Lets hope the Terrier Curse is in full effect.

When Red finally disintegrates, would you want Blasi? Would he come?

If it makes you feel any better, I'm about ready to ride Don Lucia out of town on a rail, and his championship-level success is rather more recent than Berenson's.

Is Mel Pearson still Red's Jimbo Fisher? He's not exactly young

Wasn't the game of HORSE between Larry Bird and Michael Jordan?

I have no useful hockey commentary.  I can has sad.

Dave Hakstol

Wayne Wilson

Bob Motzko

John Madden?

Just about every good coach in Division I is at his alma mater. We need to get Jeff Jillson a GA gig post haste

I was expecting a rebuttal to Maize and Brew's piece

As a more casual Michigan Hockey fan, it's even become noticable to me that Michigan is lacking skill players who can deek or sharphoot their way to goals. This is unfortunate.

I could be wrong, I plead ignorance if so. 

maybe im misremembering but it seems like the offense immediately dropped off after porter & kolarik left and its been slowly declining further since then

this team reminds me of the...08-09 team? the one that lost to air force 2-0 in the first round. it seems like a generally good, ncaa tourney team that is destined to lose a boring, frustrating game in the first round

i dont like to think about the future but yes it looks like fairbanks+. good goaltending, good defense, 1.9 goals a game

:(

EDITED WITH NEW REAL INFO!! (at bottom)

1.  On a (very slightly) positive note, Travis Lynch has 4-4-8 points in his last 5 games, along with a +5 rating.  He has 12-9-21 in 38 games on the year.  He's now tied for 2nd on the team in goals with (way out in points of the team lead, though only one assist behind) Austin Czarnik  (though Czarnik has played 8 less games).  Likely the surge is a result of Czarnik being out and T. Lynch has gotten to play on a higher line, but either way, a little more offense from him is encouraging, especially with the black hole we're looking at next year.  Obviously a goal every 3rd game isn't exactly blowing it up and it's against weaker competition, but if Brown/Rust/Lynch were scoring on that pace (it would be about 10 goals so far on the season, Louie is just about right on it), we might be having a more upbeat conversation right now...

2.  What are the chances of Treais moving up a line?  He's been playing really well since at least Christmas, he leads the team with a .182 shot percentage on 44 shots.  Rust has the same amount of shots and a .091 shot percentage.  Louie has .082% on 98 shots.  Also, of regularly playing non-goalies on the team, AJ is tied with Merrill and Moffatt for fewest penalty minutes (4 minors), even with less ice time than Cappy and Rust, that's pretty good.  As we've all noticed, Cappy and Rust aren't doing much offensively on the top lines, maybe inserting Treais there would give one of those lines a little more offensive kick and give a kick in the pants to the demoted senior.  I know Red's approach towards guys that aren't scoring is normally to give them more chances, rather than less, but I think they've both had just about every chance possible and it can't hurt to try something new and AJ has probably earned the promotion with his play.  I'd be fine with swapping out either, but I'm leaning towards Louie. 

Matt Rust is still a great defensive forward and his assist totals are fine and the chemistry he has with Carl is too good.  They haven't done much recently, but I still feel like they can be more dangerous.  Louie is an adequate defender, but so is Treais and not only is he expected to be more of a scorer than Rust, but I feel like if he knew he was going to have fewer opportunities per game, he might do better on them , if that makes sense.  He's shooting the puck (unlike Rust) he's just not getting anything through, maybe if he though he wasn't going to get as many chances, he'd maybe get a little more on his shots and if he retained his touch, maybe that would carry over if he was restored to his former line and more opportunities would yield more scoring.  I'm not sure if that makes sense, but that's the best I can explain it, his problem seems more mental.  Whereas Rust really needs to shoot more and needs the confidence being on a top line should give him more and maybe that would get him going.  It's hard to demote either of them because they're both working hard generally, but I don't think it would hurt to give Treais a shot.  He's going to have to (probably) be the top center next year anyways, it can't hurt to get his feet wet a litle bit in that role this year.  Maybe they've tried it in practice and it failed spectacularly, but I really think that might be a change that might jumpstart the offense a little.  It also sends a bit of a message to everybody, sending your star seniors to the third line.  Everybody knows Brown/Lynch are going to flip on the other wing of Carl and Rust, but maybe this would be a little more impactful. 

In a similar vane, though I'm much less set on this, maybe also/alternatively (most likely alternatively) trade Moffatt for Glendening, though I would do this as a super temporary thing.  Obviously Glendening's still working super hard, but maybe not quite as much as last year and sending him down might motivate him just that little bit more.  And he's had SO many missed chances recently.  Moffatt hasn't showed he's too much more of a finisher, but maybe he could be and he's been flying around well enough on the third line, that I think he could do well enough with Cappy/Wohlberg to warant a chance.  Anything that might get things going.  Obviously, Red knows what he's doing and he might have tried thse already and they didn't work as well as what he has now, but I think he's gotta shake it up somehow, in light of the last few games.

EDIT:  Looks like Red has certainly been thinking shake it up, according to  the michiganhockey.net twitter, lines at practice today were:

Cappy-Hagelin-Brown

Wohlberg-Treais-Moffatt

Glendening-Rust-Vaughn

Lynch-Winnett-DeBlois

I'm not sure if Hagelin is actually centering Cappy or if I'm misinterpreting that or if it's a typo, but the other three lines have the center in the middle in the tweet and I remember that earlier, Red tried having Wohlberg center Cappy for a game.  That failed, but Carl's probably better suited to playing center than Wohlberg, so maybe this will work better.  Red said something about how playing wing should make Louie think a little bit more about a different position and so maybe get him going a little bit, so I guess they're trying that again.  I'm sure Red was reading the board when he decided to put together the second line, glad I could possibly help the team :-p  He picked the other center, but, you know, Jack Adams is telling me to give him the benefit of the doubt.  I like Vaughn up and Lynch down too, Lynch hasn't done anything lately, they've tried him on the first, they've tried him on the third, time for him to worry just about defense and maybe in a week or two they can put him back up and some offense will flow from that.  In the meantime, Scooter's been one of (maybe our only non-Hunwick...) most consistent players and certainly should be able to handle being on the third line.  Winnett's been his normal average-self and I definitely think DeBlois is our best walk-on 4th line type this year.  Sparks has more offensive upside, but Derek's defense is probably better right now.  I think maybe the logic of putting Rust on the third line instead of Louie, is that with Glendening and Vaughn, two not-huge-scorers that also don't shoot it a ton, maybe Rust will take more responsibility on himself and get going a little bit. 

The other thing is, even if these lines show up similarly in games this weekend, I'm interested in:

a) what might be permanent/long term and what might change, especially depending on whether each line does well or not?  Might he, even if some of the lines really click, go back to the Hagelin-Rust-Brown etc. combos, thinking that now that the indiviudals are going, those are the best combinations to utilize their full potential?  Or does he play it more safe and keep them all together, if they do well?

b) if none of them really click, does he go back to those old lines or does he try something completely new, again?

EDIT 2:  The Yost Post confirms those lines (http://michigan.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=41&mid=142213603&sid=883&tid…) and Hagelin centering Carl.  The one mistake was with the 4th line, Lynch will centering DeBlois and Winnett. I believe Lynch was a center back with the NTDP and before, so he knows the position.  I think he played it a couple times for us, but never stuck there.  Probably because Rust and Cappy are (normally) so good, they didn't want a guy with his offensive abilities on the 4th line and maybe thought between the two Treais would be better as a center and Lynch as a winger, for any of several reasons.  But they did both tear it up as centers in the NTDP, 3rdth and 6th on the team in scoring, AJ in a 3-way tie for 3rd with 49 (best was 56), Lynch with 48 (next best was 40).  It's probably a case of Red thinks Lynch needs some time as center, so he'll think more (or less, depending on the player and the position switch Red says both and I never remember who is which...) and thus play better and Winnett as the normally relatively solid senior is being moved over to give Lynch the opportunity.  Of course, as with any changes, we'll see if these last through today, much less into the weekend.

Massive overreaction.  It's OK Brian, we still love you.

I believe Scooter scored a shorthanded breakaway in the Mercyhurst game. I'm pretty sure it was in the middle of the second and it put us up 4-0, so it was kind of an afterthought at the time, so I don't remember it too clearly. Then we managed to cough up that lead like Arsenal this weekend, and that game is right now like a microcosm for our season: good early results only to be followed by disappointment in the second half. Here's hoping we can recover.