The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/84644
2012-13 HOCKEY PREVIEW Senior Lee Moffie — who set career highs for points (32), goals (25) and assists (seven) last year — leads a deep, veteran group of blue liners. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL be winning every few years and not consistently. We wouldn't have our NCAA streak. "You look at guys like Greg Pa- teryn and Luke Glendening last year and you could just see the passion in their eyes. Even though they were nondescript players as freshmen, they had evolved into seniors that were going to lead this team the way they had been led. Look at Shawn Hunwick, he played like this pro- gram was his life. "As coaches we get too much credit. It's the players we've had that have made Michigan what it is. Our kids play with an emotional owner- ship — this is their program — and if we didn't have that type of culture here, if our kids didn't invest every- thing they had to be the best we can be, you'd lose and we'd be an up- and-down program." Over the past 25 years, there have been some difficult seasons, but not a single losing season, and for 22 con- secutive years U-M has qualified for the NCAA Tournament. The Maize and Blue expect that streak to con- tinue this year, even though they enter the preseason with serious question marks in net and among the forwards. The defensive corps, on the other hand, will be Michigan's strength. The Wolverines return seven blue liners, including senior Lee Moffie, and juniors Jon Merrill, Mac Ben- nett and Kevin Clare, and welcome highly touted freshman Jacob Trouba to the cohort, giving U-M a deep and veteran defense to anchor the play night after night. "We lost one really good defense- man in Greg Pateryn, but look at the experience of our upperclassmen — Moffie, Bennett, Clare and Merrill are four pretty good players," Berenson said. "And then our young defense- men, [sophomores] Brennan Serville and Mike Chiasson, should be much improved this year. And Trouba could be an impact player for us. "We're going to have some size. We have some real strong defensive OCTOBER 2012 THE WOLVERINE 53