Hockey performance reaching UNACCEPTABLE levels
November 14th, 2019 at 9:32 PM ^
This is unfortunately nothing new to this decade of Michigan Hockey.
Starting the season this bad is what we’ve done every year for quite some time now. Even the 2015-16 CCM team it didn’t feel right because of how bad the defense was (winning games 10-6 etc)
November 14th, 2019 at 9:38 PM ^
Reinforcements are coming but Mel needed a couple seasons to restock and recruit. Hockey recruiting confuses the shit out of me. Give it some time.
November 14th, 2019 at 11:49 PM ^
That's the one thing I've picked up about hockey recruiting is that it has a massive delay in terms of bringing in top talent. Some programs do the thing where they pick up a bunch of 22-year-old freshmen who aged out of minor league hockey, but otherwise you have this 2-3 year lead-up to guys actually signing with your team.
It's weird - this team feels like it's only a couple of breaks/some cohesiveness away from being pretty good. This game was weird (I'll admit to only following it on Twitter), but if they can consistently score 3 goals a game they'll be pretty good.
November 15th, 2019 at 12:12 AM ^
Yeah, we heard that for years about RichRod. Bare cupboard, not his recruits, yadda. That went so well for us, and then for Arizona.
November 15th, 2019 at 1:13 AM ^
November 15th, 2019 at 6:24 AM ^
From what I saw last night (only caught the last 2 periods), the talent is there but the execution is not - the puck handling was particularly sloppy with many turnovers in the defensive zone and poor passing in the offensive zone. Having PPs with only one SOG (or less!) is rather damning.
November 15th, 2019 at 8:22 AM ^
This. Hockey recruiting at a top program boils down to two types of players. You have one and done types, where you’re lucky if they come back a second year (Quinn Hughes, Josh Norris, Johnny Beecher, Cam York for recency example) and then you have your “lifers.” Fringe/late round NHL type players who you expect to be contributors by their junior and senior seasons. Looking back a few years, you see guys like Hyman, Copp, Compher, and Motte filling these roles EXTREMELY well. Still NHL type talent, but not on that one and done level.
Now the problem with this team, is we severely lack that upperclassmen offensive talent. Guys like Lockwood (more of a power forward) and Slaker that you’d need to lead the team offensively arent producing. A lot of that falls on Red’s recruiting on his way out of the door. Not his fault entirely, as not many top kids want to go play for a coach who is retiring. But you see the ramifications of that in the upperclassmen on this roster. Many of Mel’s freshmen and sophomores are playing and producing at the level of these upperclassmen, and that’s not how quality top programs are built.
As for the future, you look at the current roster and you can see guys like Garrett Van Whye as a sophomore and he is a guy who looks like he can fill that upperclassmen role. Ciccolini is a late round pick, only a freshman, but he’s shown flashes that he can fill that role down the line. Jimmy Lambert is on that list too. But again, those are all young guys who you don’t expect to fill those roles until they’re upperclassmen. To really hammer that’s point home, Hyman had 89 points in his four years at Michigan, 54 of those came in his senior year. Michigan doesn’t have any upperclassmen who can fill that type of role, and that doesn’t fall on Mel.
Michigan hockey as we see it today, is a prime example of the legendary coach getting out of there at the right time, and his successor trying to mold something out of the crumbling infrastructure. This was always going to be a rebuild, and unless you deeply understand college hockey and roster management, it was a rebuild you wouldn’t see coming. So it’s easy to blame Mel. But if you understand what is happening, none of this is on Mel. He needs time. He not only has to get his guys, but we have to get them deep into their Michigan careers. Championship teams aren’t built with one and dones in college hockey. You build a solid core of those “lifers,” and then you stagger top tier NHL talent around them. You pair a Larkin or a Conner with a Hyman or a Compher. Right now we have Beecher and a Pastujov. Not gonna cut it.
November 14th, 2019 at 9:39 PM ^
Well all SE Michigan professional sports already suck as well. Just focus on Michigan Baseball.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:40 PM ^
Surprises me people older than 10 root for professional sport sports teams.
November 14th, 2019 at 9:51 PM ^
Aren’t there like 30 schools that have hockey? How can we not be good every year?
November 14th, 2019 at 10:10 PM ^
its tough with hockey recruiting it seems like because even when you get great players to verbal, you can lose them to the OHL.
Pretty sure this has happened a couple of times where Michigan had kids ready to sign, only to have the OHL poach them late.
I think Canadian kids grow up with the CHL and don't have the same affinity for the college development track like football and basketball, so there is more kids that end up not signing...
November 14th, 2019 at 10:30 PM ^
Yeah but how are schools like Penn State and Ohio State consistently outperforming Michigan? Penn State didn't even have a program 10 years ago.
Mel in over his head at a bigger program?
November 14th, 2019 at 11:23 PM ^
Penn State had a top-tier Club Hockey program that could have competed with a lot of D1 programs (which we have seen) AND they got top-End incoming freshmen because they had guaranteed playing time since they were a slight upgrade over “Club Level Players”
November 15th, 2019 at 12:08 AM ^
Penn State didn't have any club players that played on the D-1 team. Two completely different worlds.
November 15th, 2019 at 9:45 AM ^
Are you sure about that? Pretty sure they had a handful that made the transition. I know a few of them personally.
November 15th, 2019 at 9:48 AM ^
Just Incase you needed a reference:
https://news.psu.edu/story/150066/2012/04/06/mens-hockey-adds-11-former-icers-2012-13-roster
November 15th, 2019 at 10:23 AM ^
Those guys were all recruited to Penn State with the understanding that they'd play one transition year of club hockey and then be D-1 the next season so they didn't start a team with a class of 27 freshmen.
November 15th, 2019 at 5:23 PM ^
You stated they didn’t have any Club players on their D1 team— “two different worlds”— when in fact, they did have Club level players on their team. Of that group, a handful played ACHA-D1 club at other schools, Penn State, and US-Juniors. Yeah, it was to ease the transition from Club to D1, but the gap isn’t “two different worlds”.
Arizona State did the same thing a few years ago as well.
November 15th, 2019 at 5:29 PM ^
Since none of the penn state players actually played club...:
https://gopsusports.com/sports/mens-ice-hockey/roster/rich-o-brien/2913
https://gopsusports.com/sports/mens-ice-hockey/roster/michael-longo/2925
So, yes. They did have club players that played on that Penn State club team on their roster (2009-12 was Club, just FYI)
November 15th, 2019 at 12:42 AM ^
That gives them an advantage over Michigan...how exactly?
Michigan 9 titles; NHL factory; Real scholarships etc The level of play should already be higher lol.
If anything it should be harder to recruit and play as a first time program coming with club players.
November 15th, 2019 at 9:53 AM ^
They were a top-tier Club team, meaning they had a lot of players that were borderline D1/D3 players that opted to play club to win a NC— Davenport U in GR gets a LOT of these. They then had the unique opportunity for top-tier incoming freshmen to come in and be “the guy” for their team (as they were obviously better talent than the previously mentioned borderline D1/D3 guys)... not saying they were better off than M, just saying that’s how they got their program off the ground right away.
November 15th, 2019 at 1:11 AM ^
With that philosophy our men's lacrosse team should be winning national titles already.
November 15th, 2019 at 9:57 AM ^
Not sure on the logic. If anything, you’re proving my point.
Didn’t M’s Lacrosse team just make the transition to D1 from club? Are they competitive at the D1 level after having a strong club team? Okay then.
November 15th, 2019 at 8:24 AM ^
Consistent outperforming Michigan? Michigan has been down for a year and a half. We were in the Frozen Four in Mel’s first season. Relax.
November 14th, 2019 at 9:53 PM ^
I will give the staff next year. We have a number of rad dudes coming in. If we still suck then I will be peeved. I do feel like a number of the penalties and bad passes tonight were totally preventable and we should have won this game.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:07 PM ^
Yeah, time is needed.
One thing I've seen when I've been able to see the team on tv (thanks, BTN) is that the team's overall puck control just isn't that great. Passes aren't crisp, puck management isn't precise, a lot of guys seem to haven leaden hands.
Not sure what it means. But it makes it tough to create good scoring opportunities, and that's been a real problem this year.
November 14th, 2019 at 11:26 PM ^
I think the this team is simply put, just young. They do have veteran guys, but the majority of the guys that will be the “core” and high-end talent are young. York and Beecher are prime examples. Those two should look like completely different players in two months.
November 15th, 2019 at 8:25 AM ^
It seems to always take the freshmen until after Christmas break to really put it together. Larkin was the same way (unless I’m thinking of Conner). Had a lackluster start to the year and then went on a tear in the second half.
November 15th, 2019 at 9:59 AM ^
November 15th, 2019 at 10:12 AM ^
I don't know what you mean by 'give the staff" but coaches usually get a lot longer than in football or basketball.
November 14th, 2019 at 9:55 PM ^
Unpopular opinion, hockey sucks.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:15 PM ^
you're going to get negged. But it's the one sport I know of that you can kick someone's ass up and down the ice . . . and still lose with a bad/lucky bounce.
November 14th, 2019 at 11:03 PM ^
"trouble with the snap!"
November 14th, 2019 at 10:21 PM ^
You must be a soccer guy.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:02 PM ^
I haven't been to a UofM Hockey game in at least 10 years, although I live within walking distance of Yost. However, it still feels weird not having at least a better than average team after them being so consistently great throughout the first half of my life.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:11 PM ^
I no longer understand college hockey. It made sense at one time, now its a sport dominated by glorified community colleges like Mankato, St. Cloud, Yale and Lowell.
However, if you paid attention to what Brian has been saying for four years now, he predicted UM to have that Wile-y Coyete year two years ago and then, because of recruiting in hockey, UM would be bad for three years after that. Brian isnt going to "complain" because he said this is what was going to be.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:19 PM ^
For a glorified community college, Yale is surprisingly tough to get into.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:47 PM ^
Oddly expensive, too.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:32 PM ^
Why is penn state good? They went from a club sport to competitive in the new big ten hockey conference and I don’t get it.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:50 PM ^
Maybe we should've kept the CCHA together.
November 14th, 2019 at 11:05 PM ^
Pegula has deep pockets and many bagmen.
November 14th, 2019 at 11:29 PM ^
Had a good Club team (Nationally recognized) and they were able to add high end recruits with guaranteed playing time as freshmen (Northeast kids)... Michigan recruits highly in “OHL territory” as well...
November 15th, 2019 at 8:27 AM ^
Penn State also struggled mightily in their first couple seasons. But they went out and built their program the right way. They went out and built a solid core of quality upperclassmen. Michigan does not have that right now.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:16 PM ^
Brian is the only person who can complain about UM hockey? Come up for air, buddy.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:16 PM ^
FIRE BORGES!
November 14th, 2019 at 10:21 PM ^
Clarence Boddicker gets it.
November 14th, 2019 at 10:47 PM ^
FIRE HOKE
November 14th, 2019 at 10:58 PM ^
People who call shit "UNACCEPTABLE" are the fucking worst. Complemented it by essentially asking to speak to the manager by calling Brian to action.
November 14th, 2019 at 11:06 PM ^
*supervisor*
November 15th, 2019 at 5:25 AM ^
In Soviet Russia supervisors ask for YOU