Michigan Hockey...

[Hockeybuckeye]

I was so afraid we were gonna have our own 'Sparty no' moment after watching MSU vs. Wisconsin Saturday.

Glad they were able to hang on. Onto Vegas. Let's get 2 more Ws!

It was a good game, the exciting part was close to the end with Duluth making a strong push and Michigan looked to be on their heels. Congrats on the win.

 

[umichjim]

For sure.

The one thing that was interesting is how UMD figured out whatever we were doing on D in the first period. Which was actually pretty unique, I thought- we kind of played a pretty conservative D which clogged up the neutral zone really badly. I noticed something different when we lost a faceoff early in the game, and all but one forward quickly escaped into the neutral zone.

And that worked really well, as it just interrupted UMD's flow really really badly- even when they could get into the zone, it was just start/stop/start/stop and they had no momentum going in.

But at the same time, we were really aggressive as evidenced on the PP that scored the 2nd goal- really risky move for both D men to stay on the blue line when the puck was so high. Some really good play up there to catch UMD out of position with a very open player and a good pass.

Still, that interruptive play got lost in the 3rd, especially on the PK where they scored twice. (yea, I know the first goal was even strength, but it was in that area where the penalized player doesn't have enough time to effect the play). Both times, UMD just swept into the zone and got around the D. I'm going to give credit to UMD to figure out how to get through it.

It will be interesting to face Denver's very hot goalie.

Fortunately, Michigan has a hot goalie of our own. Jack can win this whole thing for Michigan!

 

[MichVandal]

Fortunately, Michigan has a hot goalie of our own. Jack can win this whole thing for Michigan!

If they can come up with something similar to deal with Denver, then it will become a goalie on goalie battle. Apparently, DU's goalie has not actually lost a game....

 

[cinnamoroll]

If they can come up with something similar to deal with Denver, then it will become a goalie on goalie battle. Apparently, DU's goalie has not actually lost a game....

DU had this great freshman goalie in Quentin Miller, but then he gets injured 5 minutes into the game january 24th. In comes their other freshman goalie Johnny Hicks who puts up a shutout for the next 55 minutes and has been on an absolute tear. His record is 14-0-1, with that tie being a shootout win vs CC. 3 shutouts and 1.12 GAA, .958 save %. He hadn't given up more than 2 goals until the NCHC finals vs UMD, which he ultimately won in overtime 4-3.

All of these goalies are really interesting to me. If you want to see the most evident display of the CHL rule change, look no further than the nets of the Frozen Four teams- NoDak's Spunar, DU's Hicks, and Wisco's Hauser all played in the WHL for varying lengths of time, from just half of last season with Hicks to Hauser who holds the all-time wins record for the entire league with 123. Even Quentin Miller, now Hicks' backup, played in the QMJHL for a few seasons. And we all know who Ivankovic is of course