Too Early to Talk 91s/Saturday Thoughts

Because U of M might be in on a potentially top-notch one. Kenny Ryan was at the Michigan/Ohio State game Friday night, and he's supposedly really really good. Then again, he's in 8th grade. If the last name sounds familiar it's because he's the younger brother of Ross Ryan, the Michigan punter.

I don't have a subscription to hockeyscouting.ca, but here's a little tidbit you can get in the teaser:

1991 born Kenny Ryan one of the top Michigan prospects
By the www.hockeyscouting.ca staff

Even though Kenny Ryan, a tall winger with Detroit Honeybaked, is three years away from being eligible for the OHL Draft, scouts have been keeping a close eye on the prospect:

"I got a peak at him during a Toronto Red Wings tourney," says one scout, "he is a tall kid with top end hands. Right now he is one of the best 1991's in all of the United States."

It's kind of hard to get geeked up about a kid that's going to be in the class of...umm...2010 if I did the math right, but that's definitely a name to remember for the future. And I'd imagine we have a pretty good shot at getting him as long as his brother is having a nice time in Ann Arbor. His family was with him, and Jack Johnson's dad was kiddingly trying to talk the kid out of attending Notre Dame (Daddy Ryan was a member of the Fighting Irish, and had a huge ND ring of some sort on his finger). Kenny was very amused by the penalty chant. He covered his mom's ears on a couple of them.

To the game Saturday, and a few comments that weren't in my post on the Yost Post since I just thought of them:

I was really happy to escape that game with 1 point, let alone two. What a horrid performance for the first two periods. You'd think that after Friday night they'd come out flying, but what do they do? Get outshot 9-1 in the first segment.

Luckily they turned the tables on OSU from the night before--we were the ones with 2 quick goals to start the third (that GWG was BRUUUUUTAL by the way--did Section 17 get an "Osssgood" chant going or was I just hearing things? Because that was who it reminded me of).

Kolarik was awesome again. He had the jump going the whole night and was probably Michigan's best player once again. He's been our MVP for this last segment of the season.

I'm not sure why they split up "THE Line" (that's what I'm calling them now) to start the game (Kolarik/Ebbett/Kal) but they put em back together in the third and what do they do? Score 12 seconds in. Smart move, Red.

OSU had 38 shots or something, but I feel like they didn't have all that many that were great scoring chances. As Colin alluded to in the comments below, the defense did a really nice job in keeping the shooter from getting into the slot. I felt like most of their shots were from aroudn the perimeter. Ruden was good when he needed to be (especially in the last couple of minutes), but by and large, I thought a lot of the shots were pretty low percentage. Couldn't believe when I looked up at the board and saw that shot total. He played a good game though. The team was geeked at the end of the game. All the guys mobbed him when we won. Spath says he's getting the nod tomorrow, and I can't disagree with that. Hopefully Noah will seize the job this time, because it's getting to the point in the season we NEED someone to take hold of the goalie spot. I think Sauer's confidence is too shot to trust him in a big game at this point.

The defense wasn't great, but they definitely weren't terrible. Both goals were off giveaways, but one ended up getting cycled back out to the point before OSU scored. I noticed that when Jack pinched a couple times, Ebbett immediately came back...very nice to see the awareness out of the forwards.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I like Tim Miller more every time I see him play. He's a really nice all-around player for us.

Did Hensick play tonight? He did? Huh. Could've fooled me.

Shegos was better tonight. He still let a lot of crap go that you know damn well he would've called if it was Johnson (that hit from behind with 2 1/2 minutes left in the Buckeye end for instance), but it wasn't the Brokeback Mountain treatment he gave us Friday night. Porter's penalty was just dumb, dumb, dumb. We were getting a 5 on 3, a guy by our bench was yapping, and Porter reached over the linesman with his stick to tap him on the head, but he ended up whapping the linesman 3 times. Just dumb. Luckily we got a 5 on 3 like 20 seconds later, but it was still a potential opportunity wasted.

No "Dammit Cook!" moments for the weekend. We're making progress there. The power play? Not so much. Horrible again.

I like Rohlfs up at forward, Cook and Dest seem like they've improved their games a lot in the last couple of weeks. And "THE Line" is outstanding. It's nice to get a W, but I don't really feel good about how we played. But there were some positives to take from the weekend and hopefully they'll carry on to the Western game tomorrow. Looking forward to hitting up Lawson for the first time.