{"id":2916,"date":"2025-09-28T06:49:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T06:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/28\/excitement-defines-michigan-hockey-as-season-approaches\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T06:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T06:49:07","slug":"excitement-defines-michigan-hockey-as-season-approaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/28\/excitement-defines-michigan-hockey-as-season-approaches\/","title":{"rendered":"Excitement defines Michigan hockey as season approaches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Michigan hockey coach Brandon Naurato was practically beaming as he took questions Thursday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m excited,\u201d Naurato said over and over. \u201cNobody is more excited than me and our staff right now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This eagerness stands in stark contrast to the attitude around the Wolverines last year. Just weeks before the season started, Naurato lost one of his most impactful players, forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/ice-hockey\/rutger-mcgroarty-signs-entry-level-contract-with-penguins\/\">Rutger McGroarty<\/a>, to an entry-level contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins. With one penstroke, Michigan had a gaping hole in its offensive production and was down a veteran forward it was counting on to help bridge two eras of Wolverines hockey.<\/p>\n<p>Team 103 ultimately struggled to find an identity and put together consistent performances. After its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/ice-hockey\/michigan-misses-ncaa-tournament-ending-up-and-down-season\/\">loss<\/a> to Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament Quarterfinals, Michigan failed to reach the NCAA Tournament via pairwise standings. For the first time in Naurato\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/ice-hockey\/sportsmonday-brandon-nauratos-job-security-shouldnt-be-in-question-yet\/\">tenure<\/a>, there was no postseason action for his team. There would be no chance to prove they could become something more in the postseason \u2014 more than a disjointed team that frequently lacked chemistry.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Naurato believes that Team 104 is different.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of fun working with this group,\u201d Naurato said. \u201cJust a group of kids that want to get better every day. Which sounds so simple and clich\u00e9, but maybe when you have it early, you don\u2019t appreciate it as much, and when you don\u2019t have it, you don\u2019t appreciate it. And I\u2019ve had both, and I\u2019m very excited.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That excitement that was so rarely expressed about last year\u2019s team was evident both in Naurato\u2019s words and in the smile that frequently crossed his face. As young as the team is \u2014 the Wolverines feature as many freshmen as sophomores and juniors combined \u2014 Naurato believes these players make up the deepest roster he\u2019s ever had at Michigan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With that depth comes the need to find what works. Last year, Naruato shuffled the lines game-to-game, attempting to find any internal remedy to that team\u2019s woes \u2014 an ultimately Sisyphean task. He\u2019ll need to do the same this year, but for different reasons and, Naurato hopes, for far less time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf I never had to change the lines all year, then it\u2019s a perfect world,\u201d Naurato said. \u201cMy goal is not to do what I did last year. As soon as we find chemistry, that\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for. You do it in pairs, and then there\u2019s a third guy that mixes in. We feel like we\u2019ve got some pretty good pairs, but it\u2019s wide open. I\u2019ll probably blow it up the first 10 games, maybe even the first half. I\u2019ll blow it up until we find chemistry. I think we\u2019ll find it earlier than we did last year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Naurato is also more than ready to bet on his team, even with the shifted college hockey landscape. The influx of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/ice-hockey\/with-chl-decision-and-looming-house-settlement-michigan-has-more-questions-than-answers\/\">CHL<\/a> players has shaken up college hockey, and it\u2019s magnified in the Big Ten with the addition of big-name players such as forwards Cayden Lindstrom and Porter Martone at Michigan State and left-winger Gavin McKenna at Penn State. Naurato isn\u2019t concerned about his team\u2019s ability to compete with those teams, but his eyes also aren\u2019t on what moves those teams made or what players he missed out on in the recruiting process. <\/p>\n<p>Naurato\u2019s gaze is firmly trained on the ice: on the battles he\u2019s observed in practice, the defensive responsibility he\u2019s noticed and the \u201chard skills\u201d he\u2019s seen \u2014 skills he believes will make this team just as successful as any in the country and will shape the team\u2019s identity in a way it didn\u2019t last year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHard skill, all about the team, all about Michigan,\u201d Naurato said. \u201cAnd they just fight the fight. I don\u2019t know what we are, but I know that if we ever go through a slump, I\u2019m betting on these guys to respond. If we\u2019re doing very well in a stretch of games, say we\u2019re on a winning streak, I don\u2019t think these guys are going to get comfortable. That\u2019s my gut feeling right now. \u2026 We haven\u2019t played a game, but we\u2019re very optimistic with this group, because we feel we have the right people, a lot of Michigan men.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Naurato <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/ice-hockey\/michigan-is-a-new-team-but-its-expectations-remain-the-same\/\">said<\/a> he was \u201cexcited to see where we\u2019re at\u201d as Michigan approached the start of the season. This year\u2019s team has already gained his excitement even before the season begins. Next week, when the puck drops against Mercyhurst, fans will see if it was deserved.<\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michigan hockey coach Brandon Naurato was practically beaming as he took questions Thursday.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m excited,\u201d Naurato said over and over. \u201cNobody is more excited than me and our staff right now.\u201d\u00a0 This eagerness stands in stark contrast to the attitude around the Wolverines last year. Just weeks before the season started, Naurato lost one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[234,3058,3057,214,222,315],"class_list":{"0":"post-2916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-approaches","9":"tag-defines","10":"tag-excitement","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-michigan","13":"tag-season"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2918,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions\/2918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}