Michigan Hockey: Michigan suffer another frustrating loss -- Sunday Night

Posted at 8:00am -- 12/15/2009

Wolverines suffer another frustrating loss, falling 2-0 to Notre Dame

A banged up Notre Dame team survived an early barrage by Michigan and scored two second period goals to blank the Wolverines Sunday afternoon. Michigan came out strong in the first period firing thirteen shots at (Fr.) netminder Mike Johnson. The young goaltender stood tall, though and didn’t allow anything to pass by him. The best opportunity for the Irish was a Riley Sheahan breakaway that Bryan Hogan stopped. The period ended without any scoring.

Michigan opened up the second period looking to break into the scoring column, especially after being awarded an early PP opportunity. The Wolverines pressed hard, keeping the play in the Irish zone for the full two minutes, but never really received a great scoring chance. Soon after, Notre Dame forced a turnover deep in the Michigan zone, as Irish forward Christian Minella fought off two Wolverines and saucered a pass to (Fr.) Nick Larson, who buried a wrister from the left circle past Hogan. A little over five minutes later, with Notre Dame enjoying a 5x3 advantage, nemesis Calle Ridderwall snapped a high shot from the slot high over Hogan’s right shoulder to extend the lead to 2-0. That would be all of the scoring the Irish would need as they clamped down the Maize and Blue for the remainder of the game.

Michigan had few chances in the third period with the closest chance coming on a partial breakaway from Chad Langlais and Chris Summers. Both players were stopped and Michigan couldn’t generate any further chances. It didn’t help matters that Michigan took nine penalties during the game, including back-to-back penalties to end the second and third periods.

The Wolverines blew a golden opportunity to move into a four-way tie for sixth place in the conference with Notre Dame, UNO and NMU. Instead they find themselves in the lowest position in the standings this late into the season since 1988-89.

An exasperated Red Berenson had this to say:

“I liked the way we played in the first half of the game. I thought we were the better team; we out-shot them, we outplayed them and we out-chanced them. But, we didn’t put the puck in. Then sure enough, one breakdown and the puck goes in our net. Then the penalties started coming and when we took four penalties in a row in the second period, especially a five on three, that really hurt us. We got no momentum out of that second period even though it started out really well. The third period-I’d say they’re a tough team to score on. They have the lead and we didn’t generate much. We tried hard. We took some bad penalties and kept ourselves from coming back in the game.”

Michigan returns to action on 12/29 when it meets RPI at the Great Lakes Invitational.

Yost Bits

Michigan suffered only its second shutout loss against the Irish since 1973. Ironically, the score was 2-0, as was the previous two shutouts to Alaska and MSU this season.

Carl Hagelin saw his point streak stop at six games, where he went 5-3-8 over that stretch. He still has scored in all weekends that Michigan has played this season.

Michigan also saw its PPG string end at seven games. The Penalty killers surrendered two PPG’s this past weekend out of sixteen chances, but still lead the country in penalty killing.

Michigan fired 38 shots on the Irish Sunday, but never really had great scoring chances after the first period. It was eerily reminiscent of the 2-0 loss the Wolverines suffered to Air Force in the NCAA regional playoffs last March.

Yostmeister’s Three Stars:

1. Notre Dame- Mike Johnson- The Irish goaltender was solid, but never had to make the sensational save. He got stronger as the game progressed and looked more poised than on Friday night in Ann Arbor.

2. Notre Dame- their patchwork defensive core- collectively kept Michigan bottled up and had a hand in both Irish goals.

3. The officiating crew of Shegos and Hall- Michigan took their share of dumb penalties on Friday and Sunday, but not to the tune of a 16-10 collective advantage, and a 9-5 advantage on Sunday. The Irish were allowed to clutch and grab, where the Wolverines were whistled for most any contact that caused Irish players to drop to the ice. I typically do not complain about officiating, at least not in my reports, but many of the calls (or non-calls) were clearly frustrating the Wolverines with good reason.

Written by Yostmeister

Go Blue -- Wear Maize!