Luke Johnson Scores UND's Second Goal

University of North Dakota junior forward Luke Johnson has become UND's version of Mr. March. Let's say that Johnson is making quite a name for himself when UND is playing in the big money games.

Today, he's done it again, the sophomore forward has scored another big goal to give UND a 2-1 lead against the Michigan Wolverines. Stick tap to Brad Schlossman: UND's Mr. March Johnson has scored a goal in five straight NCAA tourney games.

Michael Downing hit on Christian Lampasso

Michigan Wolverine defenseman Michael Downing was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for this hit on Ohio State forward Christian Lampasso. I think this is a blown call by the on-ice officials. In my opinion, this is a legal shoulder-to-shoulder hit. But do you expect from Tom Sterns, Brian Thul?

OSU will head to the PP as Mike Downing gets called for a major for contact to the head, also given a game misconduct. 2-0 (10:17, 2nd)
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) February 22, 2015

Big 10 Follow-Up

Frustrations have mounted since the Gophers loss to Union (7-4)
in the National Championship game

Before the holiday break, I took a look at the Big 10 conference after reading an article on USCHO that made me laugh on how stricken from reality they were. Now with more games under the conference's belt and only one month left in the season, well before playoffs, let us take another look at the conference and why it could possibly be just as terrible as the Atlantic Hockey Conference.

Let's start with the obvious, the should be conference power houses(Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan) are sitting at the bottom of the league, with the exception of Michigan who is the conference leader. Between Wisconsin and Minnesota (last and 4th respectively) their combined inter conference record is 3-8-5, with all the victories belonging to Minnesota, and two of which came against Wisconsin.

Their conference non-conference record is nothing to write home about either. In fact, it is one of the worst in all of NCAA hockey. The overall record is 38-43-7, very detrimental to their conference hopes in the Pairwise rankings when it comes time to make the NCAA tournament brackets. So basically if you want to make the NCAA tournament out of the Big 10, you have to win the Big 10 tournament. The only team within the top 16 in Pairwise right now is Michigan, but at 14 they are on the bubble, especially with the 16 seed probably going to the Atlantic Hockey auto bid.

Looking at the overall records, you have one team below 500 tied for second in the conference, Michigan State (10-11-2), at 16 points with Penn State. Yes that's right Penn State. Between them and Michigan, they are really the only good things the conference has going for them right now.

The Big 10 should have kept their noses out of college hockey, yes I know it will lead to more expansion in the coming years, but right now the lack of competition is frustrating fans to the point where it is getting tough for conference teams to get people to their arenas to watch them play. If things do not change soon, they will be the cellar conference behind Atlantic Hockey.

Congrats to Red Berenson for Winning His 800th Game

s/t to Aaron Ward of TSN. Regardless if you like the Michigan Wolverines or not, this is quite an accomplishment. Kind of ironic that his 800th win is against the Minnesota Gophers.

What to Make of Big 10

In an article posted on USCHO, they were quoted with saying that the Big 10 Conference isn't all that bad, and that they are one of the stronger conferences in all of college hockey. Let us just take a look at the numbers to see if we can back-up the USCHO article shall we.

First off, there is only one, yes ONE Big 10 team in the USCHO top 20 and that is Minnesota at number three, which is just a bit too generous. Even though their last game was an exhibition against the USA development team, they still lost, which would mark three losses in a row for the Golden Gophers. If they are able to stay at three after three losses in a row, why did Michigan Tech, from the WCHA, drop big time after getting swept by Mankato last weekend?

Now we have the struggling Wisconsin Badgers. Wisconsin has yet to win a game this season, and has looked terrible in a majority of their contests this season. Last season's Big 10 tournament champions have lost nine in a row, dating back to last seasons NCAA tournament loss to North Dakota, where again they were extremely outplayed.

Just two teams in the conference have winning records this season, Penn State (7-3-2) and Minnesota (7-3-0). Lets see how many ranked opponents each team has beat, starting with Penn State. Penn State holds one of their seven victories over a top 10 opponent, and that is number four UMass Lowell where they won 4-1. Yes they did split with Michigan too, but is Michigan just known and talked about because of their historic name and coach this year? Penn State's last contest was an 8-1 loss to Michigan, making me wonder if they can compete with the big boys for real. Minnesota has had some struggles against other ranked opponents this season as well. In three games against number eight Minnesota-Duluth, they are 1-2-0 and have been outscored 8-5 in the series. They also hold a split against number 16 St. Cloud State and barely pulled off the overtime victory on home ice in the weekend series.

Conference play finally started this past weekend, with four of the six teams in action. Each team won one and lost one game, not showing any powerhouses throughout the conference. If you look inside the conference, Minnesota will probably be the only team with any chance at the NCAA tournament, but with their sloppy play as of late makes me wonder if they will have to win their conference to do it.

Taking a look at Michigan State, they seem to have what it takes to be competitive with their opponents, but doesn't quite have what it takes to finish games on a consistent basis. They most recently played number 12 Boston College and lost the decision 3-2. They could play upset once it comes conference tournament time, but that could be about it.

Finally, Ohio State has had one early season win worthy of note, and that is against Providence, who probably was a tad overrated at the time. Other than that, the Buckeyes have not looked anything but average at best making me wonder how they made it to the Big 10 championship last season.

The Big 10 is a conference that created a lot of drama once it entered college hockey last season, and ruined many great college hockey rivalries that fans have grown to love over the past four decades. With a sub 500 non conference record in almost a year and a half in existence, does the Big 10 deserve to be called one of college hockey's top conferences like some think it should be?

Michigan Hockey's Practice Jersey

Take a look at the new @umichhockey practice jerseys. pic.twitter.com/WKEVtBs9CI
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) September 13, 2013

Wow! Can we say that the Michigan Wolverines practice hockey jersey's are u-g-l-y... you ain't got no alibi, you ugly, eh eh, you ugly... You get the picture.

Kitchener Rangers sue the Michigan Daily

The Kitchener Rangers have sued the University of Michigan’s student newspaper the Michigan Daily and reporter Matt Slovin for his story that Michigan recruit Jacob Trouba was offered 200,000.00 by the Kitchener Rangers to break his commitment to the University of Michigan and play for the Kitchener Rangers who drafted him.

By QMI Agency --- The Kitchener Rangers of the OHL have taken legal action against a University of Michigan student newspaper and one of its reporters for publishing a story that alleged the team offered defenceman Jacob Trouba $200,000 to play for it.

A story that appeared in The Michigan Daily last week alleged that the Rangers tried to coax Trouba, a first-round draft pick of the Winnipeg Jets last month, out of a deal to play for the Michigan Wolverines.

This story is getting more interesting by the minute – here is a story from the Record that says the Kitchener Rangers of the OHL are suing the Michigan Daily for $1 million dollars in damages for the story that Matt Slovin wrote on Michigan recruit Jacob Trouba and him being offered 200,000.00 to play for the Rangers.

You can also read more about this developing story here and here.

Kitchener Rangers irate over Jacob Trouba report

Apparently, the Kitchener Rangers are none too pleased with the accusations that the Rangers have offered Michigan recruit Jacob Trouba $200,000.00 to sign with the Rangers and forego his commitment to the Michigan Wolverines.

Sunaya Sapurji, Yahoo! Sports --- Steve Bienkowski, the Rangers’ chief operating officer, flatly denied the report and any kind of payment offered to the Trouba family. In addition, Bienkowski said the team has retained a lawyer and will purse the matter legally.

“We’re going to look at every legal remedy we have against the newspaper, the reporter and these so-called unnamed sources in the OHL who need to be held accountable for basically saying lies against our organization,” said Bienkowski in a phone interview from Halifax.

Unlike most OHL teams, the Rangers are community-owned and not a privately held company. As such, an external accounting firm audits their financial statements and those accounts are presented to season-ticket holders each year.

“The reality is there’s nowhere to hide the kind of money people are accusing us of paying,” said Bienkowski, who is a chartered accountant himself.

“But it is what it is, we’ve been targeted before and I’m sure we’ll be targeted in the future.”

This is not the first time an OHL team – or the Rangers – have been accused of paying players large sums of money to play for them. Last summer Paul Kelly, the then-executive director of College Hockey Inc., an arm of NCAA hockey, accused teams of paying players though no proof was ever produced.

I do think it’s funny that the Kitchener Rangers are going to go after a the student run newspaper "The Michigan Daily- I have a hard time believing that the editor of the newspaper would let that story go if the rumor hadn’t come from a reliable source, specially when the author of that story is working at a major newspaper as an Intern at The Baltimore Sun during the summer, I can’t see him jeopardizing his future journalism career with a story that can’t be substantiated.

Somewhere out there is the truth; these stories don’t just present themselves out of thin air. I am sure we will find out more in the coming days.

That being said, the statement from the Trouba family denies that any money was offered and went on to say that Jacob Trouba will honor his commitment to the University of Michigan.

“There is absolutely no truth or merit to the recent media reports that the Kitchener Rangers have..."

"...offered Jacob any remuneration. We have the utmost respect for the Kitchener Rangers and those that choose the CHL as an option..."

So as college hockey fans we wait on pins and needles to see if there are any more stories like this emerge – especially the teams that recruited players from the USNDT.

Make no mistake; the CHL teams isn’t going to back off, commitment to NCAA teams mean nothing to them and they will attempt to lure more of the best blue chip American hockey players with promises that the CHL is a quicker route to the NHL than the NCAA route.

Again, I am not here to say one route is better than the other – in the end both routes are good routes to making the NHL. Also, the college hockey route has proven to be a very good route to the NHL – if you don't believe me – all you have to do is look at the top free agents available during the free agent signing period – a good number of them played NCAA Division I hockey before they made it to the NHL – examples of note- Zach Parise, Jason Garrison, Erik Johnson, Matt Carle and Ryan Suter just to name a few off the top of my head.

Jacob Trouba will attend the University of Michigan

The big story to emerge the past couple of days was that Jacob Trouba was offered 200,000.00 to de-commit from the University of Michigan and play for the Kitchener Rangers who drafted him in the third round of the OHL's 2010 draft. The story cause quite a stir and has since been refuted by Trouba’s family.

Matt Slovin, The Michigan Daily --- "Statement from the Trouba family: 'We have the utmost respect for the Kitchener Rangers and those that choose the CHL as an option ... but Jacob will be attending the University of Michigan next fall as a student athlete.'

Good for the Michigan Wolverines that they aren’t going to lose their 22nd recruit to the CHL, but I get the feeling that more is going to emerge from this story eventually.

Bracketbuster #1 (Redwing77)

Ok, the NCAAs just begun and well.... some upsets are already happening.

Ferris State vs. Denver:

I chose: Denver
Result? 2-1 Ferris State

I thought Denver would come out firing but apparently Ferris State knew how to handle it. Ferris State wins only their second NCAA tourney game EVER. However, in the end, I think this game was at least a good one. The others? Not so much.

Union vs. Michigan State

I chose: MSU
Result? 3-1 Union

Union has played few challenging opponents. Michigan State has played barely well enough to get in. I guess it stands to reason then, since neither team is clear cut as a favorite, that you'd go with seeding, but I just do not believe that the ECACHL deserves as much respect as the East Coast media gives it. If Union had to play a team like Western Michigan in the opening round, I'm not so sure they win. That being said, in the last 5 years, the ECACHL is 5-0 in the opening round of the NCAA Tourney. And they are 0-5 in the second round. I'd say that's going to continue but...

UMass Lowell vs. Miami

I chose: Miami
Result? 4-3 UMass in OT

Miami gave up a Powerplay, shorthanded, and 2 5 on 5 goals. They looked absolutely PATHETIC for the first 45 minutes of the game. They keep trying to make pretty plays to score goals while UMass keeps trying to score goals merely by jumping on Miami mistakes and just throwing the puck on net. Knapp has looked pathetic. I cannot believe that Blasi is kept him in. Goal #1 was the only goal Knapp wasn't at least partially at fault for. Goal #2 was on a short handed breakaway that beat him 5 hole. 5 hole goals coming head on is just a sign of poor anticipation. It should be the hardest goal in hockey to get unless the goaltender is moving laterally. Goal #3 was plain and simple out of position crap goal bad goaltending. Yeah, it was 2 on 1 but it beat him short side when Knapp had plenty of time to get into position. He correctly anticipated the pass but he just did not cover the post.

Luckily for Miami, they ended up tying the game. They went to OT and then.... Knapp rears his ugly head again! Wetmore scores a goal that NEVER EVER EVER would have gone in had Knapp held the post. He ends up making the initial save off his right side and bounces back to Wetmore who taps it through Knapp and into the net. It was a squibbler and barely got in but it got in. That means, ladies and gentlemen, that 2 of UMass' 4 goals were WEAK, 1 was a fluke, and the other was perhaps somewhat unavoidable.

Tough for Miami to lose in the first round but.... any half-assed decent playoff team worth its salt would have beaten Miami anyways. Can't expect to suck for 45 minutes, be given a 5 minute major at the end of regulation and 1:26 of it in OT, fail to score on it, and still expect to win the game. Ok, ok, to be fair, Miami did a good job in the regulation side of the major powerplay and Doug Carr saved UMass' bacon but every other Miami Powerplay up til then was a Clinic in awful special teams.

Goon may disagree but I believe this marks the downturn of Miami. They've peaked. Sure, they'll get their share of talent, but I think this current squad has ended its stretch run of post season dominance. They'll have to regroup (or reload as it may) and see if they can catch another great run. They're not going to get anywhere with this current squad without some serious infusion of talent.

UMass and Union in the Final? SNOOOOOOOOORE!!!!!! I wonder where this Regional ranks in the list of "worst regionals in NCAA Tourney history?"

If UND being a #2 seed would have gotten them into this regional, they should have thrown the WCHA title game.

Michigan vs. Cornell
I predicted: Michigan
Result? 3-2 Cornell in OT

This game was pretty good... if you enjoyed special teams. We had one ejection (contact to the head major on Cornell) and a barrel full of minors. I'm not sure what Shafer had to say postgame but it probably won't be much because Cornell won. Had they lost though....

I'm not sure what to think about this game overall. Cornell plays a GOD AWFUL style of hockey (one of the major reasons why I despised the Wild under Risebrough/Lemaire). Sure, the trap works, but it makes for a pisspoor hockey game to watch... which I think everyone knew because either everyone sat on the Camera side of the arena or the arena was MAYBE 40% capacity. It just wasn't fun. Michigan, if you consider scoring chances, had the more dominant game but Cornell put the game away in OT.

Rarely do I root for Cinderella stories such as UMass or Ferris State but... I'll be rooting for them tomorrow because I don't believe the trap has any place in bigtime hockey and I wouldn't want boring hockey in Tampa.

So... let's hope no more surprises!

Redwing77's NCAA Tourney Bracket Pick'em Part Two

Here's the final installment. I'm not going to predict the Frozen Four outcomes until the teams have been set.

Midwest Regional:

This is about as difficult as the West. It features Michigan, Ferris State, Denver, and Cornell. Since I haven't seen 3 of the 4 teams in this bracket play, I'm going to be brief.

Ferris State vs. DU:

Ferris State is a Cinderella story. They came out of nowhere to choke away the CCHA tourney by losing in the first round.

DU is a tough team mad as all get out after getting embarrassed vs. UND in the WCHA Tourney championship.

Prediction: Feel good Ferris State. You made the tourney. Bad news: DU destroys you.

Michigan vs. Cornell:

SNOOOOOOOOOOOZEFEST. Cornell historically plays a boring style of hockey. Michigan is cold and calculating. If Shawn Hunwick shows up like he did vs. UND a year ago, Michigan wins easy. If he lets in weak goals like he did vs. WMU, then oops.

Prediction: Michigan wins.

Regional Final: Michigan vs. DU. I think DU stuns the #1 seed in this Regional.

East Regional:

This is the easiest bracket in the tourney by a LONG SHOT. If you could believe in a team like Union, it would be easy to think they'll walk into the Frozen Four however....

Union vs. Michigan State:

Union is a team that hasn't really played many quality teams. They've played a few ranked opponents. They've played nonconference ranked opponents in DU, CC, WMU, Michigan, and Merrimack. Against those opponents, they have a 2-2-2 record. Their wins were against Merrimack and Michigan.

Michigan State is an interesting story in that they squeaked in by the hairs on their chinny chin chin. If it was any other opponent I wouldn't give Michigan State a sniff at a win.

However....I'm not sold on either team doing anything, but since I have to pick a team...

Prediction: I predict upset city. Michigan State wins in OT. Union becomes the only #1 to fall in the first round.

Miami vs. Mass Lowell:

UMass is another Cinderella story. They've seemingly come out of nowhere. And that's where they're going in this NCAA tourney.

Miami: Been here done it before. Miami has been very inconsistent looking downright pathetic vs. WMU in the CCHA tourney. However, Blasi always watches his team drop one in their shorts before the NCAAs and well, things turn out alright.

Prediction: Miami wins.

Regional Final: I may not be sold on Union/MSU outcome but I am sold on this: If Miami beats UMass Lowell, they go to the Frozen Four.

I also predict that this Regional will be the most poorly attended.

Frozen Four Wrap Up:

Using my predictions: I think the final four teams will be BC, Minnesota, Miami, and DU.

Since I'm not sold on any teams but BC and Miami listed above, I'll wait until the Frozen Four is set to make my predictions.

Michigan Hockey lockeroom and press conference...

If you haven't seen it, here's our team's opponent this week. Michigan Press conference click to view. Hopefully on Thursday night, I want to see a season ending press conference from Red and his team.