{"id":154123,"date":"2025-04-12T23:00:52","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T04:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=154123"},"modified":"2025-04-12T23:23:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T04:23:33","slug":"michaels-legend-at-western-michigan-grows-with-frozen-four-honor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2025\/04\/12\/michaels-legend-at-western-michigan-grows-with-frozen-four-honor\/","title":{"rendered":"Michaels’ legend at Western Michigan grows with Frozen Four honor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Frozen Four Most Outstanding Player Owen Michaels (34) scored twice in Western Michigan’s win over Boston University on Saturday (photo: Jim Rosvold).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ST. LOUIS — Owen Michaels didn’t make much of an offensive splash his freshman year at Western Michigan, scoring two goals and logging five assists in 38 games.<\/p>\n

But his coach Pat Ferschweiler had no doubt that the 2025 NCAA tournament’s most outstanding player had the makings of a great offensive right winger.<\/p>\n

“His quality of play was higher than his points,” said Ferschweiler.<\/p>\n

Potential is one thing. Working to get there takes effort.<\/p>\n

“I definitely went into the summer trying to take that next step,” Michaels said after Thursday’s semifinal. “And I had a big summer in the gym and on the ice.”<\/p>\n

Michaels’ four goals led scoring for the Frozen Four. Two of them are destined to become legendary at Western Michigan, if they haven’t already achieved that status.<\/p>\n

“On the biggest stage, the big players show up and that’s what he did,” said Western Michigan captain Tim Washe. “He came up huge for us this weekend.”<\/p>\n

In Thursday’s defeat of Denver, Michaels scored the game winner just 26 seconds into the second overtime as he took a pass in the high slot through traffic and roofed it to advance the Broncos to Saturday’s championship game. He also scored in the second period to give WMU a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Michaels’ first goal in the championship game may have been the backbreaker for Boston University. After a scramble in front of the Western Michigan net, he rushed up ice 2-on-1 with Matteo Constantini. Michaels kept the puck, sending past BU goalie Mikhail Yegorov’s blocker side to give the Broncos a 4-2 lead.<\/p>\n

“We’re a calm group, so nothing’s gonna faze us,” said Ferschweiler. “We talk about having to skate out of scrums and that’s exactly what Owen Michaels did. There’s a flurry around the net and a lot of people want to whack the puck out of there. And he skates all the way down the ice and then buries it at the other end.”<\/p>\n

Michaels added an empty-net goal to cement the game for the Broncos and jumped on a pile of teammates in front of the Broncos bench to celebrate.<\/p>\n

“I’m not too sure what I was screaming, but that was just a ton of emotions and that goal was not about me one bit,” Michaels said. “It was about this team and this group and doing something.”<\/p>\n

Michaels ended his sophomore season with 18 goals and 18 assists.<\/p>\n

“We knew he had offense in him, but we also know he’s a warrior,” Ferschweiler said.<\/p>\n

“And the funny thing about warriors is they always show up at the biggest moments. He showed up at the biggest moment and there was no doubt in our mind.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Owen Michaels scored a critical goal and added an empty-netter Saturday, two days after he scored in overtime for the Broncos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":154113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1426],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[816],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOwen Michaels' legend at Western Michigan grows<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Owen Michaels scored a critical goal and added an empty-netter Saturday, two days after he scored in overtime for the Broncos.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154123\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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