I was at the game and despite the loss for Michigan, I thought it was the
best game I've seen this year.  A lot of people were starting to think
that Michigan was unbeatable but if you've watched them all year you knew
it was only a matter of time.  Saturday was that time.  A couple of things
I noticed.
-  Michigan State came out fired up.  They had 5 starters out the night
before, due to suspension, and these guys had something to prove.
Unfortunately for Michigan that included Chad Alban, whose suspension cost
a teammate a year of eligibility.  Alban had his best game against
Michigan that I've seen.
 
- Michigan is a little banged up right now.  Currently Bill Muckalt
(Shoulder), Justin Clark (Mono), and now Defenseman Kevin Magnuson, who
had to spend 2 nights in the hospital for a concusion after crashing into
the boards head first in practice on Wed., are out of the line up.  This
left nobody outside of walk-on Craig Assenmacher to step in.
Reportedly Shawn Ritchlin was ill on Friday but he still managed to play
both games this weekend.
 
- When you go 23 games without losing you tend to get a little complacent.
During those 23 games Michigan has come back from 1 and 2 goal deficits
several times and I'm sure started to think they could just turn it on
when they needed to.  Only this time they tried to do it against an
opponent who was ready for them.
 
- I don't know why Red chose this weekend to do it but the Michigan lines
were all over the place.  It seemed to affect them much more Friday than
Saturday but it was still a factor.  Red moved John Madden up to the 1st
line to play wing with Morrison and Luhning thus replacing Matt Herr.
Herr has had an incredible year playing on the top line and is developing
into a great finisher.  However, when he has moved around to lines that
don't feature the great setup men such as Morrsion and Muckalt he has
struggled.  Personally, I liked the line of Madden/Hayes/Rominski that
developed in the previous couple of weeks.  They could put the clamps on
almost anyone.  By switching the lines around Michigan seemed to be
unsure of defensive assignments at times.  They also appeared to be really
slow on their changes resulting in several odd man rushes.  Red aslo
changed the defensive pairings putting Freshman Sean Peach and until this
year almost a nightly scratch Peter Bourke together.  Bourke played some
good hockey this weekend but he and Peach seemed to consistenly get caught
out of position leading to breakaways and odd man rushes.
 
- Power Play.  Coach Berenson also choose this weekend to mess with the
powerplay unit.  Instead of the normal high powered 5 forward top line he
choose to slip in a defenseman, Harold Shock, and slide Bobby Hayes into
the other point position thus moving Brendan Morrison down low.  Hayes was
not very good on the point.  He mishandled several pucks and just
generally lacks the vision to make the great set up.
 
-Final thoughts.  I think this was a loss that will prove to be very
beneficial to the team, much like last year at LSSU.  It gives the team a
wake up call.  Red will continue to juggle some of the lines at least
until Muckalt returns but they should settle in time for the playoffs.
A positive for the weekend is that Marty Turco seems to have shaken
the slump he was in a couple weeks ago.  Without him, Michigan State would
have had a lot more than 2 goals.  I'd look for a fast start from Michigan
this coming weekend against Notre Dame.  You won't really get a feel for
how ready this team is for another playoff run until they travel to Miami
on the last weekend of the season.
 
____________________________________________________________________________
Bradley F. Carlson            MMMM      MMMM    E-mail: [log in to unmask]
University of Michigan         MMMM    MMMM     Laboratory: 1076 SPH I
School of Public Health        MMMMM  MMMMM     Phone:  (313) 764-5465
Department of Epidemiology     MMM MMMM MMM     Fax:    (313) 764-3192
                               MMM  MM  MMM
   Michigan Hockey             MMM      MMM
1996 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS       MMMM      MMMM
____________________________________________________________________________
 
On Sun, 9 Feb 1997, Karen/Greg Ambrose wrote:
 
> I watched the last period and a half of the Michigan/MSU game last night.
> It was the first time I had seen Michigan play this year (they are beamed
> into Boston via Sportschannel).  While I respect them greatly, they do have
> a lot of big, fast skaters after all, they seemed to be off their game last
> night.  How is this so, playing their arch rivals in front of a really
> packed, big house?  I know they're a lock to get a bye in the West
> Regional, regardless of what they do the rest of the way, but they should
> have played with a little more motivation I think.  Perhaps MSU played a
> good defensive game, Ron Mason is a pretty good coach after all?
>
> I'd like to get some thoughts from anyone who attended the game.  Watching
> them gave this UNH fan a little bit of hope.
>
> Greg Ambrose, UNH '72
> GO UNH BLUE!!
>
> HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
> [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.
>
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
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