Michigan Wolverine Hockey: Penn State -- Preview

Posted at 7:00pm — 11/21/2014

Michigan Wolverine Hockey: Penn State — Preview

Wolverine Hockey Rebounds, Begins Conference Play This Weekend

What: Michigan (4-5-0) vs. Penn State (6-2-2) Yost Ice Arena, Ann Arbor Fri/Sat November 21-22nd 7:35 p.m.
TV/Radio: Friday: FSD / Saturday: Comcast local / WTKA 1050 a.m. with Al Randall & Bill Trainor. www.mgoblue.com

Rewinding Last Week’s Action:

The Michigan hockey team is still not the crisp, efficient machine that typically trolls the top of the NCAA weekly polls, but is starting to show signs of awakening after a very difficult start. The Wolverines roughed up American International College last weekend winning 5-2 on Friday and 6-3 on Saturday. Neither game was an endorsement to threatening to win the B1G Ten conference, but it did give some of the more prominent members on the team a boost in confidence. Andrew Copp had three goals over the weekend and Boo Nieves notched his first goal of the season.

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AIC, as expected, hung around long enough into both games to make Michigan earn their wins both nights, but just did not have enough depth to pull off an upset. If it wasn’t for freshman netminder Alex Murray, the Yellowjackets may have yielded ten goals on Friday. Their effort was much improved on Saturday, even though the Wolverines scored four consecutive goals after allowing an early AIC tally. The Jackets came back to cut the lead to one in the second period only to succumb to Michigan’s depth in the third period.

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The takeways:

Michigan is still not a very disciplined team and looks ragged at times. AIC is not a good team- aside from their work ethic they just doesn’t have enough talent. Another team may have taken advantage of the frequent and consistent defensive gaps and mental mistakes the Wolverines are still making. Just the same, Michigan got healthy on the PP and yielded one on the PK. The goaltending (in this case both games were handled by Zach Nagelvoort) looks markedly unconfident compared to last season. Last week was fool’s gold and chances are better teams will still look to take advantage of the erratic spurts of discipline and finishing skills Michigan has displayed this season.

Profiling The Nittany Lions:
Michigan can harken back to last March during the B1G Ten tournament (and even before that during the regular season) when Penn State took 3 of 5 meetings with the Wolverines and ousted them from any other post season activity. Don’t look now, but that program has matured into one of the better teams playing in the B1G Ten so far this season. The Lions are relying on their experience so far, posting gaudy offensive numbers (albeit against mostly soft competition) and playing stingy defense.

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PSU is coming off a strong split at #4 U-Mass Lowell and does not fear coming into Yost arena. They are led offensively by senior forward Taylor Holstrom (3-13-16), junior Casey Bailey (8-4-12), sophomore David Goodwin (4-5-9) and junior Curtis Loik (3-5-8). Eight forwards in all top the points board for Penn State with the lone defender aiding the offense is junior Luke Juha (0-4-4). The defense adds four other upper classmen to the scene to give Penn State a well balanced unit. Goaltenders (junior) Matt Skoff (5-2-2, 2.32 GAA, .919 Sv %) and sophomore Eamon McAdam (1-0-0, 1.32 GAA, .953 Sv %) are rock solid.

Look for Penn State to drive the net hard and play a clogging defensive style in their own end. This will be a hard fought series separated by a goal or two this weekend.

Wolverine Notes:

-Senior Zach Hyman continues to lead the pack offensively with 4-6-1. Sophomore Alex Kile also added a goal and an assist last weekend to move up to 4-5-9. Freshmen Dylan Larkin (2-6-8) and Zach Werenski (2-6-8) are piling up assists. Sophomore defender Kevin Lohan notched his first career Michigan goal.

-Michigan Hockey continues during the Thanksgiving holiday, hosting RPI from the ECAC.

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff — Yostmeister

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