Michigan Hockey Net attended both games this weekend and provides recaps for Friday and Saturday, along with post-game thoughts from Friday. MHNet noticed the same thing that Kolarik did: Mark Mitera had an outstanding weekend. He was also impressed with the chemistry amongst the forward lines as well as the lack of turnovers from our blue liners. All positive things to see with such young units.
The Postgame Notes section of the MGoBlue press release indicates that Michigan has now won 14 of the last 16 games against Northern Michigan, with Billy Sauer posting a 7-1-0 mark.
The Michigan Daily blogs during games, and it's a nice way to get a play-by-play when you can't see the game. Friday. Saturday. They point out that Saturday night was the third straight game that Michigan has finished the third period short-handed. From their point of view, it makes me question the strategy of NMU switching goalies even more. The second goal was apparently put into the net by a Wildcat, and just before Michigan scored the go-ahead goal in the third period, Janzen apparently made a huge save.
It sounds as if Michigan had some trouble getting the offense going even-strength this weekend. We trailed in shots on goal for most of Saturday's game and the lack of quality chances was a common theme on Friday night as well through two periods. Luckily the power play got going just in time to win us a couple of games.
The Daily also came through with a nice article about the special teams units from over the weekend. Kolarik seems to be embracing the role as a captain, because he's a pretty darn good quote.
When Matt Rust, back in the locker room after being ejected, heard the roar of the crowd, he thought the Wildcats had won the game. This is the second time in three games that he's taken a penalty late in regulation.
Red Berenson was interviewed by The Wolverine ($ link) about the past weekend as well as general thoughts about recruiting, which was pretty interesting. He said that Hogan met with the doctor again yesterday and is no better than a week ago.
The idea that this team is going to be "scoring by committee" seems to be panning out. Through four games, 10 different players have goals and only Hagelin, Porter, and and Rust have more than one goal.
Walt Kyle was disappointed in Janzen's play in net. I'm not sure if it's due to the hit that Stewart took late in Friday's game, or if it's the usual MO for them, but it also seems odd that he'd play Janzen after he praised the heck out of Stewart's play the night before.
Red Berenson said that NMU was the hungrier team on Saturday night and that we needed a little bit of luck to get out of there with a win. He gave Sauer a lot of credit for his play this weekend. Here's the Friday recap from The Mining Journal.
NMUHockey.net ripped the officiating Friday night, saying that it was the worst officiated game he had seen in 30 years. It's nice that others have come to appreciate Steve McInchak as much as I do. CCHA Officiating, folks! They haven't posted comments on Saturday's game yet, but I hope it gets mentioned that NMU received three more power plays than the Wolverines did, including a five minute major to close the game and start OT (oops!) and the result was the same.
One thing that they made mention of in the weekend preview post, which I had completely forgotten about, is that NMU plays on an Olympic-sized sheet. That makes the low shot totals that Michigan held NMU to all the more impressive, since that was the first time on the big ice in college for Michigan's ten freshmen who played.
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The worst officiate game he'd seen in 30 years? Oh please... I suspect it's because his team got called a bunch (homerism) + natural hatred towards Michigan that he's saying that.
Saturday night Michigan got called for five of the first six penalties. I bet that was a great game by McInchak, right?
Out of all the calls against U-M this weekend, the only real bad one was against Lebler at the end of Friday night and I can think of one other Saturday that was borderline.
But the game is being called tight, the same way it has been since they implemented the rules enforcement what, three years ago? Were some of the calls questionable? Sure. But players should know better by now not to give the officials a reason to blow the whistle, and fans show know to expect this by now, too.
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