{"id":3310,"date":"2025-10-24T06:49:05","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T06:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/24\/poised-under-pressure-jack-ivankovic-slams-the-door-in-shutout-of-western-michigan\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T06:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T06:49:07","slug":"poised-under-pressure-jack-ivankovic-slams-the-door-in-shutout-of-western-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/24\/poised-under-pressure-jack-ivankovic-slams-the-door-in-shutout-of-western-michigan\/","title":{"rendered":"Poised under pressure, Jack Ivankovic slams the door in shutout of Western Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The world knew who Jack Ivankovic was before the No. 3 Michigan hockey team\u2019s bout with No. 2 Western Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>It would\u2019ve been hard not to take notice of the freshman goaltender and the laundry list of accolades he collected at the U17 and U18 levels for Team Canada \u2014 or his selection by the Nashville Predators in the second round of the 2025 NHL Draft.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, Thursday night\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/ice-hockey\/no-3-michigan-shuts-out-no-2-western-michigan-in-defining-performance-4-0\/\">clash<\/a> with the Broncos, the first true test of his collegiate career, was a different story. Western Michigan are the reigning national champions, and with Yost Ice Arena nearly spilling over with excitement over a top-3 clash, the lights were brighter than ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But Ivankovic didn\u2019t let the bright lights blind him \u2014 he just blinked, and stayed cool under pressure as he made a career-high 32 saves to shut out the Broncos and secure a statement win for the Wolverines.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cKovy\u2019s great,\u201d senior forward TJ Hughes said. \u201cHe had an unbelievable game. Backbone to our team. Gives us confidence to play in front of him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t that Ivankovic hadn\u2019t been impressive to start the season. Quite the opposite, in fact \u2014 the Wolverines were off to their best defensive start to a season since the 1926-27 season, allowing just seven goals through their first six games. Ivankovic, with his .942 save percentage, was a big part of that. It was more so that he just hadn\u2019t been asked to do much, only saving 20 or more shots twice through those first six contests.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But on Thursday night, for the first time all season, Michigan was outshot by an opponent, as Western Michigan racked up 32 attempts on goal to the Wolverines\u2019 30. And thanks to Ivankovic, all 32 of those attempts met with the same answer: a resounding \u201cno\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Ivankovic\u2019s save percentage was a perfect 1.000. Every save he was asked to make, he made. He used his body and pads to block pucks, caught them with one hand and kicked them out of the way when he needed to. It was everything Michigan could\u2019ve asked out of a goalie \u2014 and the fact that it came in just his seventh ever career start, against the defending national champions, made it all the more sweet.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s just seeing the puck and stopping it,\u201d Ivankovic said. \u201cI don\u2019t really think too much. Just try to get in front.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Ivankovic\u2019s steady hand opened the Wolverines\u2019 entire gameplan up. By slamming the door on every shot that came his way, he allowed Michigan to do something that it hadn\u2019t done much of all season: sit back and absorb the pressure. The Wolverines have generally employed an up-tempo plan of action, utilizing a heavy press in the offensive zone.<\/p>\n<p>But with Ivankovic putting in his best work of the season, Michigan knew it wasn\u2019t going to be conceding many goals. All the offense had to do was wait for an opening and take what the Broncos\u2019 defense gave them, no matter how many times Western Michigan crowded the zone and took shots.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s just so calm and confident,\u201d Wolverines coach Brandon Naurato said. \u201c\u2026 He\u2019s controlled, and didn\u2019t give up any rebounds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And as the clock ran out and Michigan swarmed the ice to celebrate its statement victory, the first thing the Wolverines did was line up to hug Ivankovic, one by one \u2014 a fitting reward for his role in a night to remember.\u00a0<\/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>The world knew who Jack Ivankovic was before the No. 3 Michigan hockey team\u2019s bout with No. 2 Western Michigan. It would\u2019ve been hard not to take notice of the freshman goaltender and the laundry list of accolades he collected at the U17 and U18 levels for Team Canada \u2014 or his selection by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[3387,2114,807,222,3385,1832,3388,3386,3384],"class_list":{"0":"post-3310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-door","9":"tag-ivankovic","10":"tag-jack","11":"tag-michigan","12":"tag-poised","13":"tag-pressure","14":"tag-shutout","15":"tag-slams","16":"tag-western"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3310","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=3310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3312,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3310\/revisions\/3312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}