Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

[wolverineTrumpet]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

Where's all the bucky talk? I know that they are reeally struggling this year but come on....

Wisconsin got a tie at Mariucci last week. After going 1-12-1 to start the season they're now 1-2-2 against upper half teams in their last five (split with Tech, tie and loss to BU, tie and loss at MN). Still not great, but certainly improved. I can only go by what I hear, but it sounds like Rumpel can get some hot streaks and keep them in games.

I'll be interested to see how Michigan responds if we do run into a hot goalie. Can the defensive play step up when the offense gets frustrated?

I'm excited for this weekend. Taking the boyfriend on his first hockey away trip with me. I've only been to 2 hockey games in Madison one of which was at Camp Randall, so I'm looking forward to the games at Kohl Center.

 

[streaker]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

Trumpet got 10 seconds of BTN facetime after Selman's hat trick goal. And in other news, Michigan finally won a game when trailing after 2 periods but it shouldn't have to come to this with all that talent. Nice comeback, we'll take it, but between OSU and Wisconsin this season the B1G is really taking a perception hit.

 

[jimbaran]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

Anybody know why we only dressed 11 forwards and no Boo? I only caught the 3rd period on BTN.

 

[UMICH]

Trumpet got 10 seconds of BTN facetime after Selman's hat trick goal. And in other news, Michigan finally won a game when trailing after 2 periods but it shouldn't have to come to this with all that talent. Nice comeback, we'll take it, but between OSU and Wisconsin this season the B1G is really taking a perception hit.

o$u has pretty much always sucked at hockey so they have no affect on the current perception. Wisconsin being bad does indeed hurt the B1G. So does Minnesota's struggles. sparty olis as they normally are, PSU is better than most thought (although no one is convinced they are good),

 

[streaker]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

Anybody know why we only dressed 11 forwards and no Boo? I only caught the 3rd period on BTN.

Conjecture at best. Travis Lynch is out with a broken hand. Evan Allen hasn't seen the ice in a long time, don't know if he traveled. Talcott dressed in only his 4th game this season and didn't see much ice time. Sinelli was moved back to defense. Boo may be sick or benched for whatever reason. Chiasson (injury) & Piazza were the only other d-man that didn't dress out side of Porikos who hasn't dressed all season. Only three centers skated, each took turns on the 4th line. Werenski, Downing, DeJong, Serville, Lohan, Martin and Sinelli were the d-men on Friday.

 

[UMICH]

Conjecture at best. Travis Lynch is out with a broken hand. Evan Allen hasn't seen the ice in a long time, don't know if he traveled. Talcott dressed in only his 4th game this season and didn't see much ice time. Sinelli was moved back to defense. Boo may be sick or benched for whatever reason. Chiasson & Piazza were the only other d-man that didn't dress out side of Porikos who hasn't dressed all season. Only three centers skated, each took turns on the 4th line. Werenski, Downing, DeJong, Serville, Lohan, Martin and Sinelli were the d-men on Friday.

As far as I know Boo is battling the Flu. He is with the team and "might" play tomorrow (but I wouldn't count pin it). However they brought him to Wisconsin so maybe he will?

 

[Yale86]

Where's all the bucky talk? I know that they are reeally struggling this year but come on....

Folks still not convinced on this team yet. As a somewhat neutral observer (son ugrad in AA, I've got my own team to worry about back East), I'm not. If you could send us 1 of your scorers, I'd send you one of our fore checkers and I'd see you in Boston.

But you guys have skill, heart and a goalie. And you're hot. Need to move up in PWR so some flukey result in conf tourney doesn't keep you out of NCAA's. After that, I wouldn't want to play you guys...

As for Bucky, what's really left to be said...Ones a hairless nut & the other is a skunk wearing a popcorn box for a costume.

 

[streaker]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

Folks still not convinced on this team yet. As a somewhat neutral observer (son ugrad in AA, I've got my own team to worry about back East), I'm not. If you could send us 1 of your scorers, I'd send you one of our fore checkers and I'd see you in Boston.

But you guys have skill, heart and a goalie. And you're hot. Need to move up in PWR so some flukey result in conf tourney doesn't keep you out of NCAA's. After that, I wouldn't want to play you guys...

As for Bucky, what's really left to be said...Ones a hairless nut & the other is a skunk wearing a popcorn box for a costume.

I appreciate your simplistic approach, but not so fast. We don't have a goalie. Neither have performed at even an adequate D1 level except for a few games here and there. Our top PK guy and forechecker is hurt. Our defense has contributed to the offense this season, but at the risk of odd man rushes. Our forwards get caught too deep at times. It is simply a case where the team is playing to their strengths and are not interested in lock down defense.

 

[UMICH]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

We don't have a goalie.

This....

 

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

We don't have a goalie.

Lately your offense hasn't needed one. If Michigan is going to continue to win, I'd hope they win just like this. Maybe it will usher in a new era in hockey. One where you actually try to score more than the other guys as opposed to just try to slow things down and run offenses only on turnovers. I've grown tired of a generation's worth of hockey where scoring 3 goals is almost always enough to win.

 

[streaker]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

Lately your offense hasn't needed one. If Michigan is going to continue to win, I'd hope they win just like this. Maybe it will usher in a new era in hockey. One where you actually try to score more than the other guys as opposed to just try to slow things down and run offenses only on turnovers. I've grown tired of a generation's worth of hockey where scoring 3 goals is almost always enough to win.

That's fine, except in the mid-90's Michigan did exactly this and had some guys named Shields and Turco- and actually had some d-men that played positional hockey, too.

 

[streaker]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

Irony is, the team (and goaltender) preserves a blow-out shutout. Let's see the same performance on defense in the next coming weeks and we may be on to something.

 

[UMICH]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

Irony is, the team (and goaltender) preserves a blow-out shutout. Let's see the same performance on defense in the next coming weeks and we may be on to something.

I'm cautious because it was Wisconsin...

 

[wolverineTrumpet]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

So it looks like Michigan found the key to good defense: play a lousy team, control the puck and just don't leave the offensive zone.

 

[alfablue]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

So it looks like Michigan found the key to good defense: play a lousy team, control the puck and just don't leave the offensive zone.

You know as well as I do that it's been a key part of the Michigan D for a long time- the best defense is a good offense.

We've had great goaltenders who could bail out the holes just enough to be dominant, and one that was able to stand on his head to win two NCs.

Even the team that lost to M-Duluth was more of an offensive team than defensive- the lack of good play in our zone meant that UMD got THE chance.

All it takes is about 20 seconds of control in their zone and by the time they get it out, 30-40 seconds have passed and it's time for other team to change. You can win games like that 2-0 pretty easily.

But the real defensive teams would be able to prevent that from happening- which was why MSU was able to play so well against our great teams.

What was really great was when you could roll the 3 forwards so that two were below the face off dots at a time, and the third would be able to take a pass/shoot OR jump back and slow things down enough to look like a trap. That play really made our defense look good. Which wasn't true, in reality. Our defense could not fight that play any better than the other team- so once started against us, it usually meant bad things.

It was funny seeing the Minnesota fans think we were not just like them- a puck control team. We are, and always have been. It just has taken most of the season to figure it out. Where we are much better than the gophers is being really opportinistic- and why we swept them.

To me, it's super fun to watch us wear down the other team by making them skate around in their zone. So they always are dumping and changing, and at some point, there's a stretch of the game where we are able to pop in a few goals reall quickly.

If we can get the defensive break out to be better- that would be a HUGE step toward our style of game. And if we could get either Racine or Nagelvoort to steal one goal every other game (lowering our GAA by .5) we can win this whole thing. At least we know this team will never give up. That 4-3 win over Minnesota was HUGE mentally. The 7-4 win Friday was even better for me. (for the record, I went to bed at 3-1, thinking it looked bad, or I could change the luck. It was also 11:30 for me at the time, and we still had one more big day of work before being able to come home. I'm ok with missing that great 2/3 of the game)

 

[streaker]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

Alfa- I see you have been sucked into Gopher fan's delusion. Seriously, we are an up-tempo team. They wanted to downplay the Friday night game. Called us "opportunistic". Wilcox hasn't been the same since that weekend. Have we been opportunistic since then, or just playing to their offensive potential?

We are only a puck possession team when we can break out of our defensive zone effectively. They gave up the neutral zone too easily. The last time I saw a team really press us in our own end and skate with us was BC. The GLI was fundamentally different, it was like that 2010-11 team in the NCAA tourney- get the lead and lock it down. I kinda like to see more of that and get our goaltending some confidence, too.

 

[alfablue]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

I see what you are saying as the team is right now, and how they have progressed over this season. But you can still see the underlying goal that Red has- play defense by controlling the puck in the other end. That worked on Saturday against the goofers, and seemingly pretty handily over Wisco.

What blurred the lines against Minny was all of the blocked shots.

At least how I've seen the last 24 years.

 

[manurespreader]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

Anyone care to comment on your new recruit, Hughes?

 

[alfablue]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

Anyone care to comment on your new recruit, Hughes?

So you know, some of us don't pay attention to recruits. Too many of them never showed up. And many of them who did never lived up to the recruting hype.

Which means that it's a lot easier on the expectation nerves to just see what we have as incoming freshman, game one.

(which is also to say, who is Huges?)

 

[manurespreader]

Re: Michigan Wolverines 2014-15 season

So you know, some of us don't pay attention to recruits. Too many of them never showed up. And many of them who did never lived up to the recruting hype.

Which means that it's a lot easier on the expectation nerves to just see what we have as incoming freshman, game one.

(which is also to say, who is Huges?)

Made the GTHL prospects game, from the AAA junior Marlies, seems to be a big kid. I couldn't find out much else, but it looks like he is 16 yrs old.