Another big win for Michigan hockey — can success by sustained?
In the past several weeks, Michigan hockey has beaten No. 2 Michigan State twice, including once in East Lansing, and — Friday night — No. 4 Minnesota, 3-2 in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines’ overtime win over the Golden Gophers kept them No. 12 in the Pairwise Rankings (used for NCAA Tournament selection) and gave them a shot in the arm heading into tonight’s second game of the two-game series.
Outstanding goaltending and Ethan Edwards’ overtime, 3-on-3 winner were the difference in a high-level Valentine’s Day win, one that improved Michigan to 11-9-1 in the Big Ten. The Wolverines won their sixth straight game that went to overtime and picked up two points in the standings.
“All around, we played hard,” senior defenseman Edwards said. “We made plays when we had the opportunity and we capitalized. We got pucks to the net, too. That was a big aspect of the win.”
In fact, head coach Brandon Naurato noted, Minnesota’s best chances generally came on bad turnovers. Other than that, Michigan did played exactly the game it needed to against the Gophers, well-disciplined with big saves from Cameron Korpi (before he went down in the second period after getting hit in the head) and Logan Stein from 9:47 of the second period on.
Similar to a 3-2 home overtime win over Michigan State last month, the Wolverines brought the energy from the outset. Minnesota scored the first goal, but U-M had its chances before finally breaking through in the last four minutes of the second period. The Gophers had appeared to go up 2-0, but a last-second challenge for offsides was successful, keeping the score at 1-0.
That was the boost the Wolverines needed. Sophomore forward Garrett Schifsky banged home a rebound on a deflected shot to tie the game. Shortly thereafter, junior forward Kienen Draper deflected a shot from junior defenseman Tyler Duke to make it 2-1.
“That’s a huge swing in the game,” Naurato said. “We kind of caught [the call] right at the end, but that’s a huge swing. Then, good for the guys on how they responded to it … credit to the players. It’s funny, when you have confidence in a certain area of your game or belief, it’s just crazy how that works, so good for them.”
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Minnesota scored late in the third to tie it, but the Gophers took a penalty with 2:01 remaining to send Michigan to a 4-on-3 power play. Edwards ended it at 1:37 with a wicked wrist shot.
“Four-on-three is huge,” Edwards said. “It’s definitely one of the hardest situations to defend. I knew our power play had a lot of confidence going into that, and we talked about just getting open for each other. It was just such a nice play by T.J. [Hughes] All I had to do is just hit the net.”
The goal now — put two wins together. The Wolverines haven’t won back-to-back games against the same opponent since a nice run in November. There have been some great wins — as Naurato noted, three (against Western Michigan, MSU, and Minnesota) were against potential NCAA No. 1 seeds — but consistency is key this time of year. He wasn’t pleased with the way his team played last Saturday in a 6-1 loss to the Spartans following his team’s 2-1 win in East Lansing, but he’s hopeful for a better result tonight.
“You have to keep building the confidence and belief,” Naurato said. “It’s just finding a way, like every team to play 60 minutes the right way.”
