In college sports, the clock is constantly ticking away on the time you have to win a National Championship. As a freshman, you’re adjusting to a school, teammates, and coaches. As a sophomore, the expectations (set by you and your team) increases. By the time you hit your senior year (and your 5th year in this Covid era), you realize if your team is going to win big, you need to be a difference maker to make it happen. Sometimes that realization happens at the end of the previous season, sometimes it happens at the start of the season.

For Michigan Hockey defenseman Marshall Warren, that moment seemed to hit during the weekend of February 9th & 10th against the Michigan State Spartans. The outcome of both games didn’t favor Michigan, as they dropped the first game at Yost 5-1 and fell just short the next night at Little Caesar’s Arena in the Duel in the D 3-2. It was a disappointing weekend at the time, but everything that has followed from Warren has been significantly better than what came before it, an uptick in his play across the board. As a result, Michigan Hockey has produced better results and played better hockey, with Warren helping to lead the charge all the way to the Frozen Four. Today we will be breaking down a primary reason for Warren's improvement and then examining statistics and a little bit of video to explain how the 5th year senior has suddenly hit his stride late in the year. 

[Bill Rapai]

New Partner

That very weekend mentioned in the opening saw a major personnel change that affected Warren, when the coaching staff paired Warren with Ethan Edwards. Edwards had missed the first half of the season and didn’t return to the lineup until mid-January after healing from a wrist injury. Skating in practice and light drills does not prepare you for actual game action and it understandably took Edwards some time to get adjusted to the speed and physicality of actual competition.

During the later period of Edwards' injury, Warren had been slotted into the 3rd defensive pair, with his partners rotating primarily between Steven Holtz and Luca Fantilli along with occasional shifts with Brendan Miles and Josh Orrico when they had to be inserted into the lineup because of injuries. It was evident during this time that Warren’s job was to be the security blanket and focus primarily on defending. At times this was a huge challenge, especially on the road where the home team gets the last change. On a faceoff in Michigan’s end, they were able to bring out their top line when Warren and his partner were on the ice, leaving the Wolverines exposed with a weaker defenseman on the ice.

When Warren switched to partner with Edwards, the shackles figuratively fell off of Warren and we started to see the defenseman Michigan thought they were getting last summer when Warren transferred to Michigan from Boston College. You could visibly see the increase in confidence in him and the overall improvement in his play. He was able to handle the tough matchups better and had a more confident, experienced partner in Edwards who could handle more responsibilities. Warren no longer had to do most of the work himself and could take a larger role in his team's play. This allowed Warren to open up and surge in various ways covered in the next sections. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: stats and some clips]

[Bill Rapai]

How Warren's Game Improved

One subtle change the coaching staff made around the time that they swapped him to a pair with Edwards was to also reduce Warren’s special teams ice time. Michigan only uses one defenseman on either power play unit, so with Seamus Casey stapled to the top unit, the return of Edwards meant that Warren was no longer needed to expend energy on the power play. Meanwhile, on the penalty kill, Warren’s time was significantly reduced as the re-worked PK looked to put pressure on the offense. This necessitated more bodies being used on the PK, with players being rotated in and out, shortening the load that any one individual player played on the unit. 

Below are the numbers from Instat to back up what our eyes told us. For simplicity, we are going to break it up into ‘First 28’ and ‘Last 12’ to signify the timeline when Warren’s game took a change for the better, the period of time we've been discussing in this piece. All times are average per game:

	Time on Ice	PP Time	PK Time
First 28	20:21	00:49	02:32
Last 12	21:11	00:08	01:49

As you can see, Warren's total ice time didn't decrease, but his time on special teams did. Doing the obvious math, it means that Warren's usage at 5v5 increased, him being able to focus more energy on creating for his team and tilting the ice at even strength. With the new role that he was given, Warren started to assert himself and become a major part of generating offense for the Wolverines. For a defenseman, this starts in the defensive zone and how you exit the zone, before going up ice and entering the offensive end. In both phases of the transitional game, Warren's play improved to the benefit of the Wolverines. Breaking the team out of the zone and entering the offensive zone significantly improved based on our data from InStat and again we have a chart for this (all numbers are average per game):

	Breakouts	Breakout via Pass	Breakout via Dump	Breakout via Stickhandling	OZ Entries	OZ Entry via Pass	OZ Entry via Dump-In	OZ Entry via Stickhandling
First 28	3.96	3.13	-	0.83	3.00	0.83	0.61	1.57
Last 12	6.38	4.50	0.13	1.75	3.50	1.13	0.88	1.50

Teams that own the transitional game, those that can break out of their own end clearly and enter the offensive zone with possession, are generally pretty good teams who win a lot of games. Michigan has improved in the transitional game in dramatic fashion over this period and that is a major factor in the team going 9-2-1 in the past 12 games and finding themselves at the Frozen Four. Warren's improved contributions aren't the sole reason for the uptick in this phase of the game, but it is a significant contributor. As we can see in this next table, Michigan's time of possession with the puck has improved in all three zones over the past 12 games, evidence of them improving thanks to cleaner zone exits and a higher volume of possession entries:  

	DZ Possession	NZ Possession	OZ Possession
First 28	07:49	03:42	07:48
Last 12	08:42	04:33	07:55

[Bill Rapai]

Warren's improved offensive game, helping the team transition with the puck and play in the offensive zone, has led to some big moments. He's scored two huge goals for the Wolverines during these 12 games, making his mark on the Michigan Hockey program even if Warren will only end up playing one season for the Maize & Blue. He scored a game-winner late in the 3rd period to finish off a critical sweep of Notre Dame: 

Marshall Warren puts Michigan on top 2-1! pic.twitter.com/I5TI1jUEVR

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) February 25, 2024

And then scored a goal in the 3rd period of the Regional Final against Michigan State which gave the Wolverines the lead: 

Marshall Warren with a snipe! Truscott and Schifsky with the apples and Michigan leads 2-1! pic.twitter.com/OMNS1Uc3jS

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) April 1, 2024

Warren's play with the puck, and his play off of it in the offensive zone, have improved dramatically. Both of those goals are example of Warren moving around without the puck in the offensive zone, trying to get open and waiting for an opportunity to receive a pass and shoot it in the net. 

But beyond the offensive game, Warren has improved defensively as well. With no disrespect to the skill set of Steven Holtz and Luca Fantilli, playing alongside Ethan Edwards, who brings more speed and better decision making, has been a big boost to Warren’s defensive game. Being able to trust your partner to do his job in front of the net while you engage in puck retrieval or board battles has been a big reason for Warren’s surge. What also has to be recognized has been the greatly improved defensive play by the Wolverines forwards. Their play without the puck has been significantly better as they track back to their own zone hard and give the defensemen good ‘outs’ when they regain possession of the puck. Here is a look at Marshall Warren’s numbers for puck retrievals and puck battles (numbers are based on average per game): 

	Loose Puck Recovery	Opp. Dump-In Retrievals	Puck Retrievals after Shots	Puck Battles	Puck Battles Won	Puck Battles Won %	Puck Battles in DZ	Puck Battles in NZ	Puck Battles in OZ
First 28	3.3	1.26	1.96	11.9	6.22	48.8%	8.09	1.57	2.22
Last 12	4.75	2.50	2.50	13.3	6.75	49.5%	8.75	2.13	2.38

	Hits	Error Leading to Goals Against	Team Goals When on Ice	Opponent’s Goal When on Ice
First 28	1.13	0.74	1.09	1.17
Last 12	3.50	0.38	1.25	1.13

Warren has seen across the board improvement in his defensive game, engaging in more puck battles, winning more of them, and retrieving more dump-ins/loose pucks in his own end. Warren is also throwing more hits, making fewer errors, and Michigan has started outscoring the opposition with Warren on the ice, the sign of a good player. He's become an asset in all three zones and Michigan is a better team because of it, their once weak defensive corps having much more teeth than previous with Warren contributing in that fashion. 

 

[Bill Rapai]

Overall Impact

Confidence breeds confidence in oneself and others, and the confidence shown by the coaching staff in Marshall Warren has resulted in a more assertive and aggressive player at both ends of the ice. His willingness to engage more in the offense and in the physicality of the game has been evident. He’s also been more responsible with the puck and making less mistakes which is a big reason for the team’s success. He's showing up in big moments and Warren's surge is a big reason why he will get to play at least one more college hockey game this week. 

Thursday or Saturday will be the conclusion of Marshall Warren’s college hockey career. There is some irony in the fact that the first of hopefully two games that the Wolverines will play at the Frozen Four is against Boston College, the school where Warren played before transferring to Michigan. It will take a fantastic effort from every member of the Wolverines to defeat the Eagles on Thursday, but there is certainly the chance that Michigan could pull the upset if the team follows Warren's lead. The veteran defenseman is playing his best hockey of the season, as the rest of the team has down the stretch and because of that, Michigan will get its crack at stunning the #1 team in a way that was unthinkable for this group just 12 games ago.