HARBAUGH HARBAUGH HARBAUGH HARBAUGH.

There. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s break down a mid-season tournament win that featured an impressive victory over Michigan Tech and about what you’d expect against Michigan State.

 GLI Semifinal:

Michigan v. Michigan Tech 12/28/14

1st period

UM 1 MTU 0 EV 06:28 Martin (2) from Hyman (11) and De Jong (4)

Hyman has the puck along the boards, and that causes Sturos (#7) to come down and make a futile attempt to take away the passing lane. He’s far too late, and Hyman easily gets a cross-ice pass off to Martin. The pass gets Tech’s defense skating, as no one’s covering Martin. In fact, no one’s really in position to do so, either. You can see that they have a box-plus-one, and the one is the aforementioned Sturos, who’s now on the wrong side of the ice.

Martin’s shot is going to end up going over the blocker of Tech’s Jamie Phillips, and it’s something that can best be described as a seeing-eye shot. If you look at the black box in front of the goalie, there’s not even a Michigan player in front to screen. This is a shot that just beats the goaltender; I don’t think the Tech defenders acted as screeners either.

UM 1 MTU 1 EV 10:28 Gould from Petan and Kero

Tech moves the puck down the boards and into the corner. Michigan has Downing in front, and he’s smart to not jump in and help but instead stay in front of the net. As you can see, there’s a Tech skater who’s unaccounted for who’s going to play an important part in just a moment, one which will necessitate a defender in front.

Kero (#10) makes an incredible pass from the corner to the trailing man in the faceoff circle. Petan gets the puck and fakes a shot, which causes Downing to drop to a knee in an attempt to block. Petan’s shot fake is superb, and the pass to Gould is perfect. I really can’t blame Downing for trying to block here, because he had about a tenth of a second to decide whether it was a shot or a pass and Petan executed flawlessly.

Racine tries to push across the crease to square with Gould, and in doing so he opens up the five-hole. Gould’s shot is low and just barely clips Racine’s right leg pad, deflecting down and in.

[More after THE JUMP]

2nd period

None

3rd period

UM 2 MTU 1 PPG 03:44 Hyman (11) from Copp (7) and Downing (5)

Michigan catches Tech on a line change, and Copp slowly skates the puck into the offensive zone. He sees Hyman entering the zone with speed, and he uses a saucer pass to get it over the defender on him and in the middle of the ice to Hyman. That squiggly, ugly line I drew on the screencap is supposed to be the saucer pass. You never realize how much coffee you’ve had until you try to draw an arc on a screencap.

Hyman is facing down one defender who doesn’t want to step up on him for fear of getting beat, so he instead lets Hyman walk the puck toward the slot and wait until he feels comfortable to shoot. I’m not entirely sure, but my guess is that the defender continues to skate backwards in case he needs to pick up Copp in front of the net. If he wasn’t thinking that he should pretend he was, because Copp had started to beat Hanna (#22) but was still technically there to help.

The arrow through the box is indicative of the shot and the shot’s placement which 1) is perfectly placed under the defender’s arm and inside his back and 2) was really close to hitting him in the butt, which could have resulted in an elusive and moderately funny butt goal. Hyman’s shot keeps rising and beats Phillips in the top right corner.

GLI Final:

Michigan v. Michigan State 12/29/14

1st period

UM 1 MSU 0 EV 09:17 Copp (8) from Kile (7) and Lohan (5)

Michigan starts their break from the neutral zone. Kile feels the pressure from an approaching State player and drop passes it to Copp. If you melted the open ice in front of Copp you could probably fill one of those man-made ponds they put in front of fancy office buildings.

Copp takes his time skating in, analyzing the defenseman and his positioning. The State player does a good job of taking away the pass, which leaves Copp no choice but to shoot. This is a textbook 2-on-1; goalie takes the shooter, D takes away the pass.

Copp’s shot is placed perfectly under Hildebrand’s arm outside his body. That’s an insanely small space to sneak the puck through, and while it’s hard to judge a guy’s intent regarding shot placement is looks like that’s where Copp intended to place it. It looks like a simple goal, but the precision on the shot is truly impressive.

“YEAH GUYS I DID IT I decided to celebrate in front of a bunch of MSU fans and a guy in a Boston College jersey?”

 

2nd period

UM 2 MSU 0 EV 12:14 Hyman (9) from Downing (6) and Serville (5)

Downing makes one of the best offensive plays I’ve seen him make in a Michigan uniform. He holds the puck in a shooting position, which baits the defender into bunching up into a shot-blocking position.

Downing waits it out; as soon as the State player realizes he isn’t shooting he jumps to make a play on the puck. That’s when Downing takes advantage of the State player being out of position and passes to Hyman in front of the net.

Hyman takes the pass and stops it. If I had to guess, that happens maybe between one and five percent of the time there’s a pass to the front of the net. By stopping the puck Hyman is able to move it to his backhand, and he flips it into the open top corner of the net.

3rd period

UM 2 MSU 1 04:07 EV Holland from Darnell

Maybe the theme of the night is “things that happen between one and five percent of the time.” Holland puts a long snapshot on net from the blue line. He isn’t even on-balance, so it would seem to be an innocuous shot. It’s the equivalent of someone taking a fadeaway long 2 in basketball; it’s a shot you don’t mind giving up.

The caveat that always applies is whether the goalie is screened, and you can see that he is very much so as the shot is released. It’s a rising shot, and it hits the top corner over Racine’s blocker before he even knows there’s a puck headed toward him.

Notes:

The streak continues: Michigan had another goal waved off after review, this time because of intent to blow the whistle. Go to 3:05 and watch for yourself: http://www.mgoblue.com/collegesportslive/?media=479696

Goaltending competition: At least it’s a good competition to have. Racine looked good over the course of the tournament. I thought he was positionally sound (with a few exceptions, though those didn’t lead to goals) and tracked pucks well. I thought the job was Nagelvoort’s, but the coaching staff seems to think otherwise; Red made a comment in one of the in-game interviews along the lines of it being up for grabs. With nine days before the next game the job will likely be won in practice.

Missing pieces but not missing a step: Winning the GLI without Compher, Werenski, Larkin, and Motte is impressive, but what surprised me was how much Michigan looked like Michigan without those guys. Hyman and Copp both had great weekends and carried the offensive burden, but overall the team still forced too many shots from the perimeter before finding success when setting up in front of the net. The same defensive mistakes were present, too; a frustrating number of odd-man rushes against and trouble clearing the puck from their own zone. Having said that, I’m still looking forward to having those guys back in the lineup (especially considering Larkin’s impressive seven points in four World Junior Championship games).

Movin’ on up: Michigan moves to #20 in PairWise and RPI, four spots below Tournament qualification. Michigan’s home series against Minnesota (#5 in PairWise and RPI) is one of their last two opportunities for a series to have a big PairWise/RPI impact; the other comes at Minnesota in the middle of February.

Next game: Friday, January 9th vs. Minnesota, 6:35 p.m. (BTN)