john druskinis

It's nearly hockey season again. The air will be turning colder, leaves will continue falling, and our attention can return to the Michigan Hockey team. The exhibition game against Simon Fraser is on Saturday, with the first regulation games being the following weekend. With hockey around the corner, I will be rolling out my usual four part Michigan Hockey season preview starting today and continuing through next week. For this year's series we will do defense, incoming forwards + goalies, returning forwards, and then the schedule/B1G as the format. Today: defense. 

Seamus Casey

Year: Sophomore

Height/Weight: 5'10"/178

NHL Draft Position: 46th overall, 2022 Draft, New Jersey

Stats: 8-21-29 in 37 games last season for Michigan

It is now Seamus Casey's time to shine at the helm of the Michigan blue line. With fellow New Jersey draft pick Luke Hughes off to pursue professional endeavors, Casey is in line to take on a much larger role for this Michigan team. Casey's freshman year in Ann Arbor was an unambiguous success, showing off the flash-and-dash that made him a valuable NHL draft pick, selected inside the top 50 of his draft year. What I wrote about with Casey in last year's preview, his classic Michigan mix of skill and skating ability, came true.

Casey is an exceptionally talented puck-handler, with rare hands for someone playing the position of defense. Nowhere was this better on display than in the biggest game Michigan played all season: 

Seamus Casey is so cool sometimes pic.twitter.com/GfcB6SRWWS

— J.D. Burke (@JDylanBurke) September 6, 2023

Those abilities translated right away, but what really surprised was his defensive abilities out of the gate. I wrote the following in December 2022: 

Seamus Casey has been a revelation. We'll get to Luke Hughes in a minute, but with #43 a bit disappointing, Casey has really stolen some of the spotlight. The skating and hands are pretty to watch in action and he's been a lot better defensively than I'd expected. For much of this first half, Casey has been Michigan's best defenseman

Luke picked up his game in the second half and by ATOI, Hughes was clearly Michigan's most important defenseman. But that Casey put himself in that conversation during the first couple months of his NCAA career says a lot. He didn't get PP1 time to pile up points, but still collected 29 in 37 games, including three in that beatdown of Colgate in the NCAA Tournament. Now his role will likely change, with Casey having more responsibilities at the point of Michigan's top power play unit. Our contributor Peter South watched Casey at the World Junior Summer Showcase back in July, where he was the QB on the main power play unit, and gave stellar reviews.

Based on what we saw from #26 last season, I don't think there should be any trouble with that transition. Casey's shiftiness resulting from his proficiency on his edges, mixed with those hands, gives him the ability to dance the blue line and change shooting angles to ensure he gets pucks through, which is a big part of quarterbacking a PP. In support of that point, Peter documented this summer that Casey led Michigan with 17.3 shots per 60 minutes, over half of those making it on net and only 3.81 per 60 being blocked. Exactly what you want to see for a guy in that role.

[David Wilcomes]

Of course, Casey taking on a larger role as the #1 on this blue line is more than just moving to PP1. He also will have to shoulder more of a load in the transition game, where his skating and skill already made him valuable last year but the massive loss of Luke Hughes creates a need for Casey to take it to another level. When he is on the ice, he will be a key cog in terms of pushing Michigan up the ice, out of their own zone and into the offensive zone. All of Peter's data on Casey as a transition defenseman from last season were excellent and if he can take another step forward, he'll be among the very best in the NCAA at breaking the puck out of his zone and driving play.  

Defensively I'm not sure that Casey will need to take on a vastly larger role due to the transfer additions, but seeing his game continue to progress in that arena would be positive. Casey will always be undersized at 5'10" with a skinny build, but again, he flashed moments in his own end for me last year that were encouraging. PK may not be something he's asked to do much of, but he can improve as a shotblocker, among other ways to accent the team. That said, you dress Casey as your #1 D to create offense and tilt the ice in favor of Michigan through possession dominance and transition ability. 

Season Expectations: Pretty much everything I outlined in the above is the expectation. I think it's perhaps most likely that Casey plays opposite Tyler Duke, who was his long-time defensive partner when they were at the USNTDP. Duke is a left-shot, Casey a righty. Easy to pair them up and create a pair that should be dynamite offensively while being able to hang in there defensively. You also should be able to free them up for copious offensive zone starts if you play two other defenders with each other (more on that later) who can soak up DZ starts. Put that with Casey's role on PP1 and he should be a point-per-game (or better) defender this year. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: the other nine defensemen]

Previously: Freshmen forwards, returning forwards, season preview HockeyCast 

This is the third and final position preview of our Michigan Hockey season preview. After covering the forwards, both returners and newbies, today we pivot to the defense and the goalies in one large and comprehensive piece. Part III of the season preview series begins. 

Luke Hughes

Year: Sophomore 

Height/Weight: 6'2"/190 

NHL Draft Position: 4th overall, 2022 NHL Draft, New Jersey

Stats: 17-22-39 in 41 games last season 

Why not start with the star? Luke Hughes was a dazzling freshman last season, not just meeting the lofty expectations bestowed by his draft position but exceeding them. The USNTDP product and the youngest Hughes brother had an even better freshman year than his brother Quinn did at Michigan, which is saying something. Luke scored a staggering 17 goals as a defenseman, writing his name into the Michigan Hockey record book with that total. Even crazier, just 3 of those 17 goals came on the PP! That lack of PP1 assignments, thanks to Owen Power's presence on the team, hampered Hughes' point totals some, yet he still piled up 22 assists to score just shy of a point-per-game. Hughes finished third on the team in points and in choosing to return to school, Hughes made himself the top dog for this 2022-23 Michigan squad. 

Unlike some freshmen, Hughes was a stud right from the jump. Just two months into the season, your author was calling Hughes "Michigan's most electric player". He had points in his first six NCAA games and maintained his blazing pace as the year went along. When Power departed with the Olympians and Hughes was elevated to the true #1 role offensively, Luke went crazy, posting 6-3-9 in four games. One of those goals was this one:  

Your author has watched many Michigan Hockey games at Yost Ice Arena, but the Hughes ThunderGoal against OSU remains the most "Yowza!!!!" moment he's ever seen. That's the sort of player Luke Hughes is. He's a gorgeous skater like his siblings, but he's faster in a straight line than Quinn, more capable of the flash-of-lightning type play like the one clipped above. His skating ability drives the package, but a good shot, stellar offensive instincts, and plus vision make him the best offensive defenseman in college hockey, and also the best offensive defenseman prospect not playing in the NHL in your author's opinion. Plays like this happen often with Hughes out there: 

Jimmy Lambert wins the draw back to Luke Hughes and buries it to make it 2-0 Michigan pic.twitter.com/CbxkoFJ5Qd

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) March 27, 2022

Hughes drives transitional play while on the ice, performing his duties as a zone exit/zone entry machine. He attacks off the rush but is also a major weapon activating in the cycle game once in the offensive zone. All this of course means that Hughes is an offensively dominant player, but one who is going to be vacating defensively responsibilities often, as is the case for all puck rushers.

Defensively, there are some warts to his game, both from him leaving his post but also in-zone. Working on the defensive side of the game is presumably why Luke is back at Michigan. At 6'2", he has a chance to be a better defensive defenseman than Quinn ever was, but it will take hard work and attention to detail from Luke, especially positionally. Whether that part of the game comes along is what to watch this season, because you know he's going to light up the scoreboard. 

Season Expectations: This is Luke's season to make a run for the Hobey Baker. Michigan has not won the Hobey since Kevin Porter in 2008 (because the 2016 voters deserve time in a maximum security prison) and Luke Hughes appears to be the best shot since then to win one for the Wolverines. I suspect that his goal totals will decline some, because he maintained an extremely high S% for a defenseman which seems likely to revert to a lower mean, but the expanded role Hughes has on the PP will pad his assist totals no doubt. He should match his points-per-game total from last season at least, and perhaps exceed it. How much higher it can climb, and Michigan's team success, will determine his Hobey case, but this is a player who is the headliner for the team no matter what defender he's paired with. #1 defenseman, top pair, PP1, all the assignments. Superstar. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Other players who are not likely Hobey candidates]