quick comments on the Michigan-OSU game from Friday night.
 
I've said all along that Turco has to stand on his head for this team to win
the big games and Marty played poorly.  Several bad goalie decisions during
the game, 2 of which turned into goals.  A third goal was the mistake by Hayes
in feeding the puck to an OSU player cruising straight in at Marty.  Both
goals of Michigan's were followed within 1 minute each by an OSU goal - a
definite no - no.
 
Senior and upper-class leadership was not there.  Herr, Muckalt, Hayes,
Berenzweig all had several first class goal scoring opportunies and could not
score. Had they scored, we might be laughing about Marty's mistakes rather
than complaining about them.
 
This team is playing very inconsistently.  One night, anyone can beat them and
the next night, they could beat anyone.  On home ice (Yost Ice Arena),
Michigan has a 50-50 chance of beating any team in the nation (according to
John Hausler, whom I agree with).  Though Princeton is playing HOT right now,
Michigan could beat them and then play one of their inconsistently GOOD games
against North Dakota and make it into the final 4.  The again, Princeton could
blow UM out.  Who knows, but it's tough bet to bet against Michigan on Friday
night in their own barn.
 
At the opening scrimmage game, I jokingly said to Muckalt that he could fight
for the Hobey against his roommate, Turco.  He looked at me and in all
seriousness said that they didn't care about the Hobey, they wanted the ring
again.  So who knows, maybe they've saved something special for this
tournament.
 
For what my 2 cents is worth, if ever a goalie deserved to win the Hobey, it's
Chad Alban from MSU.  Find any other goalie in the nation who could play in
the CCHA and end up with a 1.6 something goals against average.  For all of
you who say that it's the defense in front of him, Turco had the best defense
in front of him and ended up around 2.0 the previous couple of seasons.  Give
it to Alban, he deserves it, along with the national championship that I feel
belongs to MSU this year.  Despite OSU 16-2-1 the last 19 games, no one is
playing better than MSU right now.  The are in high gear at the perfect time
of the season.  All they need is a three game winning streak and it's all
theirs'
 
Steve Bartley
 
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