Nightmare fuel via Patrick Barron
Friday, February 13, 2015
Minnesota 6 Michigan 2
1st period
Minnesota 1 Michigan 0 PPG 06:28 Rau from Cammarata and Reilly
Tyler Motte over-pursues at the point, which leaves Kyle Rau free to skate toward the slot. I’ve drawn on the screen cap where Motte should be; you can see that if he’s further to his left he can pick up Rau and drive him wide.
Zach Werenski steps up to cover Rau, so he passes to Taylor Cammarata to the side of the net.
Rau keeps his feet moving and gets past Werenski easily. Werenski turns toward Cammarata and just drops his coverage of Rau. Not good. Nagelvoort sees the puck at the side of the net and tries to lock down the post, but Cammarata passes back to an all-too-open Rau. Nagelvoort leaves some huge gaps as he tries to come off the post, the first sign (of many) that this night is not going to go well for him.
[After THE JUMP: *insert your preferred guttural noise here*]
Minnesota 2 Michigan 0 EV 16:07 Ambroz from Boyd and Reilly
I didn’t draw anything on this screen cap because there’s nothing to draw. Michigan has a checker on every Minnesota skater, Nagelvoort is unscreened, and the shot is coming from far away and wide. This should be harmless. It isn’t.
Travis Boyd shoots and Nagelvoort gets a piece of it, but the puck gets past him. Seth Ambroz is going to make a Hurculean effort to get his stick under the defenseman to tap the puck in, but his back-and-forth batting motion knocks the puck out before eventually putting it in the net. Ambroz’s actions, however, are irrelevant. That puck was going to cross the line regardless, and that’s a soft goal.
Minnesota 3 Michigan 0 EV 17:00 Lettieri from Cammarata and Kloos
Minnesota chips the puck in. Dylan Larkin gets his stick on the puck but it bounces over and into the loving embrace of Cammarata.
Cammarata turns and shoots, hitting the far-side post. The rebound comes off the pipe to Nagelvoort’s right, where Vinni Lettieri has skated past JT Compher and is about to be very open.
Nagelvoort can’t get across the crease fast enough to stop Lettieri’s shot, which comes when Nagelvoort’s at his most exposed. Compher did what he could after Lettieri passed him by, but letting him get by in the first place was due to a lack of defensive awareness. Disappointing, as this isn’t something you usually see from Compher.
2nd period
Minnesota 4 Michigan 0 EV 07:19 Reilly from Boyd and Warning
Sam Warning skates the puck up the boards, where he is met by both Compher and Kevin Lohan. He reverses the puck to the back of the net, the smart thing to do when you’re in the jaws of a double team. What I don’t understand is why Lohan doesn’t peel off of Warning once he sees Compher has him covered and head to the area below the red line. He essentially goes out to play center field (he takes the path I drew the question mark on in the screen cap).
Boyd gets the puck and immediately sees a hair-rippingly open passing lane to a pinching Mike Reilly. If Lohan headed behind the net Boyd runs into his path and might not be able to make this easy pass to the nation’s highest-scoring defenseman.
Alas, Nagelvoort is in a 1-on-1 situation again Reilly. The massive circle I drew means he’s kind of open.
Nagelvoort whiffs on it with his glove hand. Partially his fault (it was one of the uglier glove save attempts I’ve seen), partially that he got hung out to dry by his defense once again.
Minnesota 5 Michigan 0 SHG 11:17 Rau from Fasching and Reilly
Rau gained control of the puck after a battle along the boards in his defensive zone, skating it through the neutral zone and into a 2-on-2 short-handed scoring opportunity. He switches with Fasching in the screen cap below, with defensive responsibility shifting from Downing to Copp.
Rau shoots and hits the top corner before Nagelvoort can get his glove lifted at all. The BTN color guy said that Copp over-backchecked here; I’m of two minds about this. I guess you could say that if he was a step or so closer he might be able to block the shot, but Rau’s a fast guy and I could easily see him skating around Copp if Copp were to stop sooner. I mean, it’s usually a pretty damn good idea to keep your guy in front of you. It’s also worth noting that this is the goal that got Nagelvoort pulled.
Minnesota 5 Michigan 1 PPG 18:35 Nieves from Larkin and Werenski
Minnesota’s box shifts to their right, leaving Larkin very, very open. Werenski dishes to him, and he puts a heavy slap shot on net.
Adam Wilcox stops it, but a big rebound pops out to his right. Circled is Boo Nieves. He looks open. The puck’s headed right to him. Wilcox is on the ice. The writing’s on the wall, you guys. And also at the top of this goal where it says that Nieves scored.
Ben Marshall tries a ninja kick/hacky sack move to no avail. Wilcox can’t get across his crease in time. DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK because it’s not it really wasn’t at all.
Look, I’m going by body language here but…
3rd period
Minnesota 6 Michigan 1 EV 05:32 Rau unassisted
Werenski skates the puck out of Michigan’s defensive zone and into the neutral zone. On what appears to be a whim of the hockey gods, Werenski keeps moving toward center ice when the puck just starts going the other way.
Werenski skates to the wall and turns on the puck, where it appears that he will regain possession. The unfeeling hands of fate again intervene, pulling the puck off his stick. Booooo, physics. Oh look, Rau’s right there to pick it off and start a breakaway!
It’s like Jon Bois took control of this game and pulled the sliders all the way down for everyone on Michigan’s roster. Racine drops his right leg pad and sort of does a shoulder shrug/push, which makes no difference. Rau hits the tops corner again.
Minnesota 6 Michigan 2 EV 14:13 Nieves from Shuart and Dancs
Dexter Dancs chips the puck to the back of the net, where Max Shuart does a nice job of getting inside positioning and sealing his defender. Shuart thusly gains possession of the puck.
Shuart passes to a streaking (not literally, perv) Nieves. Kloos (circled below) had come to the side of the net to support the puck and take a pass if his teammate gained possession behind the net, and he can’t recover in time to cover Nieves. Wilcox is still standing as Nieves is loading up to shoot, so you can see why this doesn’t end well for him.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Minnesota 2 Michigan 0
1st period
Minnesota 1 Michigan 0 EV 04:01 Ambroz from Bristedt
Lohan gets the puck and has two options; rim the puck around the boards to the side where there’s a ton of open ice, or backhand a pass directly into a Minnesota forechecker. I just don’t even gahhhhhh.
Lohan hits Leon Bristedt in the corner, but not before he passes to Seth Ambroz.
It’s the same old song and dance; take your time, pick your spot. I’ll file this under the “soft goals” category because Racine was stick-slamingly, pad-punchingly pissed after he let this one through.
2nd period
No scoring
3rd period
Minnesota 2 Michigan 0 EN 19:39 Rau from Fasching
Are
You
Serious.
Notes:
I start thinking about what I want to say in this section while I’m watching the game and shortly thereafter, and it’s a good thing I do because after recapping so much consecutive failure I really want to post a picture from the Space Cats Twitter page and just call it a day. I’m still probably going to post a Space Cats picture.
Watching live, I was impressed by Michigan’s ability to make good outlet passes, as this is something they’ve struggled with most of the season. They looked like a team with enough skill to hang with Minnesota, and in that way the score isn’t reflective of the entirety of play last weekend. The Olympic-sized ice benefitted them in getting out on the rush (where they couldn’t finish), though it did seem to adversely effect them defensively.
This was a bad weekend for Nagelvoort; he looked shaky from the opening minute Friday night. I thought he looked slower than usual and took bad angles to the puck. Racine was very good with the exception of the one goal he gave up on Saturday. I’d expect him to start this weekend.
What does this mean going forward? As far as on-ice issues go, I don’t think it means much. I don’t see something happening in terms of line shuffling or mixing defense pairs; it’s likely that the only consequential move will be in net, as has been the case for most of the season.
Off-ice, the PairWise paints an ugly picture. Michigan went from 12th last week to tied for 16th and the first team out of the tournament. Michigan State swept Penn State last weekend, dropping Penn State to 24th. Not great, as Penn State was the only team left on Michigan’s schedule even close to being in the PairWise top 20 and thus eligible for a quality win bonus. The movement that took place this weekend is reason to delay panicking for now, as it shows how quickly things can change. Still, though:
[via weknowmemes]
That’s better.
Click this link now
Patrick Barron shot the game for us and came away with a Gold-y mine of great stuff like this:
Please don’t fire me.