After a few columns of a more somber variety lately, I think that ending January with a more gazette-style offering is a good idea. It’s a chatty one. Grab your coffee.<\/p>\n
That seems to be the subtext that some readers gleaned from last week’s column, when I said that a strong, consistent Ohio State hockey program was good for college hockey in general. Although I don’t live in Columbus anymore, I apparently pine for the Scarlet and Gray.<\/p>\n
It is what it is. Pass the tinfoil, please.<\/p>\n
Speaking of OSU, I was happy to read what coach John Markell said after the Bucks’ 5-2 loss to Michigan State last Friday. Markell — whom I’ve known for 16 years, since his children were wee and I was a top American model (really) — surprised me with his succinct and timely response to unseemly, unnecessary Buckeye penalties.<\/p>\n
“We have to work smarter,” said Markell. “If you’re going to finish a check, then keep your elbow out of his head. If you are going to hit a guy, keep two hands on your stick.”<\/p>\n
The Buckeyes were called for nine minor penalties in that loss.<\/p>\n
Unranked OSU ruined my weekly pick and earned the split with MSU the following night — earned it, breaking a 2-2 deadlock at 18:53 in the third and adding an empty-netter. Dalpe, a sophomore, had a goal early in the third and because he is who he is — a second-round 2008 draft pick of the Carolina Hurricanes and a potential superstar — he was a media darling post-game. Actually, he’s a nice kid with an easy demeanor that may stay that way, even though the television people were pumping him up a bit and he was loving it.<\/p>\n
One funny anecdote about Dalpe: He counts his shots per game. I wouldn’t know this if I hadn’t witnessed with my own eyes the Paris, Ontario, native discussing his shot total with the OSU associate athletics communication director Leann Parker. (It’s fair game; he did this in front of a cadre of press … and he joked about it.)<\/p>\n
Dalpe leads the Buckeyes in scoring (13-11–24) and shots on goal (95) this season. <\/p>\n
What surprised me the most about the Buckeyes — other than how grown-up some of the players look, as I haven’t seen them in a while … I think I actually saw Patrick Schafer, who had that game-winner, sporting facial hair — was how well they played. I had them picked fourth at the start of the season and there they are in ninth place. Of course, ninth is only six points behind fourth in the CCHA — that’s two games — so perhaps standings can be deceiving. <\/p>\n
I do know that if OSU finishes in that middle third and hosts a first-round CCHA playoff series and wins it, I wouldn’t want to be the top-tier team hosting the Buckeyes in the second weekend of CCHA playoff action. And the Bucks are one of three current mid-pack teams that can play its way to Detroit on the road.<\/p>\n
I also know that assistant coach Steve Brent and his wife Adi welcomed their second child, a son named Alexander, in December. Congrats to the Brents!<\/p>\n
For full disclosure, Brent was a student of mine 17 years ago in an Early American Literature class I taught at The Ohio State University. Ask him what he earned.<\/p>\n
Before catching up with the Buckeyes Saturday night, I got to watch a very good hockey game in Ann Arbor Friday. The Wolverines beat the Bulldogs, 2-0, in that contest, prompting FSU coach Bob Daniels to say, “It’s nice to play good defensively … but you’re not going to win the game if you don’t score any goals.”<\/p>\n
It was the second time in three games that the Bulldogs found themselves with no goals on the scoreboard, something of a concern for Daniels. FSU has the 17th-best scoring offense in the country, averaging 3.23 goals per game. <\/p>\n
Part of Ferris State’s success this season — and the Bulldogs are for real, for sure, as one CCHA coach would put it — is the Bulldogs’ top line, all seniors. Blair Riley (16-12–28), Casey Haines (6-16–22) and Cody Chupp (7-15–22) are responsible for 29 of FSU’s 84 goals, and Daniels said that his seniors are having “a very good season.”<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs are, however, more than the sum of one line. Matt Case — a senior — is a monster defenseman and perhaps one of the most underrated in the league. He was everywhere he should have been in that 2-0 loss, and for being one of the biggest guys on a team that spends a lot of time in the box, Case plays a hard, clean game; he had two tripping penalties for the series against UM last weekend. He’s 6 feet tall and solid, smart, has eight minor penalties in 18 league games, impossible to ignore when he’s on the ice and undrafted. He’s scored twice in his last three games.<\/p>\n
The rest of the FSU defense is solid and the Bulldogs netminding duo of Pat Nagle and Taylor Nelson is very impressive. Nagle (1.88 goals-against average, .933 save percentage) has the second-best stats in the nation. He and Nelson (2.32, .921) split time in net. “It’s for the most part what we’ve come to expect from them,” said Daniels. “We’ve been very fortunate that we’ve got two guys playing at that level. Very steady. Very comfortable in net.”<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs split their weekend with the Wolverines — I called it, for once — without Chupp and junior defenseman Scott Wietecha, who had both been injured in the previous week’s series against Miami. Both are expected to play this weekend against Ohio State.<\/p>\n
FSU’s 17-7-2 start is its third-best in program history.<\/p>\n
Well, two Wolverines that caught my eye last Friday. <\/p>\n
UM sophomore Luke Glendening scored both goals in that 2-0 win over FSU. With the markers, Glendening is one shy of his six-goal total from his freshman season.<\/p>\n
Both were beauties. In each case, Glendening used a Bulldogs player to screen Nagle; in each case, Glendening hit the only available open spot, the sliver between Nagle and the right post. Even Daniels conceded that they looked like goal-scorer’s goals. The goals were scored on the best two scoring opportunities of the night, too. It was one of those games where little was given.<\/p>\n
Glendening. Who knew?<\/p>\n
The other Wolverines player I noticed was goaltender Bryan Hogan (2.18 GAA, .906 SV%), who absolutely fascinates me. When this kid on, he’s impossible to breach; when he’s not, he plays the net so casually that I stop breathing … and things often don’t go well for the Wolverines in those games, either.<\/p>\n
Friday night, Hogan was on. The Michigan defense didn’t allow many great scoring chances, but when he was challenged — especially in the third period — Hogan was spectacular. Hogan has now shut out opponents in each of his last two weekends, having blanked Alaska at home, 6-0, Jan. 15.<\/p>\n
The Wolverines, who started the first half rather slowly, are 4-1-1 in the second half, 5-2-1 if you count the Great Lakes Invitational. <\/p>\n
They are another current mid-pack team that can easily play through another city to Joe Louis Arena in March — that is, if they have to travel at all. Michigan’s four points out of fourth place. They may yet earn a bye, and I may yet have to eat my midseason words. <\/p>\n
What words? I said that the Wolverines wouldn’t go to the NCAA tournament this year. <\/p>\n
Yes, I know. I know.<\/p>\n
The other mid-pack team that I wouldn’t want to face in my rink in the second round of the CCHA playoffs is Notre Dame.<\/p>\n
(That Notre Dame, Michigan and Ohio State are battling for home ice in the first<\/I> round of the CCHA playoffs after their seasons last year boggles my tiny little mind.)<\/p>\n
The Irish struggled through the first half of the season to score goals. In fact, if you ask coach Jeff Jackson, he’d tell you that Notre Dame struggled in the first half to shoot the puck. The Irish are now shooting the puck, but are struggling to put together a full, coherent line-up. While ND isn’t having to pull people out of the stands to suit up for games the way Michigan State did last season (I’m kidding, of course), the Irish have lost 51-man games this season because of injuries.<\/p>\n
On the sidelines against Lake Superior State last weekend were Irish defensemen Sam Calabrese (broken ankle), Eric Ringel (concussion) and Teddy Ruth (concussion), and forward Billy Maday (shoulder).<\/p>\n
Sometimes when players are injured, others on the team find opportunity. Such was the case for ND sophomore forward Patrick Gaul, who earned his first career goal in his 35th collegiate game in Notre Dame’s 6-1 win over LSSU Friday.<\/p>\n
That was the same game in which junior Calle Ridderwall recorded his second hat trick of the season, with all three goals coming within a 6:47 span in the second period.<\/p>\n
The Irish have scored 28 of their 69 overall goals this season since Jan. 1. That’s 3.5 goals per game, compared with the 2.05 ND averaged in the first half of 2009-10.<\/p>\n
The Irish are getting more than solid goaltending from freshman Mike Johnson (2.03 GAA, .929 SV%), whose numbers are good enough to put him among the top 10 goals nationally. Johnson had a career-high 45 saves in ND’s 1-1 tie against the Lakers Saturday.<\/p>\n
After L.A. Kings president and general manager, Dean Lombardi, unloaded on Michigan coach Red Berenson in an article <\/a>dated Jan. 20 on Gann Matsuda’s blog Frozen Royalty,<\/I> Kings defenseman and former Wolverines player Jack Johnson came to Berenson’s defense.<\/p>\n In the original interview, Lombardi said that Berenson had mishandled Johnson, whom he called a “thoroughbred,” and hadn’t given the defenseman enough coaching to develop in his two years in Ann Arbor.<\/p>\n (Again, two years in Ann Arbor … four years in L.A. … math has always been very, very hard for me.)<\/p>\n