The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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Michigan has given up four goals or more in nine games this season and five or more goals in four contests. "We were always taught defense wins, and I can't imagine them win- ning a national championship game or getting through the NCAA Tour- nament with giving up three to four goals per game," said Bobby Hayes, who played on both Michigan's 1996 and 1998 NCAA championship teams. "You just have to run into one hot goalie, and a good defense, and it's a 3-2 game, and are we in a position to win one, two or three low-scoring games if it came to that?" Michigan made a concerted effort to focus on its defense before its series with rival MSU, and the results were promising. U-M surrendered just four goals in two contests, though the suc- cess comes with caveats — the Wol- verines allowed 75 total shots and the Spartans have a bad offense, ranking 49th nationally through Feb. 15 with just 2.33 goals per game. In the coming weeks, Michigan will face Minnesota (3.38 goals per game) Feb. 25-26, Ohio State (3.23) March 4-6 and Penn State (3.87) March 11- 12, and must prove themselves better defensively against teams that possess strong offenses. "I don't think you can just flip a switch and all of a sudden be good de- fensively," said Muckalt, who coaches the Tri-City Storm of the United States Hockey League. "You have to get into that mindset and develop those hab- its long before you get to the NCAA Tournament. "It would take the perfect storm of Michigan running into four teams that play the run-and-gun style that we play for those games to be a battle of offenses. "What you usually get, even from the offensive-minded teams, is a focus on locking down defensively because it's always been understood that if you can limit a team's quality scoring chances, you're going to have the best chance to win. "Now with the way Michigan can score, maybe they won't have to win an NCAA game 2-1, but I'd rather have a great defense than a great of- fense because you can count on that being there every game, and some- times the offense just runs dry." WALKING THE WALK Michigan is saying all the right things about defense. However, the Wolverines have been saying those things all year long and yet they are continually plagued by the same is- sues — carelessness with the puck in their own zone leading to turnovers, leaving men open in front of the net, taking bad penalties, allowing soft goals and playing with less than full intensity on shifts. It could be that the message is tak- ing longer to sink in or it could be that it just won't ever fully take root. "We talk about a commitment to better team defense all the time," Kile said. "We had a meeting [in early Feb- ruary] and we went through the Big Ten stats and we were just about last in every defensive category. That is unacceptable if you want to win in the Big Ten Tournament and NCAAs. "We know we have to be better, and we also know that it's one thing to