dylan duke

As the college hockey season comes to an end, we bid adieu to a number of key players on the Michigan team. Some players are moving on to occupations that they got a degree in college for, while many others will be giving professional hockey a shot. Some of these are players exhausting eligibility and were forgone conclusions to depart, including goaltender Jacob Barczewski, defenseman Marshall Warren, forward Chase Pletzke, and practice goalie Andrew Albano, all of whom completed their 5th year of eligibility. 

But there's also the bucket of star players who are signing prematurely with the NHL teams who hold their draft rights. Michigan is no stranger to these sorts of losses and this year we've got three of them to cover. Like Alex did in past years, lumping them together in one combined the post is the best way to break it down and that's what we will be doing today. Three impact forwards recently signed NHL Entry level contracts and have moved on to the organizations who drafted them, with a rundown of each below: 

Exit: Frank Nazar III

Sophomore Frank Nazar III was a 1st round draft pick (13th overall) in 2022 by the Chicago Blackhawks. The Mount Clemens native came to the Wolverines via the US NTDP Program in Plymouth as part of the 2022 recruiting class. Nazar's profile was built around the promise of his speed, skill, and offensive aptitude, but it took a while for us to see it unleashed due to injury. His freshman season last year was hampered by offseason surgery, as Nazar was unable to play his first game of the season until February 10th. He finished that season with only 13 games played and didn't feel like we ever got a true glimpse of what Nazar could be. 

This season, as a sophomore, Nazar was finally healthy and able to play in all 41 games for the Wolverines. He centered the 2nd line, where it was not uncommon for him to be lined up against the opposition’s top line on a nightly basis. Nazar was one of the best in the nation in the faceoff circle, winning 54.7% of faceoffs he took, leading to heavy deployment. Night in and night out he was the most consistent 200 foot forward for Michigan as he notched 17 goals and 24 assists for 41 points in 41 games. Of those 41 points, one towered above the rest, his sensational between-the-legs pass to Gavin Brindley for his goal 12 seconds after the Wolverines took the lead in the Regional Final against MSU: 

His Pro Hockey Potential: Frank Nazar III has already begun his NHL career, signing with the Blackhawks on April 14th and scoring his first NHL goal 10:05 into the first period on a breakaway. As sensational as this was for him, don’t expect him to start putting up superstar offensive numbers. What the Blackhawks are getting more of a two-way player than an offensive dynamo, one who has a high hockey IQ, quick feet, and a strong stick which will allow him to be in good defensive position and the ability to use those assets to transition the puck up ice into scoring opportunities. As he develops, look for Nazar III to be the Blackhawks shutdown center who will face the opposition’s top line every night, a contrast to Connor Bedard's offensive prowess. He should also be slotted on the top PK unit and also get time on the 2nd PP unit.

[AFTER THE JUMP: Brindley, Duke, and bigger picture thoughts]

When Michigan lost in the Frozen Four each of the last two years I wrote a game column style piece about the loss in the aftermath. This year, after Michigan's 4-0 defeat to Boston College in St. Paul last Thursday, I didn't quite feel the same way. There wasn't much of a game column to write because there wasn't much of a game that happened. Michigan trailed less than two minutes into the contest and never scored. They were competitive for awhile but before the 2nd period was up the game was over. The third period was simply obligatory. The Wolverines were dispatched by a far superior side. 

I have no narrative to speak of but certainly have some thoughts on the games and the season as a whole. So, today we'll go through it all, Hockey Weekly style: 

HockeyBullets About BC 

Overall... okay? I wasn't particularly despondent about the way Michigan played against Boston College. They went up against a team that was definitely better, Michigan played maybe a B-level game and BC played an A-level game. Michigan also got pretty unfavorable puck luck (the double deflection goal stands out) and that combination makes the score 4-0. Perhaps you do that game over again and Michigan loses 3-1 instead. They didn't choke, they just ran into their reasonable finish, having gotten as much out of this roster in the postseason as one could've expected. 

Pulling back the curtain on the underlying numbers. We talked about Boston College's possession numbers in the preview and this game was a pretty clear example of what those possession metrics look like. BC doesn't play with the puck as much as some elite teams and do let opponents shoot a decent amount, but they are a strong defensive team that limits how much the opponent gets near the net. They're well structured in their own zone and kept Michigan to the outside. The Wolverines held the zone, took shots, but with a good goalie in net and a roster of players who use their sticks and block shots well, it makes it difficult to score on even if you have the puck a lot. 

And then of course BC gets the opportunity to attack you in transition the other way. Michigan held the zone in the opening minute, got a look or two, and suddenly Seamus Casey is trapped in the OZ, the puck's turned over, and it's a 2v1. BC finishes it off and Michigan is trailing just like that. The Eagles didn't get a tremendous amount of rush chances, but they got some dangerous ones, also getting a breakaway that Cutter Gauthier scored on and a mini-break for Ryan Leonard that Jake Barczewski made a great save on. 4v4 play was an issue for Michigan, which was going to be a worry against a team as skilled as Boston College and allowed them to score off the rush even more. Michigan was spared by less PK time against this lethal PP, but the flip side was the 4v4 time, which proved just as deadly. You pick your poison against this team, Michigan was maybe moderately unlucky in their goal prevention, but at the end of the day they didn't score and that's a testament to BC's underrated defense and goaltending. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: takes, grades, 2024-25]

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]