Where Michigan hockey stands ahead of Big Ten Tournament
Michigan Wolverines hockey entered the final weekend of the regular season up three points on Minnesota in the Big Ten standings. But the Maize and Blue were swept by Notre Dame, while the Gophers took two games against Wisconsin, with Minnesota taking home the Big Ten regular-season title.
Michigan — which hadn’t lost a regulation game since Dec. 11 — fell to the Irish, 4-1 Friday night and 2-1 Saturday evening in South Bend. Michigan led, 1-0, in the first meeting, but Notre Dame tallied four-straight goals to take the decisive victory.
Sophomore goalie Erik Portillo stopped 26 of the Irish’s 28 shots in the second matchup, but the Wolverines didn’t have enough offense to pull out the victory. Michigan wanted an interference penalty on Notre Dame’s late-game, go-ahead goal but didn’t get the call.
“Just a blatant interference,” head coach Mel Pearson said of the goal, according to MLive. “They [referees] had no trouble calling penalties on us tonight. But it’s just terrible. The refereeing is terrible. Something’s got to be done. In a game like this when you’re playing for first place and there’s a lot on the line, you got to be better than that.”
Michigan finished the regular season with a 25-9-1 overall record and a mark of 16-8 in the Big Ten.
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What’s Ahead For Michigan Hockey
Michigan is the No. 2 seed in the Big Ten Tournament and will host seventh-seeded Michigan State in a first-round, best-of-three series March 4-6 at Yost Ice Arena. Michigan’s quarterfinal matchup will air on FS2 and Bally Sports Detroit, while the other quarterfinal matchups will be available on B1G+.
Top seed Minnesota has a bye to the single-elimination semifinals, which are scheduled for March 12. The highest-seeded team advancing from the quarterfinals will host the second-highest advancing seed, while the lowest-seeded advancing team will play at Minnesota. The highest-seeded team remaining after the semifinals will host a championship game scheduled for the weekend of March 19.
Here is a look at the Big Ten Tournament bracket.
Michigan has dropped to No. 2 in the Pairwise rankings, with 56 points, behind Minnesota State, which has 58 points. Denver and Minnesota are tied in third place with 55 points. PlayoffStatus.com, which gave Michigan over a 70-percent chance to grab a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament last week, has the Wolverines with 40-percent odds to be one of the two top seeds after being swept by Notre Dame. According to the site, Michigan has a 51-percent chance of being a No. 2 seed.
The Wolverines are 4-0 against in-state rival Michigan State on the season. They won a pair of games in November, before taking down the Spartans in a pair of contests earlier this month despite being shorthanded, without four stars who were competing in the Olympic Games in China. The Maize and Blue have outscored the Spartans 23-9 on the year.
