The 11-1 drubbing the No. 12 Michigan hockey team handed Mercyhurst on the opening night of the season apparently wasn’t enough to satiate the Wolverines’ hunger for goals.
On Saturday night, Michigan relentlessly sieged the Lakers’ offensive zone, hoping to pounce on an errant puck. The 51 shots the Wolverines racked up point to their persistent offensive press, and the chance creation that it helped facilitate.
But Michigan also knew when it needed to slow down the tempo and patiently establish control of the puck so that it could chain together strings of passes right into the net. It was this blend of vigorous offensive pressure and buildup in the passing game that yielded seven goals, in a second straight dominant victory for the Wolverines over Mercyhurst.
“We take so much pride in the offensive zone and wearing teams down, which gives us field position,” Michigan coach Brandon Naurato said. “Because now they have to chip it out and change, and we’re fresh and we’re coming back at them. Our offensive zone play is our bread and butter.”
Just five minutes into the first period, the Wolverines had already racked up seven shots. Michigan crowded into every corner of the offensive zone, as shots rained in from the left, the rear center and behind the net. The Lakers’ initially tight defensive structure forced the Wolverines out onto the perimeter and closer to the boards. But Michigan maintained its positioning in the zone, making it only a matter of time before the dam broke.
Seven minutes in, it did break. But the breakthrough goal wasn’t a deflection off a manic sequence of shots, as the high pressure suggested, but rather, a moment where the Wolverines slowed the game down. Freshman forward Adam Valentini carried a loose puck from behind the net, then laid it off to freshman defenseman Henry Mews in the rear center of the zone. Mews then found sophomore forward Michael Hage in the left of the zone. Hage fired, and sophomore forward Will Horcoff poked the puck in from the edge of the net and gave Michigan the lead.
It was a goal that exemplified the Wolverines’ strategy for finding the net all game. Valentini, Mews, Hage and Horcoff all occupied the spots in the zone and made it easier for them to put together the passing sequence that created the goal.
Michigan was in control of the pace of the game — it could speed it up by applying pressure, or it could slow it down with meticulous passing.
“You just want to create space for each other,” junior forward Garrett Schifsky said. “Make those inside plays and provide support for each guy.”
For the rest of the first period, the Wolverines continued to press and create shots, but were unable to break through with another goal. But in the second period, after sophomore defenseman Dakoda Rheaume-Mullen let it rip from distance to extend the lead to 2-0, freshman forward Cole McKinney’s goal that put Michigan up 3-0 with 11 minutes left was more reflective of the approach that had characterized the first goal.
Junior defenseman Ben Robertson found Valentini behind the net, and Valentini merely had to dink it to a lurking McKinney, whose light tap was enough for the goal. Robertson, Valentini and McKinney had pressed all the way up to the net, and had set themselves up for a quick sequence of passing, similar to that of the first goal.
“It’s always two guys on the inside with a third crashing the net,” Naurato said. “… We always want to outnumber at the net and outnumber on retrievals.”
In the third, the Wolverines stuck to the script. With eight minutes left, Michigan — with five men pressing the goal — chained together a five-pass sequence that culminated in Horcoff’s second and Michigan’s fourth.
And as freshman defenseman Matthew Mania put the finishing touches on the game with the seventh goal and wheeled away to his teammates for the customary embrace, it was an image reflective of just how Michigan had won the game. By using its teamwork to both press and pass as a unit, the Wolverines controlled the tempo of the game and rubber-stamped a dominant victory.
