Michigan hockey hammers MSU twice, 4-1 & 8-0, to advance in tourney
Michigan hockey took the foot off the gas in the third period of a Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal game with Michigan State Saturday. By that point, though, the damage had already been done. The Wolverines had put up a touchdown and a two-point conversion for good measure in blitzing the Spartans.
A scoreless third period ensured Michigan would advance to the semifinals after a 4-1 win Friday and 8-0 blanking Saturday in a best-of-three series.
Michigan will play the second-lowest remaining seed in a best of three next weekend in Ann Arbor. That will be Notre Dame if the third-seeded Irish beat No. 6 Wisconsin in game three tonight. Otherwise, it will be today’s game three winner between Ohio State and Penn State, the fourth and fifth seeds.
Michigan picked up its 11th win in the past 12 meetings with MSU, including a sixth straight this year, an all-time high for a season. Goaltender Erik Portillo stopped 23 shots for the second straight night before being replaced with 5:33 remaining. He stopped 46 of 47 shots (.979) on the weekend and got plenty of help offensively.
The Spartans actually opened the series scoring Friday with a power play goal at 4:36 Friday night. Michigan would answer on a 5-on-3 at 8:06, part of a 12-0 onslaught the rest of the weekend. Matty Beniers put the Wolverines on the board first — Luke Hughes and Luke Morgan scored at 3:53 and 9:31 of the second, respectively, before Mackie Samoskevich scored the dagger at 3:29 of the third.
Saturday’s game wasn’t nearly as suspenseful. Thomas Bordeleau, Michael Pastujov, Dylan Duke and Kent Johnson all scored within the first 10:51 of the first period to open a huge lead. Johnson’s was a shorthanded tally that seemed to break MSU’s spirit.
Michigan scored four times in the second, including three on the power play, to end any suspense. Johnny Beecher scored twice, while Samoskevich and Nick Blankenburg also lit the lamp for an 8-0 U-M edge.
“You get into a single elimination now,” head coach Mel Pearson told reporters in the postgame. “You’ve got to make sure you’re prepared to do everything you can to get ready.
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“This team is hungry. They’re driven. We’ve got guys that are driven. They weren’t happy with the performance [Friday] night. They buckled down tonight and were ready to go.”
“We kind of wanted to jump them off the start,” Bordeleau added. “Obviously, coming off the win, we really wanted to break their will as soon as we could. We got those first couple goals in and after that, we just wanted to keep building, because they’re our rivals. We can’t score enough against them.”
Michigan is 3-1 against Ohio State this year, 4-0 against Penn State but 0-4 against the Fighting Irish. Pearson insisted his team would be ready for whoever it faced.
“If it’s Notre Dame, we just played them,” he said. “I don’t even have to watch, [because] I know what they’re all about. Ohio State, we didn’t play [them] that long ago. We’ll be prepared.
“And again, it’s all about our team. Sometimes, we get away from the process and how we want to play. There were times tonight we did that. It’s really just focusing on our group and getting our systems in place and making sure we continue to get better at that.”
