’re Michigan, very unfortunately placed rebound, though. Burke is lurking in the faceoff circle (as you would expect in a 1-3-1) and he doesn’t even have to move to have a perfect opportunity for a one-timer. The rebound happens so quickly that Martin’s spinning around to see where the puck went and Winborg is pushing off his back skate by the time the puck is released.

Another in a series of unfortunate rebounds, the puck hits Lavigne and falls directly in front of him. Piazza is trying to shove Morrison out of the crease to no avail, and with Martin having taken a step toward Burke there’s space for Morrison to get off a shot.

[Find the rest of this goal, all the others, and some thoughts on where Michigan stands after this series after THE JUMP]

Morrison jams at the puck just as Lavigne reaches with his right skate to secure the post. The puck gets behind Lavigne but doesn’t go in, instead trickling across the crease toward Lavigne’s left post.

At this point Hellickson has skated down and just has to swing and connect for the puck to go in, which he does. Piazza gets a pass because he was trying to get Morrison out of the way, realized the puck was behind Lavigne, and almost swept it out of the crease. The forwards do not get the same pass. Winborg glides to the crease and seems to just watch the puck without noting that there’s an uncovered skater to Piazza’s right, while Slaker enters the frame again as the puck’s entering the net. Winborg had a second where he could have picked up Hellickson if he had noticed him in his peripheral vision. Slaker seems to have just been slow to get up from his block attempt.

Oglevie goal

UM 0 ND 2 PPG 9:55 Assists: Malmquist & Gross

Pretty standard start from Notre Dame. Gross passes from the point to Oglevie, who pushes the puck down the wing to Malmquist.

Malmquist starts to skate behind the net, which pulls Cecconi away from the side of the net. He gets his stick in the passing lane and denies a pass to the front of the net, which is a big deal considering the relative openness of Theisen in the slot. The threat, however, is not neutralized.

Malmquist is almost in the dead center of Gretzky’s office when he flings a perfect backhanded pass to Oglevie.

Quite a bit of open real estate when this puck is released, and I don’t really fault Michigan for it. Malmquist skated about as far as I’ve ever seen anyone skate and still be able to get the puck back to the weak side. Lavigne sees where Malmquist is and slides to lock down the post to his left, for which I don’t really blame him. Cecconi sees the pass and spins, and while his reaction is correct he’s about two steps too deep to do anything about it. Raabe isn’t going to get out and get into Oglevie’s passing lane, not when the puck looks like it’s coming out to Lavigne’s left and there’s a guy in the slot who needs to be covered. Tip your Irish country hat to Notre Dame.

CALDERONE GOAL

UM 1 ND 2 EV 15:52 Assists: Dancs & Marody

Marody starts this rush with a nice effort play, as he gets in the way of a Notre Dame attempt to hold the puck in the zone. He smothers it and looks to kick, but the puck basically dies and is the right place for Dancs (circled below) to pick it up and carry up ice.

Marody takes off up the boards and, as you can see from where his skates are at the very top of the screen cap below, is going to have to stick on the blue line and wait for the play to get onside. Dancs passes across from Calderone.

Both Notre Dame defenders notice that this is very much a 3-on-2 break and are very, very clear that Marody’s skating in unchecked.

Calderone looks to Dancs and Marody and doesn’t seem to like what he sees in terms of placement, and he decides to carry the puck deep himself once the defender covering him gets his stick into the passing lane to Dancs.

Calderone does his best Zetterberg and is able to protect the puck under heavy pressure from the defender. He puts his head down and charges the net, and he jams the puck in. Was Morris’ foot off the post? He did hit the ice a little late. This would typically be a nice play that would turn into a goal if Dancs or Marody cleans up a rebound, but Calderone takes advantage of Morris’ hesitancy.

 

2nd Period

No scoring

 

3rd Period

No scoring, but plenty of possession and many quality chances

 

Sunday, January 7, 2018

#2 Notre Dame 2, Michigan 1

1st Period

No scoring

 

2nd Period

Oglevie goal

ND 1 UM 0 EV 6:10 Assists: Malmquist & Theisen

I’m working off of memory here since I can’t find a stream of the replay available, but Cecconi carries the puck to about the middle of wing in his offensive zone before Notre Dame knocks it away and sends play the other direction. Piazza was on the boards and cuts to the middle; he desperately needs to gain a step on Oglevie. He can’t, and ND enters the offensive zone on a 2-on-0 break.

Piazza had his stick outside Oglevie to hack him a bit—not enough to get penalized, but he’s hoping enough to slow him a bit—and Piazza pulls it over as he begins his dive. Piazza’s trying to play fundamentally sound and force Malmquist to shoot, but his dive is a bit late and Malmquist’s pass connects with Oglevie.

Lavigne has his glove in line with where Oglevie places the shot, but there’s too much territory for him to cover as he slides across. Bad things happen when one of your defensemen takes the puck deep and the other is slow to come off the boards to the same side.

Hellickson goal

ND 2 UM 0 PPG 13:51 Assists: Morrison & Nardella

Nardella has plenty of time and space to shoot with Winborg hanging back. His shot goes off the inside of Winborg’s leg, hits the ice, and skips to the front of the goal. Lavigne stops it but can’t control the puck.

Lavigne then stops Morrison’s attempt to poke the puck in, but the puck again bounces in front. Martin and Boka are converging to eliminate Morrison from the play, but that leaves a loose puck and Hellickson behind them. Double coverage on the penalty kill is a harbinger of doom.

Lavigne thinks that Hellickson is going to try to lift the puck high near-side, so he wraps his pad around the post and gets his glove up to snag anything headed top shelf. Hellickson sees that Lavigne has opened the five hole as he stretches across the net and slams a heavy shot through.

 

3rd Period

NORRIS GOAL

ND 2 UM 1 EV 8:44 Assists: Hughes & Slaker

Slaker is hounded in the offensive zone and coughs the puck up. Burke gets the loose puck and is able to take one stride with it before Hughes poke-checks it away, gains possession, pulls it forehand-backhand around an outstretched stick, and starts carrying to the net on his backhand.

Hughes, who is nominally a defenseman, goes backhand-forehand-backhand-forehand and shoots wrong-footed.

Morris stops the shot with his blocker, but his attempt to steer it to the corner goes awry. He turns the puck into Norris, who peeled back as soon as Hughes gained possession and got in position for a rebound at the side of the goal. Gilbert (#4) has a chance to tie up Norris’ stick or try to body him up but he just glides around and lets Norris free the whole shift. Norris slaps the puck out of the air and gets it behind Morris.

• That was Michigan’s best series of the year, zero points notwithstanding. M played better defense than I’ve seen in quite some time (unchecked skater problem didn’t come up at even strength), got good goaltending (the third rebound is generally considered really freaking hard to stop), and won the Corsi battle both nights (they also turned possession into quality chances). The forwards did an excellent job along the boards, intercepting passes and otherwise disrupting passing lanes, forechecking, and backchecking at even strength, particularly the DMC line. This is all the more impressive considering Marody’s less-than-stellar effort at the beginning of the season. When he’s dialed in—and he has been for almost two months—that line is deadly.
• Also deadly: Quinn Hughes. But in which way? He’s a riverboat gambler, and it works out more often than not because he’s as skilled as a first-line forward. Even so, dangling a guy in your defensive zone in a tight game is not the best idea, despite the fact that he probably threads the puck through the guy’s legs and breaks out with it on the other side more than half the time. He just has to learn to pick his spots in the defensive zone a bit better. I have no qualms with him taking the puck deep in the offensive zone every time he has it. This worked to Michigan’s advantage offensively, as evidenced by the setup of their lone goal Sunday, as well as the time he carried the puck in a circle around the whole dang offensive zone twice against the country’s second-ranked, defensively-stout team. You do you, man.
• Long term, Michigan’s offense needs a second scoring line. The DMC line has been together all season and will be together the rest of the year because there are few lines in college hockey that can match their fluidity, creativity, and ability to maintain possession. After that, though, things get murky. Lockwood being out for possibly the rest of the season means there’s no Slaker-Norris-Lockwood second line, and that means Michigan is going to need to mix and match pieces to create a second scoring line. If it was up to me, I think Warren-Slaker-Norris/Sanchez-N. Pastujov-M. Pastujov/Porikos-Winborg-Raabe is worth a look. That keeps Norris on the wing and bumps the Pastujov brothers, who showed some skill when placed on the same line, up to a line with an additional scoring threat.
• Don’t throw Corsi out the window just because Michigan didn’t win. Michigan out-attempted Notre Dame by 14 (!) Friday and by four Sunday. They also had one more attempt from the house (the home-plate sized area you’d get if you drew a line from each goalpost to the faceoff dot, up to the top of the circle, then across from the top of one circle to the top of the other) on Friday and five more attempts from the house on Sunday. They held Notre Dame’s feet to the fire; Michigan possessed the puck for almost four straight minutes to end Friday’s game, and they put together long stretches of possession on Sunday after outlasting Notre Dame’s flurry of shots and attempt to impose their will physically over the first 30 minutes of the game. Michigan ran into Cale Morris, whose save percentage of .956 is both otherworldly and deserved. There was a point in the second period (of which game I forget) where the Pastujovs worked a nearly perfect play, with Michael passing ahead for Nick, who tipped the stretch pass off his stick…directly into Morris. I remember thinking in that moment that Michigan could put significant pressure on him the rest of the game and probably still lose because I haven’t seen many goalies with the athleticism and instincts to stop on-the-fly redirections.
• Penalty kill is a work in progress. Michgan’s PK% is 74.7, which is better than only Alaska-Anchorage and Maine. They did a fairly good job covering and switching against Notre Dame, but they were unable to clear the puck. Hard to blame Lavigne when he’s dealing with three shots in short order and his PK can’t get it out of the zone, and it’s for a PK not to break down when guys are chasing for that long. When Michigan did blow a coverage, they got scored on. They seem to be playing a box that doesn’t extend much beyond the top of the faceoff circles, and that’s fine if you want to collapse but guys were making mistakes in picking up skaters coming in undeterred from the wing. That made it really hard on the two netfront defenders. I’m a fan of the wedge+1 because of its aggressiveness, but Michigan might feel that now is not the time to get more aggressive considering the issues with identification. It also relies on guys making the right reads in unison, so maybe it’s a system better suited for installation further down the road.