The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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21 conference championships, two Hobey Baker Award winners, an abundance of All-Americans, NHL success stories and much, much more. In addition to achieving greatness T at the highest level, U-M has become, perhaps, most famous for its unpar- alleled consistency. The Wolverines have qualified for a college hockey- record 21 consecutive NCAA Tourna- ments, dating back to 1991, and are seeking a 22nd straight postseason appearance this spring. However, like in 2010, when the Maize and Blue needed to win the CCHA Tournament to earn an au- tomatic bid, Michigan enters the season's halfway point in need of a dramatic second-half turnaround to ensure another NCAA playoff berth. U-M is just 9-8-3 at the break, includ- ing a 5-6-3 mark in conference play that has them in eighth place. The Wolverines are also No. 17 in the esteemed Pairwise Rankings that largely determine which 16 teams make the NCAA field, and according to bracket expert Matt Latham, U-M would be one of the first two teams out this year if the season ended today. "I'd be lying to you if I said the streak hasn't been brought up; we want to be the 22nd team," junior forward Chris Brown said. "We want to make the NCAA Tournament, but we're going to have to do it our way and not the way other Michigan teams have made it." A COMMITMENT TO TEAM DEFENSE When Michigan went 7-2-1 in its first 10 games, goals were plenti- ful. The Wolverines averaged 4.60 markers per game, while in the last 10 contests, with a 2-6-2 record, U-M averaged just 2.50 goals each night. But head coach Red Berenson rarely concentrates on the offense, feeling his team scores consistently when it is playing sound team defense. "When you're giving up four goals per game, it's tough to score five," he said. "If you're giving up one or two goals, it's easy to score five. It's just the way it is. So we have to be better defensively." 48 THE WOLVERINE JANUARY 2012 BY MICHAEL SPATH he Michigan hockey pro- gram boasts numerous ac- colades — nine NCAA titles, 24 Frozen Four appearances, Defensive success seemingly builds offensive confidence. During U-M's strong start, Michigan was surren- dering just 2.00 goals per game, but when the Maize and Blue floundered in November they were allowing 3.30 per contest. The 1.30 goal differ- ence help explains the Wolverines' seven-game winless skid (0-6-1) from Nov. 11-Dec. 2. second half is that the offense will come if we make a stronger commit- ment to playing team defense." LEADERS HAVE TO LEAD In the preseason, talk centered on senior and junior classes that had never been in leadership positions before. In both the 2010 and 2011 campaigns, forwards Carl Hagelin, Michigan Seeks To Turn Its Season Around And Save NCAA Streak It's Not Too LATE "The last two years, every time we got on a roll — for the CCHA playoffs my freshman year and then through the tournament last year — we were playing really strong defensively," junior forward Kevin Lynch said. "If you look at our first 10 games com- pared to our past 10 games, we got out of sync defensively, and became too preoccupied with scoring goals instead of keeping them out of our net. So we have to clean up our de- fensive-zone coverage. "If we get the goals against down to a manageable number, we won't press as much offensively, and scor- ing will come easier to this team." In seven postseason victories en route to the Midwest Regional final in 2010, U-M allowed only 1.43 goals per game and scored 4.71. Then last year, in winning the final six games of the regular season — to clinch a CCHA title — and then going 6-1 in the CCHA and NCAA playoffs in ad- vancing to the NCAA championship game, the Maize and Blue gave up just 1.85 goals and scored 3.54 over the 13-game stretch. "It's cliché, but defense really does win championships and games," se- nior captain Luke Glendening said. "When we started losing, instead of focusing on defense first, we kept looking to score goals, but you can lose when you score five goals. You can't lose when you dont give up anything." "The message to the team in the Matt Rust and Louie Caporusso, and defenseman Chad Langlais, led while playing the most five-on-five minutes and earning the majority of power-play and penalty-kill time. In their absence stepped four se- niors — forwards David Wohlberg and Glendening, defenseman Greg Pateryn and goalie Shawn Hunwick — that would each be granted a piece of the captainship (Wohlberg, Pateryn and Hunwick as alternates). Six juniors were also thrust into more prominent roles as go-to scorers. So far, however, Michigan's fresh- man class has outshone the veterans, with rookie forwards Alex Guptill (nine goals) and Phil Di Giuseppe (eight goals) ranking one-two in goal scoring for the Wolverines. Brown has largely answered the call for leadership, averaging 1.00 point per game while playing strong two-way hockey, but U-M needs more from classmates A.J. Treais (13 points), Lindsay Sparks (13 points) and Lynch (five points), who have not been impact skaters — on both ends of the ice — during the first 20 games of the year. "We look at Carl, Rust, Louie, and they dominated a game," Brown said. "Every time they were on the ice, they were the best player on the Freshman forward Alex Guptill led the Wolverines in goals (nine) and was tied for second on the team in points (15) through 20 games. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL