While you have had your eyes trained on the Michigan Football campaign that is now well underway, the 2021-22 Michigan Hockey season has been zooming up behind you, first from the periphery, now into your rear view mirror. And much like how the mirror says that objects in it are closer than they appear, hockey season is closer than you may realize. In just 4 days, Michigan Hockey will take the ice for its exhibition game against Bowling Green, and in just 10 days the season will kick off against Lake Superior State University at Yost Ice Arena. All of this means that it is time to begin rolling out MGoBlog's hockey season preview, which is quite a bit more thorough than the one I put together last year.

And why not? The team is preseason #3 nationally (should be #1 in your author's opinion), with expectations of a B1G title and hopes for a national title. The team is loaded with talent like never before, and so I've anted up and produced a five-part Michigan Hockey season preview. The first three pieces will break down the roster, followed by a piece on the B1G and the schedule, followed by The Story, Predictions, and Wrap. These five stories will go out over the next two weeks, taking you up to the regular season opener against LSSU. Today we begin with part one of the roster preview, looking at the forwards who are definitely centers, and those who are probably wingers but could play center (I will explain both of those in the piece). So let's begin with the true centers, featuring a pair of Hobey candidates and a pair of upperclassmen: 

 

Position Preview: Definitely Centers

There's a thing in hockey, a lot like baseball with shortstops and catchers, where every forward is a "center". It's the most important forward position, so anybody who makes it to high-level hockey as a forward will have played center quite a bit in their youth/junior careers, since low-level hockey coaches make the logical decision to put the best player on their team at the most important position. Thus, most forwards who reach the NCAA level are all marketed as "centers", but that's not what a lot of them actually are. If we were using the loose definition of "center", most of the forwards on Michigan's roster would be classified here, but we're using a more restrictive definition: only players who have logged significant time at center in their Michigan career or are widely regarded as centers as recruits will be put here. So, Bordeleau, Beniers, Beecher, GVW all fit here, but crucially, not Kent Johnson, who some NHL Draft guys still call a "center" but played next to no center last season. Kent is in our wingers-only piece. 

 

Matty Beniers

Year: Sophomore 

Height/Weight: 6-1, 175 

NHL Draft Position: #2 overall, 2021 NHL Draft, Seattle 

Stats: 10-14-24 in 24 games, 17.5% shooting, +21

Beniers, as we often joke, is the only good thing to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beniers is a Massachusetts kid born and raised, and frankly he's just offensively northeast: dad went to Cornell, mom was on Broadway, brother goes to Williams College, and sister also goes to Cornell. Matty would not look out of place in a Ben Affleck/Matt Damon film and he was planning to follow the family Ivy League lineage as a firm Harvard commit in early 2020. There was no way in the world he was leaving Massachusetts.... right? Well, then Harvard and all the Ivies canceled their 2020-21 hockey season and as an elite recruit with NHL Draft aspirations, Matty was given two choices to play that season: either head to Europe like the OHL kids and play in Bodunk, Solvakia on a team whose unpronounceable name is in a foreign language, or decommit and play for someone else. Because Michigan is apparently now The School You Play At If You're A Top NHL Draft Prospect In The NCAA, Beniers flipped to the Maize & Blue. And man, that was a quite the pickup. 

Beniers instantly became a huge part of Michigan's offense (and defense). He had a couple goals in his NCAA debut against Arizona State and Beniers was, along with Bordeleau, one of two primary offensive drivers for this Michigan squad. For a successful line to produce offensively, you need someone to drive play up the ice. Normally that's your center, and as flashy and skilled as Kent Johnson was, Beniers is the one who drove that line. When he had to miss a couple games for the WJC's in early December, Michigan missed him a lot.

Speaking of Kent Johnson, the two worked really well together, playing the entire season as a tandem. Johnson is the more creative, skilled player but he also sticks more to the perimeter. No one's going to call Beniers a physical center, but no one is going to call him a perimeter player, either. The #1 thing that scouts raved about in the pre-draft process (one that finished with Beniers being picked 2nd overall by Seattle) was his commitment to do what it takes to win a hockey game. For an 18-year-old center, his all-around game and defensive presence was remarkably polished. Some of his most appreciated highlights to scouts were not offensive stuff, but were hustle plays like this: 

Shoutout to the fine folks at EPRinkside for that clip. Here Beniers is on the penalty kill and he shows everything scouts love about him: the smarts, the effort, the hustle. He knows this is not a situation where scoring a short-handed goal is the primary objective and instead just meanders through the offensive and neutral zone like a bored child in a shopping mall killing time. That's what Beniers does.

He's only average sized, but is a workhorse along the boards and his willingness to apply pressure on the forecheck was an important component of Michigan's offense. And his tenacity in the defensive zone anchored his line in the DZ. When he was at the WJC, playing against players (in some cases) two years older than him who represented the best U20 players in the world, he was extremely comfortable taking tough defensive assignments for Team USA. Beniers is the definition of an all-situations center at the collegiate level. Put him on the PP and the PK, and he will also eat minutes at 5v5, tilting the ice in his team's favor. Pretty nice weapon to have. 

Offensively, Beniers isn't going to blow you away. He doesn't have a standout skill the way Kent Johnson does with his hands, but Beniers is a classic jack-of-all-trades offensive center and when mixed with his Energizer Bunny motor, he's a productive offensive player. Here's an empty netter that he sets up that shows a lot of his best attributes:

Beniers takes it into the zone and slots it for Moyle to make it 4-1 Wolverines pic.twitter.com/v4MaD26fY0

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) January 16, 2021

What stands out: the strength to ward off the defenders, the skating ability to still have enough left in the tank at the end of the shift, and then he anticipates Moyle out front and makes a really nice pass to set up a tap-in goal. This next one didn't lead to a goal, but it's a high-danger chance that Beniers sets up again through strength, presence, and a high hockey IQ:

A turnover in the Wisconsin zone, Beniers feeds Johnson and Rowe makes the stop pic.twitter.com/JHgi294OBX

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) February 14, 2021

Kent Johnson got more of the points on the line but plays like that showcase what anyone who watched Michigan Hockey saw last season. Beniers did the dirty work for the line and made everything happen, the engine for one of the B1G's most effective lines. Thankfully we get one more season to see that engine churn before it burns coal in the NHL. 

Season expectation: Beniers is probably going to play with KJ another season and those two guys will make up 2/3 of one of Michigan's top two lines. Last season there was a bit of a changing cast of players as to who ran with them. We will answer the "lines" question in a later post, but unless Mel Pearson has amnesia, KJ and Matty will be together. Those two guys had chemistry, so why break them up?

I'd like to see Beniers shoot a little bit more and become a bit more creative offensively, but he's one of the guys on the team with the least to really improve on. He doesn't have many weaknesses at the NCAA level and is an impeccably well-rounded hockey player for still only being 18. Beniers was a point-per-game player last season and just missed All-B1G, so I'd expect >40 points and an All-B1G selection over a full, regular-length season. He's a Hobey candidate, and one of Michigan's three or four most important players.  

[AFTER THE JUMP: Some more important players]

 

Close up on Bordeleau [JD Scott]

Thomas Bordeleau

Year: Sophomore 

Height/Weight: 5'9", 175 

NHL Draft Position: #38 overall in 2020, San Jose 

Stats: 8-22-30 in 24 games, 13.3% shooting, +17 

#HotTake alert: If Matty Beniers is not the best center in the B1G this season, it will be because Thomas Bordeleau is. I go back on forth who the better player is myself, because they have two slightly different skillsets, even though that at the end of the day, the product is the same. Both guys are minutes munching, all-situations legit #1 centers at the NCAA level. Those of us who remember the "Jacob Hayhurst, Top Six Center" Michigan seasons know how much of a luxury that is to have. 

In some ways, Bordeleau is a hybrid of the two forwards I mentioned in the above section, Kent Johnson and Matty Beniers (you can thank me for all future "Beniers/Johnson Love Child" google searches). Like Beniers, Bordeleau is a legit centerman who is a quality skater and plays surprisingly good defense (Bordeleau's defense was actually a concern as a prospect), being comfortable in penalty killing situations. But like Kent Johnson, he can do stuff like this:

??. ?? #?????????????
??? ??????? ?? ??? ????

Thomas Bordeleau with the OT winner at Wisconsin makes SportsCenter and has Wolverine Nation on its feet!#GoBlue〽️ pic.twitter.com/2LWsl9EPPB

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) July 1, 2021

That will never get old. Bordeleau's hands are silky smooth, his offensive creativity is quite high, and though he's not quite the defensive player or skater of Beniers, he's an engaged 200-foot player who can outrace most NCAA guys he encounters. And even if he doesn't he's got the full arsenal of tricks to get by anyone standing in his way. Bordeleau, like Beniers, had his own running mate, Brendan Brisson. Where Beniers needs a more creative player to accent his skills, Bordeleau needs a shooter to pot all the chances he creates and Brisson was that guy. Their chemistry was strong from the start, but it improved as the season went forward and Brisson began to come into his own more. Eventually they started making these kinds of plays: 

Pasta from Brendan Brisson and Thomas Bordeleau and Wolverines lead 2-0 pic.twitter.com/aZYTcc9J59

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) December 3, 2020

That first pass that Bordeleau makes from left half-wall across the zone, right on the tape to Brisson is a vintage Bordeleau play. He is Michigan's most lethal PP weapon because of the passing lanes he can see and the hands he possesses to execute those passes. Though he can score goals (see: the earlier clipped Wisconsin goal), Bordeleau is a pass-first player who likes to dangle and dish out filthy no-look passes to his linemates. When you combine that with his strong faceoff ability, there's a pretty well-rounded package of skills to talk about. Bordeleau drives his own line and similarly to Beniers, he was badly missed in that Minnesota series during the WJC camp. 

Season expectations: Bordeleau scored 30 points in 24 games last season, which was their best PPG clip by a healthy margin. Though I think there's a chance that the Johnson and Beniers line reaches a new gear thanks to a leap by KJ, in all likelihood, Bordeleau should be Michigan's top scorer and should lead the team's top offensive line. Part of that will probably be that Beniers' line will draw the top defensive assignments, while Bodeleau might get slightly easier quality of competition. That's the nature of Michigan's wealth of talent: you can match your "best players" against the other team's best players, and also have this other line of "best players" to exploit a major talent gap. Bordeleau may be the beneficiary of that, and he may also be the beneficiary of a sophomore leap from his own winger in Brendan Brisson. Bordeleau was All-B1G last season and should be a lock to repeat. Also, he's a legitimate Hobey Candidate, and if he plays a full season, >45 points is a reasonable expectation. 

 

Can Michigan finally unlock Johnny Beecher? [JD Scott]

Johnny Beecher

Year: Junior

Height/Weight: 6'3", 209 lbs. 

NHL Draft position: #30 overall in 2019, Boston 

Stats: 4-4-8 in 16 games, 13.8% shooting, +4 

Lost in Michigan's ridiculous wealth of talent is Johnny Beecher, whose Michigan career up to this point hasn't gone quite as planned but is still *checks notes* a first round NHL Draft pick. You know you've got it good when it's hard to remember all the first rounders on your team, and Beecher is often the one who is forgotten. Beecher came to Michigan by way of the USNTDP back in 2019 following his selection at the back end of the first round by the Boston Bruins. Beecher was a pretty controversial prospect in scouting circles during the pre-draft process, with some scouts seeing him as a legitimate first rounder, while others didn't even have him in their top 100 prospects. Some saw a big center with skills and decent skating, but those others saw a limited forward offensively who lacked high-end skill to truly make him pop. 

Unfortunately for Michigan, we've seen more of the latter than the former so far in his career. But that isn't to say he's a bad player at the NCAA level. He's scored at a 0.5 points per game clip in each of his first two seasons, which is perfectly acceptable. It just feels disappointing relative to his draft position, especially since Beecher didn't improve much as a sophomore. Mel Pearson and his staff wanted Beecher to be an important veteran piece, one of Michigan's few high-end forwards with a year of collegiate experience last season. I think in their mind they wanted Beecher to be for Beniers/Bordeleau what Cam York was for Owen Power: someone to shoulder a ton of weight to let his younger teammates to ease in to NCAA hockey. That's why Beecher centered Michigan's "top line" for the first few months of last season and got a lot of time on PP1. That didn't go particularly well and within a few weeks, it was very evident that Beecher was not even one of Michigan's two best centers, and really didn't belong in the sort of offensive situations he was deployed in. 

As Beniers and Bordeleau seized center stage for the offense, Beecher was able to take more of a reduced role and he didn't look terrible. Sadly, he didn't get as much of a chance as he should have to settle into that new capacity before a season-ending injury required surgery and knocked him out for the season. Thus far in his Michigan career, we've seen the full Beecher enigma, plays of brilliance that show you why the Bruins believed in him, a mix of skating and speed, size, and skill that can occasionally make you go "whoa": 

"Hey guys I'll just do this one myself" - Johnny Beecher probably pic.twitter.com/wBsYQVv0fX

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) January 9, 2021

Those kinds of plays are in his wheelhouse. There's not much Beecher can't do. But there's also not much he can do consistently. Beecher has the tendency to have those sorts of "wowza" plays bookend long stretches of hockey where he vanishes and you forget he's even on the ice, which is something that tends to follow big forwards (Anthony Mantha and Johan Franzen were cases of this). The biggest problem Beecher has is he doesn't have high-end creative skill.

If you've noticed, both of those plays I clipped are instances where Beecher is creating a chance for himself and then converting that chance. To this point in his Michigan career, the big man from upstate New York has more career goals than assists, and that's how Beecher operates: he's a goal-scoring centerman without a high-end shot. He lacks the skill to create and drive offense the way Bordeleau can, but also doesn't have the motor or polished defensive skillset of Beniers to play a dominant 200-foot-game. That's why placing Beecher on a top PP feels like shoving a round peg in a square hole. 

A lot of this seems pretty down on Beecher, but what's his role? Luckily for Michigan, they don't need Beecher to be a top six centerman. He could very easily be the best #3 center in the conference, because no other teams have first round picks that they're deploying as third line centers. His talent level is still crazy high for this new role. It's just on Mel to recognize that this is Beecher's real role. The other luxury of Michigan's roster this season is that they have high skill guys who can spark more offense on a Beecher line.

Last season Beecher was asked to drive a line alongside complementary players like Eric Ciccolini. This season they could potentially pair Beecher with a high-skill offensive winger who could drive the line, and to me the most logical pair would be Mackie Samoskevich. If you put Samoskevich and Beecher together, Beecher no longer has to do most of the offensive creating, and instead you could just ask him to play a bit more defense and then score on the chances that Samo creates. I think that suits his skillset more. 

Season expectations: He's going to be Michigan's #3 center. Though there's a scenario where I could see them move him to wing and play him in the top six, Mel is a hockey coach and there's nothing that hockey coaches love more than Big Body Centers. Mel believes in Beecher a lot, enough to stick with him up in the lineup long after it was clear that that was not working. So he'll be at center, but with fewer minutes and fewer responsibilities than last season.

I'm not sure if he'll be on a PP unit, but if he is, I'd actually like to see him as a netfront screener given his height. It feels like this is who Beecher is, but it's also not out of the realm of possibility that Beecher makes a jump this season, especially if he finds chemistry with his linemantes. Even if he sticks at 0.5 PPG, that's a joy to have as your 3C. But if he does make a jump.... boy that's fun. Let's say his expectation is ~0.6 PPG, so ~23 points over a full season. Which again, is very good for your #3 center. 

 

GVW is back for Year #4 [JD Scott]

Garrett Van Wyhe 

Year: Senior

Height/Weight: 6'2", 200 lbs.

NHL Draft position: ----

Stats: 3-2-5 in 21 games, 8.1% shooting, -3 

Michigan's 2019-20 season was a rather weird one from a roster perspective. You still had some holdovers from the previous generation (Slaker, both Pastas, Lockwood, Luke Martin) albeit without the crown jewels of that class (Norris and Hughes). Meanwhile, you also had the young high picks who represented the start of the next generation of Michigan Hockey (Beecher and York). It was a hodge-podge, workman-like roster of players who were short on skill but not short on heart. For me, no one epitomized that team better than Garrett Van Whye (and his linemate Nolan Moyle). Those two guys (and the since-departed Dakota Raabe) were arguably Michigan's best line that season (never something you want to say about your fourth line), grinding out opponents by playing fundamental defense and suffocating on the forecheck. On a team that trapped a lot, they did it the best and became the lifeblood of Michigan's team. Stuff always seemed to happen when those guys were on the ice. 

If this Michigan team were a 1994-2009 Detroit Red Wings team, then GVW is Kris Draper (and Moyle is Kirk Maltby). Even those outrageously talented Red Wings teams that could toss out all-time legends like Halloween candy had one line that's job it was to grind the opponent and shoulder defensive responsibilities, with the legendary Maltby-Draper-McCarty grind line still lingering in Hockeytown lore (and in my bedroom through my Grind Line bobblehead collection).

Michigan has tried to grow its own grind line in the form of GVW and Moyle, who do exactly that: they kill penalties, play in the closing minutes when Michigan has a lead, and make the Wolverines harder to play against, the muscle to match the flash and dash of the top three lines. When the line was formed, Moyle and GVW represented their team as the most Lunch Pail guys on a team full of Lunch Pail guys. Now they're reminders of the less-talented teams of Michigan past, but they still have an important role to play. 

Van Whye is an effective center because he does all the things you want from a fourth line, checking centerman. He's not going to do anything particularly skilled, although sometimes the occasional "wait a minute, was that Garrett Van Wyhe?" play happens:

The passing on this break out OMG - Van Wyhe from Summers and Raabe it's 2-0 BLUE pic.twitter.com/F4s0miAMJk

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) March 16, 2021

This is a much more representative good offensive play from GVW: 

Snipe from the slot by Hayhurst, helpers from Moyle and Van Wyhe pic.twitter.com/ji66UqTwgh

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) January 19, 2020

Lays a check to jar the puck free, Moyle grabs the rebound, and it's sent to a high-danger area. Van Wyhe's scoring clip has flatlined as Michigan has recruited a horde of players whose presence indicates that GVW is no longer needed to produce offense, and I will expect him to be deployed heavily on DZ draws this season, and next to never on OZ ones.  

Season expectations: His role to the team is still an important one, as I anticipate the GVW-Moyle tandem to be the second PK forward team (probably after Beniers and Bordeleau?), and he will still eat minutes late in games that Michigan is leading. No one is going to expect him to be a scoring powerhouse, and he'll probably draw decently tough assignments defensively, so another 5-10 point season is likely in the cards. But that's perfectly fine it happens, because he will be filling his niche and meeting his role on the team just fine. Michigan needs somebody to bang around with the senior citizen 25-year-olds that some other teams in the conference will be running out there, and that's exactly what GVW is here to do. 

 

Position Preview: Probably wingers, but can play center

This group are the players who are listed as “centers” by Elite Prospects because, again, almost every forward who reaches NCAA hockey was once a center, but will probably be wingers on this Michigan team, either because that’s what they actually are, or because Michigan has four set in stone centers. But these guys have the capability to play center, should injury arise, which is why they get their own category. This group consists of two flashy new pieces, and two veteran names.

 

Samoskevich is Michigan's most hyped freshman forward [Chicago Steel]

Mackie Samoskevich

Year: Freshman

Height/Weight: 5’11”, 190 lbs.

NHL Draft Position: #24 overall in 2021, Florida

Stats: -----

Samoskevich comes from a hockey family from Newtown, CT, and actually has a twin sister who plays on the women’s team at Quinnipiac University. Scott Wheeler of The Athletic wrote an excellent piece on the Samoskevich family and the effect that growing up in Newtown in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Shooting had on the two kids, so if you have a subscription to that publication, I highly recommend you to check it out.

Anyway, Samoskevich arrives at Michigan by way of the Chicago Steel in the USHL, which has become a mini-Michigan farm system as that team has become the juggernaut of their league, having sent Power to Michigan last year and they will be supplying the Fantilli brothers to UM next season. Samoskevich was picked in the late first round by the Florida Panthers, the fifth Wolverine on this season’s team to go in the first round of that draft (still absurd to think about), and Samo was a favorite of some internet scouts in the run up to the draft, mostly due to a well-rounded offensive toolkit.

Samoskevich is advertised as a dangerous offensive weapon, possessing excellent hands and good passing ability and hockey IQ to match it. EPRinkside tracked Samoskevich and remarked that he was one of the very best draft prospects at generating controlled zone entries last season, and you can read about why those are important to hockey here. Skating is not Samo’s calling card, but he’s a competent skater and his hands and IQ allow him to use space excellently, setting up teammates and driving offense. If Samoskevich improves as a skater and perhaps adds some weight, he could be absolutely deadly, and the Panthers agreed with that assessment in tabbing him with a first-round pick.

A small window into Samoskevich

Scouts haven’t said much of anything positive about his defensive zone play, but that’s not unusual for a talented offensive winger who is only exiting the juniors. It’ll be up to Mel and the staff to round out Samoskevich’s 200-foot game, to bulk him up, and help him clean up his skating stride (scouts think he skates too hunched over) over what will likely be a 2 or so year Michigan career.

In year one, Samoskevich is a lock to play every game in a top nine capacity, another potential impact player on offense. He is marketed as a center entering college, but most scouts see him on the wing in the NHL and with Michigan’s center logjam, he’ll be playing wing this season. Though it might seem fun to throw Samoskevich in with Bordeleau and Brisson and cackle with glee as the opposition are sliced up like butter that’s been sitting at room temperature for a couple hours, I actually would rather see Mel put Samoskevich on a line with Johnny Beecher (on the third line), as noted above. Something like Samoskevich-Beecher-Pastujov could be a very solid third line, one that can compete in all three zones and would give Michigan another bona fide scoring line to roll beyond their 1A/1B lines, assuming Samo is what NHL Draft people believe him to be.

Season Expectations: Plays every game on a scoring line of some sort, with a healthy dose of PP time. Looking at his draft position, something akin to Brisson’s season last year is a decent scoring clip expectation for Samoskevich. Over ~35 games, that would be around 25 points.

 

Duke is another valuable freshman piece [Rena Laverty]

Dylan Duke

Year: Freshman

Height/Weight: 5’10”, 181 lbs.

NHL Draft Position: #126 overall in 2021, Tampa Bay

Stats: -----

Dylan Duke was one of the biggest— if not the biggest— faller down the draft board during the 2021 NHL Entry Draft, tumbling from projections that had him in the early 2^nd round all the way to the back-end of the fourth round. It got so bad that internet scouts were basically on their hands and knees begging an NHL team to draft Duke, and eventually someone did. And of course, that team was Tampa, the NHL franchise that has built a back-to-back Cup winner off of scooping up players who were undervalued despite excellent junior numbers (Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov, Yanni Gourde). Perhaps one day Duke will fall into that category, because he definitely seems to be an undervalued player when you compare his junior numbers to where he was picked.

Duke is a native of Strongsville, Ohio, who played for the USNTDP last season and scored 49 points in 50 games, good for second on the team behind only Sasha Pastujov (younger brother of Mike and Nick, is going to be playing in the OHL for the Guelph Storm). Those numbers do not indicate a fourth-round pick, but scouts soured on Duke for the classic combination of traits that is never good news for a prospect: undersized, bad skater. Duke is a 5’10” forward for whom skating is his biggest weakness and given the biases that exist in the scouting community, that combination of traits is pretty much a death sentence for going in the first round of a draft, and often it leads to what happened to Duke, which is tumbling way down the board.

EPRinkside’s draft guide described Duke as “the most limited player inside the top-50”, which is mostly what scared teams away, but we should still note what that quote also says: "despite the limitations, that publication still had Duke 86 spots higher than where he was picked because of what he does well". In particular, that’s scoring goals from between the dots and around the net. Despite the undersized frame, Duke is advertised as an eager competitor along the boards, someone who anticipates well on the forecheck and on the backcheck, and a willing shooter with decent hands to finish plays in tight around the net. He’s a goal-scoring forward who gives it his all, despite the fact he’s rather slow and as a function of that, his transition game is a weakness.

Some assorted Duke highlights

The good news is, I think Duke is a perfect fit for Michigan’s current strengths and weaknesses. Michigan as a team has several terrific puck carriers who can carry the load of the transition game on their backs (Beniers, Bordeleau, Beecher), while in need of a few bodies who can play around the net, and that’s exactly what Duke is. Both the KJ/Beniers and Bordeleau/Brisson tandems could use a player willing to bang around down low and finish chances off, and KJ and Beniers could really be helped if that player is also a willing shooter, which Duke is. If I were hired as Michigan’s coach (spoiler alert: I won’t be), I would slot Duke in with those two on one of Michigan’s top two lines. Though Duke is described as a center as he exits the USNTDP, and certainly could grow into one in college, he is very unlikely to play that position this season, because Beniers, Bordeleau, Beecher, and GVW are still on the roster (not to mention more proven centers like Lambert and Morgan).

Season Expectations: Duke is far too talented not to be in the lineup, and so I assume he will be playing every day in a top nine capacity. I have advocated for him to play in the top six because of his complementary skillset, but he could easily wind up on the third line with Beecher too (or Beecher could be on the top two lines as a winger!). But the kid is going to play, and if his proficiency around the net holds up at the NCAA level, that feels like it makes him an easy bet to get PP time, since, as we’ve mentioned, Michigan is lacking in those types of players. If he plays ~35 games, I think a solid 10-10-20 season is a reasonable starting point for Duke.

 

Yeah, Jimmy Lambert can play center too [Patrick Barron]

Jimmy Lambert

Year: Senior

Height/Weight: 6’0”, 175 lbs.

NHL Draft Position: ----

Stats: 1-6-7 in 22 games, 3.0% shooting, -3

I have to say that Jimmy Lambert is a player who I just have never really understood in terms of why Mel Pearson thinks so highly of him. Lambert was one of the recruits Michigan took during The Great Talent Gap that occurred after Dancs/Marody/Calderone exited and before Beniers/Bordeleau/KJ arrived. The hope was that Lambert could grow into a playmaking center that could play on a power play and perhaps be an NCAA 2C by his fourth year in the program. Well, now we’re in his fourth year in the program and it hasn’t really happened.

Lambert led all freshmen in points in 2018-19, though that was not a star-studded cast, to say the least. After Josh Norris’ injury that season, Michigan spiraled into a 1.5-year gulf where they were almost totally devoid of impact, playmaking centers and Lambert was a guy that Michigan gave many, many chances to. He scored 13 points in both ’19 and ’20 which seems decent, but you have to remember that’s with getting many chances to produce offense. Jimmy Lambert was as much a victim of Michigan’s offensive problems as he was a factor in why they occurred.

This isn’t to say he’s a bad hockey player at the NCAA level, it’s just that when someone like him is your 1C or 2C, you’re probably going to have offensive problems. Lambert is a decent passer and an adequate skater, but he doesn’t generate a high volume of chances, nor does he have the physical toughness of a true checking line guy. And his offensive contributions are sullied by the fact that he cannot shoot to save his life, a career 5.5% shooter in his NCAA career (the average for forwards in the NHL is ~10.5%). Last season, that was just 3%. Poor shooting is an unfortunate bug for a speedy player like the next forward I write about in this article, but for someone who lacks dynamic ability of any kind like Lambert, it’s a near-death knell for your chance of being an impact offensive player.

Despite all of this, Mel has given Lambert plenty of chances, even some last year. And by all accounts, Lambert is a good guy in the locker room, having been voted an Assistant Captain for the second straight year, so like Mike Pasta, he has value to the team. The thing is, though, that we’ve reached the point where Michigan no longer has to give Lambert chances because they have no better options. They probably have something like 12-13 better options (in your author’s opinion) and there are only 12-13 forward slots on any given night. The Saskatoon native’s senior campaign may not be one with lots of playing time.

Season Expectations: Because Mel likes Lambert more than I do, I anticipate Lambert to play more often than I would be comfortable with, probably alternating with Morgan as the 13th forward because both can play center if needed, and I think Michigan would like to have a fifth proven NCAA center in the lineup should injuries occur. But given what we know about Lambert, if he plays 15-20 games, I’d expect ~5-8 points and only a couple goals, especially if his ice time is limited even when he plays.

 

No indication if Luke Morgan is bringing the stache back too [JD Scott]

Luke Morgan

Year: Grad Student

Height/Weight: 5’11”, 190

NHL Draft Position: -----

Stats: 2-6-8 in 26 games

Morgan is the other player besides Mike Pastujov who Michigan brought back as a 5th year option and he’s similar to Pasta in that nothing on his resume screams “got to have this guy back on the team”. Morgan was a productive player for Lake State back in 2016-17 and then the Brighton native opted to transfer closer to home and play for Michigan. Given that transfer rules were not yet the free-for-all that they are now, Morgan had to sit out a year and then got to play in 2018-19. Expectations were decently high since he had scored 22 points for LSSU as a freshman, but he is yet to come anywhere close to that mark with the Wolverines, scoring 13, 12, and 8 points in his four seasons at Yost. I acknowledge that his role and ice time may have been different in Sault Ste. Marie than it has been in Ann Arbor, but I’ve seldom thought Morgan is a player who deserves a larger role.

Luke Morgan’s one calling card is his speed. The dude can skate, and it’s probably what got him invited to a couple NHL development camps over the years, as it’s his only NHL-caliber skill. The problem is, he’s been unable to blend any skills in with the speed, which as I wrote about this summer, is how you become an NHL player and evolve to something greater than the sum of your parts. Luke Morgan has been Michigan’s Darren Helm or Ilya Mikheyev, a player with very good speed who can generate a decent chance or two per game for himself off the rush but lacks the shooting ability to finish that chance off, reducing him to being the ultimate tease on the team. He creates a breakaway for himself and you get your hopes up, but then he shoots it 8 feet high and four feet wide. Like Lambert, Morgan is not cursed by a witch, which is often the case for very low shooting percentages. Rather, it’s just who he is. His 7.0% shooting clip at Michigan (4.8% the last two years!) is not bad luck, this is Luke Morgan.

The reason he’s back at Michigan, though, is probably not the speed. It’s probably because he can play center, and hockey coaches stock up on centers like they’re toilet paper at the start of the pandemic. As I noted in the Lambert section, Morgan’s path to playing this season is as the “5th center” in the lineup while skating as the 13th skater, because he’s not worthy of a top nine role offensively, nor is he a particularly great fit to play with GVW and Moyle (he could probably be okay at it if you wanted him to, but I just don’t love the fit). His speed allows him to kill penalties, but I don’t see him getting much of a shot there when Bordeleau, Beniers, GVW, and Moyle all exist, so Morgan’s ice time will also be limited when he plays.

Season Expectations: Similar to Lambert. He plays 15-20 games, and scores around 8 points, but his role may be even less than that.