Well, that was fun.  It's not often I go to one of these things and have
the team I'm rooting for win all four games.  Three of them were really
exciting, too.
 
Ohio State 4  - Yale 0
 
I'd have liked to see a healthy Bulldog team.  As it was, they were
pretty badly outmatched.  I disagree with everyone else's assessment
that Yale had the better of it in the first period.  They had the better
scoring chances, yes, but Ohio State did all of the hitting.  By the ten
minute mark, I was pretty sure that Yale wouldn't make it to the finish
line.  That the Buckeyes finished the period without giving up a goal
was gravy; they had the game headed the direction they wanted.
 
Ohio State really, really impressed me.  They are very disciplined in
their defensive zone, almost never getting out of position.  The
Boisvert-Meloche-Dufour line is slick, nice skating and passing.  Andre
Signoretti, World's Shortest Defenseman (he's not 5' 9", I don't care
what the program says) is a joy.  He's fast, skilled and he manages to
hold his own covering people in front of the net.  It's an interesting
pairing when he's out there with Ryan Root, the Human Bowling Ball.
>From having chatted briefly with him after Saturday's game, I'd say that
he IS 5' 9" and weighs the 230 he's listed at.
 
Jeff Maund is going to be very good.  What I noticed in particular about
him is that he's keeping track of the puck during those big pileups in
front of the net.
 
There really isn't a whole lot else to say about this game.  I thought
the 4-0 score summed it up pretty well.
 
 
Michigan 2 - Princeton 1
 
Well, it's nice to see that Michigan can beat someone other than the
Gophers with a ridiculous goal.  The newspaper said that Mark Kosick was
trying to pass the puck to Muckalt; if that's the case, it was a very
poor job.  Billy was practically to the bench on a line change.  Kosick
just sort of flipped the puck at Jeff Halpern, who knocked it down with
his stick, kicked it with his skate, bouncing it off of Saltarelli's
chest.  It then glanced off of Erasmo's glove, hit the inside of his leg
and trickled back through him, into the goal.  It actually still had
enough on it to dent (okay, maybe dimple) the twine  The whole thing
took about six minutes, and as soon as Saltarelli couldn't catch it, I
thought, "I can't believe this is going to go in."  Kosick just about
jumped out of his skates.
 
It really was a shame on a couple of counts.  When the game ended,
Halpern was obviously crushed.  I suspect that he's going to have
nightmares about that play for months.  And the (other) goal he scored
was so pretty.  Nice fore-checking caused Michigan to cough up the puck,
and the Wolverines left Halpern completely uncovered between the hash
marks.  He buried what may have been the hardest shot I've ever seen
right into the top left corner.
 
I also think that Michigan probably would have won the game without the
fluke.  Princeton was probably the most competitive #12 seed I've seen
in the tournament (they sure put up more of a fight than MSU did last
year), but Michigan was the better team.  If the Wolverines could have
put their shots in the right direction (I think that SOG on the
scoreboard stood for Shots on Glass) it might not have been close.  The
Tigers really hung in tough, though.  I'll say they same thing that I
said last year about Cornell; they went out playing their best.  Casson
Masters played particularly well.
 
I'd heard people out east say that Erasmo Saltarelli has an unusual
goaltending style.  That's putting it mildly.  I've seen people land
walleye that didn't flop around that much.  I'll join the line of folks
wondering whether he's good or lucky.  Either way, he can do it
consistently, so it doesn't matter that much.
 
 
Ohio State 4 - Michigan State 3
 
Other than two dumb penalties, the Buckeyes completely outplayed the
Spartans.  MSU didn't have more than about five decent even strength
scoring chances all game.  Again, OSU plays so well in its defensive
zone.  How Andre Signoretti holds his own, I'm not sure.
 
Chad Alban almost pulled this one out.  He made some great saves,
particularly when the Bucks had a power play.  It was a very strange
comparison; OSU's power play was a beauty to behold, keeping the puck in
the zone, finding the open man, shooting the puck and scrambling for the
rebounds.  They couldn't take advantage of it, though.  Their first PPG
was on a beautiful feed from Boisvert to Meloche breaking into the zone,
who rifled it from the circle just inside the far post.  Michigan Stae's
strategy, on the other hand, seemed to be to wait until there were 30
seconds were left on the penalty, then rush it into the zone and bang it
in.  The double-minor was particularly ugly; for 3 1/2 minutes, they
couldn't get it out of their own zone, and then they score.
 
When MSU went up 2-0, I thought the game might be over.  We were going
to get 35 minutes of that neutral zone trap and the puck was going to
spend the rest of the game on the red line.  Signoretti was the guy that
really stepped up.  OSU's first goal was his creation.  He got the puck
at the point, faked a move to the center, pump-faked a shot and then
rifled it in.  Spartans were going every direction except the one that
would have helped them.  The Boisvert-Meloche goal followed shortly
thereafter.
 
I was not as worried when MSU went up 3-2.  With Don Adam reffing, I was
pretty sure they wouldn't be getting anymore power plays (he did
surprise me by giving one to OSU early in the third) and I didn't think
they were likely to score 5-5.  Once Ohio State scored their second PPG
to tie it back up, they really took over the third period.  Michigan
State was the team that looked tired from playing a game the night
before.  Ron Mason really shortened the shifts and the Spartans couldn't
get to any of the loose pucks.  They had one good chance when Shawn
Horcoff (I think) pushed a backhand just wide of an almost empty net,
but that was about it.  Alban performed heroics just to send it to
overtime.
 
The OT started with MSU on the attack.  The Bucks finally looked a bit
nervous and jittery, but they did a decent job (still) of playing
defense.  They had a few chances around the five minute mark, and then
it looked like they ran out of gas.  My reputation as a prognosticator
would be better if I just spoke up quicker.  I was getting ready to say
that Jeff Maund, who had been good all game, was going to have to stand
on his head to give his team a chance to win, when he stopped three
point blank tries and kicked the puck out.  Signoretti promptly went
down and lofted in a rebound to end it.
 
I thought Ohio State was the happiest team I'd ever seen that hadn't
just won a championship.  (They remained at the top of that list for
less than four hours.)  It really is a fun team to watch and if they
hold on to their players, are going to hang around at the top of the
CCHA for a while.
 
Michigan State fans ought to be getting worried.  It's been a long time
since the Spartans have won an NCAA tourney game, and, while this was
the closest, they don't seem to bring their A game with them.  Granted,
OSU is even better than I thought, but I would have thought MSU would be
more fired up after last weekend.  Mason should be asking some hard
qestions about how he approaches this tourney.
 
Michigan State fans also remain among the worst losers around.  In the
parking lot between games, several tried their best to run me over.
Fortunately, they were walking at the time, rather than driving.
 
 
Michigan 4 - North Dakota 3
 
All around, it was a tough day to be leading 3-2 after two periods.
Good thing for Colorado College that they hadn't let Clarkson score a
couple earlier.
 
Michigan was very fortunate to still be in the same building after one
period.  They got into a run-and-gun game, which isn't what you want to
do with the Sioux.  That Michigan outshot UND 7-6 in the first period is
very, very misleading.  North Dakota controlled play and, unlike UM,
they have fifteen guys who are dangerous with the puck from anywhere in
the zone.  Turco also looked shaky; the second and particularly the
third goals he let in were soft.  Again, at 2-0, I figured the game was
over.
 
I'll go ahead and discuss the reffing.  I thought it was good, but I may
have been the only one.  Michigan had two goals waved off.  On the
first, the whistle went for man in the crease long before the shot.  The
second was waved off for an interference call.  I think that this was
also a good one.  I didn't see for sure, but the Michigan player cutting
in front of the net came open so fast that I think Koch set a pick for
him.
 
Michigan fans also didn't like that Andrew Merrick was sent off for
checking from behind.  This was just moments after Bobby Hayes got away
with the same thing and I think everyone was warned at that point.  It
may have been a borderline call, but it just was not a smart move.
Ditto on picking up two ten-minute misconduct penalties for yapping.
 
I really liked that the assistants called penalties, including the
interference that cost Michigan a goal.  They also called kneeing, which
as a Red Wings fan I'm perfectly happy to see.
 
On the whole, I think that the officiating actually helped Michigan.
The major penalty really helped to fire them up, particularly when they
scored short-handed.  Then the number of penalties called in the second
really disrupted the Sioux rhythm.  Dean Blais called time out after
Michigan tied it at two, I'm sure to try to get his team to play with
some flow.  They promptly went out and took another dumb penalty.  Then,
Michigan avoided the same trap at the end of the second period that
North Dakota fell into at the end of the first.  Matt Henderson really
should have gotten five and a game for clobbering Bill Muckalt from
behind, into the net well after the horn, but only got two.  I don't
think the Wolverines would have come out with the same intensity with a
major penalty on the board.
 
Two players in particular stood out.  Aaron Schweitzer played probably
his best game of the year.  Michigan's shooting was more on target than
it was against Princeton, keeping him busy.  One save in particular was
unreal.  Matt Herr fed the puck from one side of the net to Muckalt at
the other post and Schweitzer got his glove out in time to stop the
shot.  Considering the rough year he's had, it was nice to see
Schweitzer get it back.  Karl Goehring may be in a fight for the
starting job next year.
 
Matt Herr has also not had an easy going of it this season, but he
picked Michigan up and carried it to this win.  He scored the first
Wolverine goal on a breakaway as he stepped out of the penalty box to
end a 5-3 (the first pass was Turco's best play of the night).  He
assisted on the last three goals.  He hustled everywhere he was going.
I would not be at all surprised if, as team captain, he rather than
Berenson delivered the speeches that had the team so jacked at the start
of the second and third periods.  His joy when the game was over was
almost tangible.  I thought he was the forgotten piece on last year's
team, shunted onto a line that swallowed his abilities.  I'm not sure he
ever fully recovered from the groin pull suffered against Minnesota in
October, psychologically if not physically.  This was a game where the
upperclassmen all finally stepped forward and Herr led the charge.
 
One poster commented that it was a shame the Michigan team never stops
to salute the fans after a game.  Well, he got his money's worth after
this one.  I was afraid I was going to miss my flight this morning
because the five seniors wouldn't have left the ice yet.
 
Oh, and Mr. Haeussler, I know you conceded the point, but I want to say
again that I don't think Robb Gordon could have had as many big game
winning goals as Bobby Hayes has had.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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