GBMWolveirne: Michigan Hockey -- GLI Recap -- Michigan vs. Michigan State -- Preview

Posted at 4:00pm — 1/7/2011

GBMWolveirne: Michigan Hockey — GLI Recap — Michigan vs. Michigan State — Preview

#8 MICHIGAN (12-5-4, 9-3-1-0) 2nd CCHA vs. Michigan State (7-10-3, 3-8-1) 10th CCHA
1/7/11 7:35 p.m. Munn Arena, East Lansing
1/8/11 7:05 p.m. Yost Arena, Ann Arbor — (MAIZE OUT!)
TV: Friday: Big Ten Network — DirecTV Channel 610; Saturday: FSD+ — DirecTV Channel 664

Rewinding Michigan’s Last Game Action:
The Wolverines slipped by Michigan Tech in the first semi-final game of the Great Lakes Invitational tournament, 4-2. Lindsay Sparks scored his first goal of the season halfway through the contest to give Michigan a 1-0 lead. Ironically, three of Sparks’ five career goals have come against Tech at JLA. Tech tied the game about seven minutes into the third period before Jeff Rohrkemper notched his first goal of the season to break the tie-just: 42 seconds later. MTU came right back and scored a PPG two minutes later to knot the game at 2-2. AJ Treais scored the game winner off a poor clearing pass at 11:01. Captain Luke Glendening finished off the Huskies with an empty netter with: 47 left.

Michigan advanced to the championship game and squared off against #20 Colorado College. The Tigers had defeated MSU 5-4 to advance. Michigan outlasted the Tigers 6-5 to win their 14th GLI championship. The Wolverines jumped out to an early 1-0 lead just: 39 into the game on a Ben Winnett tally. Luke Glendening smartly followed up a Carl Hagelin breakaway attempt that was foiled by CC goalie Joe Howe and scored a shorthanded goal at 10:43 to stake Michigan to a 2-0 advantage. The Tigers came back quickly, though, and scored two PPG’s in a little over four minutes later to tie the game at the intermission. Louie Caporusso notched his 7th goal of the season halfway through the second period to five Michigan a 3-2 lead.

CC quickly tied it on yet another PPG, before Luke Glendening tallied for the second time in the game to send Michigan to a 4-3 lead after forty minutes. The Tigers took advantage of some sloppy defensive play and scored twice in the first six minutes of the third period to take their only lead of the game. Their fifth goal was another PPG- their fourth of the night- which held up until the Wolverines broke through with a PPG of their own. Lee Moffie wristed a seeing eye shot from the point that got through Howe to tie the game with 6:00 left. AJ Treais scored his second GWG of the tourney with 4:04 to go to give Michigan a wild victory. Treais won a faceoff and pursued the puck into the corner. He blindly whipped an intended pass for Lindsay Sparks towards the front of the net which hit a CC defender and launched into the top corner of the net. Michigan held off CC to claim their second GLI title in three seasons.

Spartans On Tap Next:
The Wolverines open the second half of CCHA play with Michigan State. The Spartans come into the weekend home and home match-up fresh off of a 5-3 consolation game victory over Michigan Tech in the GLI. MSU is still a program in flux this season, mired in inconsistent effort and rumor of mutiny against Coach Rick Comley. MSU fans are displeased with the program direction and frankly are not showing up at Munn Arena. More problematic is the fact that the Spartans have appeared at times to quit on Comley and are not on the same page. Just the same, there is still decent talent on this team. The main go to guys are Sophomore Derek Grant (3-15-18) who leads the Spartans offense. Junior Brett Perlini paces the team in goals (12). Junior Daulton Leveille (4-7-11) rounds out the three NHL draft choices on the roster. Sophomore Captain Torey Krug was a GLI all tournament defensemen selection and has contributed 5-10-15. Dustin Gazley’s 7-7-14 leads the Senior class in points. Junior net-minder Drew Palmisano sports a 6-9-3 record as well as a 2.80 GAA and a .901 save %. Freshman backup Will Yanrekeff is 1-1 on the season.

Tale Of The Tape:
The comparable favor Michigan, especially after the 5-0 blanking in the Big Chill game.
The Maize and Blue currently are 13th in the country in scoring with a 3.48 goals per game average. The Spartans score an average of 2.55 goals per game, 42nd in the nation. Both teams exploded in the GLI, with Michigan scoring ten times while the Spartans tallied nine times against their WCHA foes. On the other hand, both teams also gave up a basketful of goals in the tourney- with both Michigan and MSU coughing up seven goals. Still, Michigan is a tad more impressive defensively, giving up an average of 2.48 gpg (14th) versus MSU’s 2.95 gpg (27th). The two areas that Michigan and MSU are similar in are special teams. Michigan had a horrendous first half and didn’t make the Wolverine faithful anymore confident during the GLI tournament. Michigan gave up five power play goals in nine opportunities. That is a vulnerability that will affect the Wolverines down the stretch. Their penalty kill is at 80.2%, 42nd in the country. Conversely, MSU’s PK is at 81.6% or 30th in the country- better but still nominal. The Wolverine’s PP is at 18% or 30th in the country. They were 1/7 during the GLI, but the one goal was huge, tying CC late in the championship contest. Michigan State is converting a paltry 16.1% of their PP chances, 36th in the country. Both teams take needless penalties, but for different reasons. MSU’s talent level inhibits their ability to skate with quicker teams and forces them to take more penalties. Still, they are ranked 38th in the country with a 12.8 minutes per game penalty average. Michigan’s overaggressive fore-check sometimes parlays into careless penalties- but most cases it is due to their physical play. Michigan doesn’t have the biggest team and will find that teams that are able to cycle the play down low against them will result in more offensive chances forcing Michigan’s defense to take penalties. The Wolverines continue to improve this aspect, though, averaging 14.6 minutes per game, 20th in the country. Michigan took an inordinate amount of bad penalties at the GLI and it cost them. (Then again, the CCHA officiating is also whistle happy and probably is the most inconsistent in the country.)

For the record, Michigan is 137-121-18 according to Michigan history (MSU’s is slightly different) and has won the last four meetings. Michigan is also 10-5-1 against MSU since the beginning of the 07-8 campaign, including a perfect 4-0 record at Joe Louis Arena. The Wolverines enter the weekend 7-2-1 in their last ten games, while the Spartans are 3-7 in their past ten games.

The key to beating the Spartans is to jump on them early and suffocate their offense. The longer they hang around, especially at home, the more likely they will be to stealing the game. No word yet if Jon Merrill and Chris Brown will be back from Buffalo- they were playing at the U-20 World Junior tournament with team USA. They are competing in the Bronze medal game on 1/5 and may be able to play this weekend. If not, it will test Michigan’s depth again.

Yostmeister’s Prediction:
Michigan should outdistance the Spartans, especially after earning confidence in last year’s playoffs- sweeping the Spartans in East Lansing. Michigan 3-2 on Friday and 4-1 on Saturday.

Yost Bits:
-Michigan secured the GLI leading 14th championship to go with an overall 50-31-1record at the 46 year old tournament.

-Luke Glendening was named the GLI MVP, scoring three times. He also leads the Wolverines with a +12 rating. He joined Carl Hagelin and Shawn Hunwick on the GLI all-tournament team.

-Michigan enters play against MSU with a season best four game win string.

-Lee Moffie, Lindsay Sparks and Jeff Rohrkemper all scored their first goals of the season at the GLI.

-AJ Treais has potted three GWG’s on the season now, tying him with Carl Hagelin.

-Carl Hagelin added four assists at the GLI and is 2-5-7 in his last three games. His 9-14-23 leads the team in scoring.

-David Wohlberg is 2-3-5 in his last four games and tallied three assists last week.

-Shawn Hunwick set a personal mark for shutout minutes, going 106:55 without giving up a goal- including the Big Chill shutout and almost 47:00 against Michigan Tech.

-Michigan is 4-4-2 this season against ranked opponents.

-The Wolverines will now enjoy a second half with less travel- 13 of their 15 remaining games will be in the state of Michigan with the only trip leaving the state will be in February against Miami, Ohio. Six road games remain: @ MSU, @FSU, @Miami (2) @NMU (2) with a neutral game at the end of January against MSU at Joe Louis Arena. Eight home games will feature MSU, FSU, Alaska (2), OSU (2) and WMU (2).

Early (Way Too Early) NCAA Tournament Projections:

Those of you familiar with the determinants for entry into the NCAA hockey tournament understand that this is just discussion fodder at this point. Nonetheless, I thought it would be fun to put out the first projections based on NCAA pair wise ranking criteria-a complicated computation system used to loosely mock the NCAA selection process. Just some basic framework: sixteen teams are selected for the tournament which is held at four regional locations (West, Midwest, Northeast and East). Those locations for 2011 are: Bridgeport, Cn (East) which will be hosted by Yale. Manchester, NH (NE) which will be hosted by UNH. Green Bay, Wi. (Midwest) hosted by Michigan Tech. St.Louis, Mo. (West) hosted by the CCHA conference. Host teams are placed into their regional if they qualify for the tourney.

Conference tournament champions earn an autobid to the NCAA tourney. First round intra-conference matchups are avoided if possible- with the exception being if a conference has more than four teams in the tourney. Most cases, the NCAA tournament selection committee looks to satisfy criteria for placing teams into regionals: 1) they must not alter the seeding band they are in-i.e. a team in a third seed band can’t be switched with a second seed band. This allows for consistency and bracket integrity. 2) Teams are usually placed in their nearest regional if possible for travel and attendance considerations. (There are other fine points that we’ll skip for this exercise, but these are the biggies.)

So, based on the current PWR projections, and not accounting for conference tournament championship upsets, or the fluidity of the PWR affected by any games played this week-these teams would qualify as of today in the order of their seed:

1.Yale (ECAC)
2.North Dakota (WCHA)
3.Denver (WCHA)
4.Boston College (HEA)
5.New Hampshire (HEA)
6.Minnesota-Duluth (WCHA)
7.Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (ECAC)
8.MICHIGAN (CCHA)
9.Nebraska-Omaha (WCHA)
10.Miami, Oh. (CCHA)
11.Notre Dame (CCHA)
12.Wisconsin (WCHA)
13.Alaska (CCHA)
14.Colorado College (WCHA)
15.Maine (HEA)
16.Atlantic Hockey Champion (presumed to be Rochester Institute of Technology)

The bands would be:
1 seeds: Yale, UND, Denver, BC
2 seeds: UNH, UMD, RPI, Michigan
3 seeds: UNO, Miami, ND, Wisconsin
4 seeds: Alaska, CC, Maine, RIT

From here on out, it is subjective to how the NCAA decides where teams are placed based on travel, proximity to a more favorable regional for attendance etc. But straight up integrity would suggest:

East: Midwest: West: Northeast:

1.Yale-#1 1. UND-#2 1. Denver-#3 1. BC-#4
2.Michigan-#8 2. RPI-#7 2. UMD-#6 2. UNH-#5
3.UNO-#9 3. Notre Dame-#11 3. Miami-#10 3. Wisconsin-#12
4.RIT-#16 4. Maine-#15 4. CC-#14 4. Alaska-#13

In this scenario, the WCHA has five teams and which may require a first round intra-conference match-up. CC could flip w/ Alaska (in the same seed band), to avoid that, so this would be a change, for instance the NCAA may do since it doesn’t compromise bracket integrity and will also bring Alaska’s travel distance down. So let’s do that. How is attendance? The east has its host school and one other eastern school, so that is okay. The Midwest is anchored by UND and Notre Dame. Switching Michigan to the Midwest would not be viable because of a first round match-up with Notre Dame. The optimum solution may be to move Wisconsin to the Midwest and Notre Dame to the Northeast. Then flip Michigan with RPI. This solves attendance in both locations and moves Michigan, Wisconsin and RPI closer to their fanbase. The west looks okay, except it is in St. Louis, so it really may be an attendance sore thumb. The NE has two anchor eastern schools, including the host, so it will be fine. How is integrity? Looks okay. How about travel? The teams that have to fly will not be affected anyway, so travel could be tweaked, but I won’t.

So, now you have a Yale-RPI-UNO-RIT East regional. Pretty sound, except for UNO fans. You also have a UND-Michigan-Wisconsin-Maine Midwest regional. It looks pretty brutal, but great for attendance without disrupting integrity. The West is Denver-UMD-Miami-Alaska. Not much can be done for attendance, and losing CC may hurt it more, but avoiding that first round match-up may be more important since it is a rivalry match-up. The Northeast has BC-UNH-Notre Dame-CC. It’s okay for the eastern schools and the host, but does nothing for CC or the Irish. The games would be entertaining, though. As far as Michigan, a bracket like this may be considered the “death bracket” of the tournament, although the West bracket is just as tough. I like Michigan’s first round match-up much better than a battle with UNO out east- with a potential match-up with the #1 Yale Bulldogs after that. The UND/Maine winner (if they beat Wisconsin IN Green Bay) would be a real test to go to the Frozen Four (which is held in St. Paul, Mn. this year.) North Dakota is super good and would most likely be their opponent. Frankly, you have to take your poison either way- it won’t be easy.

So there you have it- an example of what the NCAA tourney may look like and how they get there. I’ll keep you informed and throw out another projection at the end of the regular season.

For now- enjoy the coolest game in athletics… and GO BLUE!

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff — YostMeister

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