Not again….
It's the first thing that ran through then-sophomore Andrew Copp's mind when Penn State's Zach Saar scored the game winning goal in double overtime of the Big Ten quarterfinals and made it a very real possibility that Michigan wouldn't earn an invitation to the NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament for a second year in a row.
You see, the Wolverines have a long standing tradition of success…or at least they did. For 22 years, the University of Michigan had made a regular appearance in the national tournament earning 11 Frozen Four berths and two National Championships along the way.
That streak ended two years ago when they went 13-18-3 in the regular season before ripping their way through the CCHA Tournament only to lose to Notre Dame in the conference final and miss the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for winning a conference championship.
"My freshman year, we were so far out of the picture and then we made it all the way to the conference championship and we were on such a roll, we felt like we could beat anybody and we were beating everybody…until we lost. That was pretty heartbreaking," explained Copp, now a junior and the captain of the Wolverines. "Then, this past year, starting 10-2 and being in control of everything at Christmastime and then having it go so far downhill so quickly. Even being so close in the Penn State game - I watched video of it later that week and there were two instances where the puck was behind their goalie and just laying on the goal line…we were so close! One inch the other way and it was in and maybe we would have won..."
Maybe…but after their hot 10-2-1 start to the season, Michigan went 8-10-2 in the second half including two regular season losses against Penn State, a fledgling program with a two year history that finished the season 8-26-2.
"We were the only team in the Big Ten to lose to Penn State," said head coach Red Berenson. "And we did it twice - once at their rink where they completely outplayed us and then once here where we had the lead and let it slip away and lost in overtime. Then they beat us again in the conference tournament in double overtime."
While Berenson is overlooking Penn State's win over Ohio State in the final game of the regular season, the sting from those losses and the impact they had on the Wolverines' season is palpable.
As Copp explained, "Penn State is a hard team to play against. They're physical and they're going to make you earn every bit of ice and I don't think we went out and earned it. With them being such a new program and us being Michigan, I think we expected to win and I think it's ok to expect to win, but you also have to earn the win and we didn't do nearly enough to earn it and that's why they beat us. We didn't put forth the consistent effort needed to earn those wins…That was probably the theme of our second half - being inconsistent and losing games we shouldn't lose - and if you want to be a top tier team, you can't do that."
For sophomore forward, JT Compher, it comes down to being mentally prepared to put forth your best effort every night.
"I just think there's so much parity in college hockey and you can win or lose on any night, but you have to put in your best effort in order to do so," he said. "It doesn't matter how many championships you've won in the past or how many draft picks are on your team, it comes down to who's ready to play that night."
Look no further than the National Championship game this past April as a perfect example of that as #3 Union College, who had never advanced to the Frozen Four before, had one NHL draft pick on their roster and a total enrollment of 2000 students went up against #1 Minnesota and their 21 Frozen Four appearances, five national titles, 14 NHL draft picks and enrollment of 37,000 and not only beat them, but crushed their soul with a 7-4 victory.
Such is the present landscape of college hockey. If you want to be the best, there is no room for mediocrity. It requires your best every night or else you risk getting burned and finding yourself on the outside looking in come Selection Sunday.
"[Missing the NCAA Tournament] was disappointing, but let's face it, we're not entitled to be there. Like I told our team, we didn't deserve to be in and we're not in and that's the way life is. It doesn't mean it wasn't fair. It was fair. We didn't deserve it. You get what you deserve and we didn't deserve to be in," said Berenson. "When you look at the big picture, one win here or there and we're in the tournament. It was close, but overall, when we looked at it, we just weren't good enough defensively. We couldn't outscore our mistakes. That was the difference."
So while that double overtime loss to Penn State in the Big Ten quarterfinal was a rather bitter pill to swallow, the Wolverines licked their wounds for a week and while Boston College, Minnesota, North Dakota and Union prepared for the Frozen Four, the boys in blue were in the gym with their efforts firmly focused on carving a path to Boston for the 2015 Frozen Four.
"The only thing you can do when you get knocked down is to get right back up and try again," said Compher. "After we got knocked out of the tournament, we barely took time off before coming back to the gym and probably worked harder than any other team in the country this spring. We were that pissed off with how things ended for us, but we all put in the work this summer and I hope it shows throughout the season."
As Berenson and his coaching staff look ahead to this season, they also know the importance of looking back and analyzing what went wrong and how they can do it better this year. First up, consistency.
"We didn't like our Friday efforts last year," he explained. "They were just not good games and whether that was lack of preparation or lack of respect for the opponent or overconfidence or what, but I'll tell you…that it didn't come from us. The coaching staff doesn't feel that way. We know that Michigan should be good and we know that Michigan has been good but we have to go out and prove every year who we are as a team and I think the players will buy into that more this year, maybe more than they did last year. They can't just go out there and win because they're wearing the Michigan uniform. That's not how this works."
Next, team defense.
"We were so devastated on D with so many injuries that our depth was really tested and I thought we were deep, but we weren't," Berenson continued. "So that was a problem for us, but now those guys are coming back with some experience playing with some adversity and we have four new guys coming in, so I think we'll be better on that end than we were last year. But it wasn't just our defense it was our goalkeeping, our penalty killing, our back checking forwards, missing an assignment…all the little details of the defensive side of the game. We just weren't as good as we needed to be last year."
As 55 of the 59 Division I college hockey programs across the country are preparing for their first exhibition game, Michigan is one of four teams that will open their season with a game that counts. While he and his team get ready to face Ferris State tomorrow night, Berenson has liked what he's seen at practices so far. "I look forward to a team that will be better defensively and hopefully just as good offensively because we led the Big Ten conference in goals for, it was our goals against that was really the story of our season last year. So, we want to have a Michigan team that can score. We want to play with speed and pace and really bottle up our opponent and create offense and then we want to be a team that is better defensively. The bottom line is just that we need to be better. We want to be better offensively and better defensively and I think our special teams can be better, our goalie's save percentage can be better…and our face-offs could also be better," he explained. "There wasn't anything perfect about the way we played last year, so there's lots of room for improvement and that means we can be and should be better in every facet of our game."
"Expectations are pretty high on my end," said Copp. "We have a lot of guys that are capable of doing a lot of good things here and I think we have a lot of scoring depth and our defensemen are really solid and no matter who's in net, we're confident they can get the job done. We expect to be in contention to win the Big Ten and we expect to be in the national championship picture. I think if we don't make the tournament again this year it will be a massive disappointment. That is not the legacy I want to leave at Michigan."
"I know we have the skill to do it," said Compher. "We just need to make sure we have the will to get it done every night."
And that starts tomorrow night as the Wolverines travel to Ferris State for their first game of the season before two exhibition games next week - the USNTDP U-18's on Monday and Wilfred Laurier on Thursday. They will also play eight non-conference games before kicking off their Big Ten schedule on November 21st against….Penn State.
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Also, this Michigan-Ferris State game will see brothers CJ (goalie for FSU) and Tyler (forward for Michigan) face off against each other for the second season. CJ is one of the best goalies in the country and I'm sure Tyler has give his teammates a solid scouting report.
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The other games that matter are between Michigan Tech and Lake Superior State. Tech's program has been slowly and steadily building ever since Mel Pearson, who was a long time assistant coach at Michigan, took over the reigns three years ago. They're looking to make a splash this season and contend for the WCHA championship, while Lake Superior is looking to find it's winning ways again lead by first year head coach Damon Whitten, who was an assistant coach at Tech for the past four years. These WCHA teams play two in Sault St Marie on Saturday and Sunday.
Here's the rest of the exhibition schedule:
Friday, October 3, 2014 Exhibition 7:00 AT Western Ontario @ Alaska - Carlson Center, Fairbanks, Alaska
Saturday, October 4, 2014 Exhibition 7:00 ET New Brunswick @ Boston College - Silvio O. Conte Forum, Chestnut Hill, Mass. 12:00 ET Simon Fraser @ Bowling Green - BGSU Ice Arena, Bowling Green, Ohio 4:00 ET St. Thomas (NB) @ Boston University - Agganis Arena, Boston 7:00 ET Queen's @ Colgate - Starr Rink, Hamilton, N.Y. 7:00 MT McGill @ Denver - Magness Arena, Denver 8:00 ET US Under-18 Team @ Miami - Steve Cady Arena, Oxford, Ohio 4:30 ET Guelph @ Ohio State - Value City Arena, Columbus, Ohio 7:00 ET Acadia @ Quinnipiac - High Point Solutions Arena, Hamden, Conn. 7:00 ET Brock @ RIT - Gene Polisseni Center, Rochester, N.Y. 7:00 ET Ryerson @ Robert Morris - 84 Lumber Arena, Neville Island, Pa. 7:00 ET PEI @ Rensselaer - Houston Fieldhouse, Troy, N.Y. 7:00 CT Trinity Western @ St. Cloud State - Herb Brooks National Hockey Ctr, St. Cloud, Minn. 7:00 ET Carleton @ St. Lawrence - Appleton Arena, Canton, N.Y. 7:00 AT Western Ontario @ Alaska-Anchorage - Wells Fargo Sports Complex, Anchorage, Alaska 7:00 ET Dalhousie @ Massachusetts - William D. Mullins Center, Amherst, Mass. 7:00 CT No. Alberta IT @ Minnesota - Mariucci Arena, Minneapolis 4:00 ET St. Francis Xavier @ New Hampshire - Whittemore Center, Durham, N.H. 2:00 ET Toronto @ Western Michigan - Lawson Ice Arena, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Sunday, October 5, 2014 Exhibition 6:30 ET Toronto @ Canisius - HarborCenter, Buffalo, N.Y. 6:00 MT McGill @ Colorado College - Colorado Springs World Arena, Colorado Springs, Colo. 2:30 ET Queen's @ Clarkson - Cheel Arena, Potsdam, N.Y. 3:00 ET St. Francis Xavier @ Merrimack - J. Thom Lawler Arena, North Andover, Mass. 4:00 ET New Brunswick @ Maine - Alfond Arena, Orono, Maine 4:00 ET Ryerson @ Mercyhurst - Mercyhurst Ice Center, Erie, Pa. 5:00 CT Trinity Western @ Minnesota State - Verizon Wireless Center, Mankato, Minn. 5:00 ET Simon Fraser @ Miami - Steve Cady Arena, Oxford, Ohio 5:00 ET Waterloo @ Notre Dame - Compton Family Ice Arena, South Bend, Ind. 3:00 ET Brock @ Niagara - Dwyer Arena, Lewiston, N.Y. 3:00 ET Acadia @ Northeastern - Matthews Arena, Boston 4:00 ET PEI @ Union - Achilles Center, Schenectady, N.Y. 2:00 ET Dalhousie @ Connecticut - Freitas Ice Forum, Storrs, Conn. 4:00 ET St. Thomas (NB) @ Massachusetts-Lowell - Tsongas Center, Lowell, Mass. 5:00 CT Manitoba @ North Dakota - Ralph Engelstad Arena, Grand Forks, N.D. 4:00 ET Royal Military @ Vermont - Gutterson Fieldhouse, Burlington, Vt.
Monday, October 6, 2014 Exhibition 6:00 MT McGill @ Air Force - Cadet Ice Arena, Colorado Springs, Colo. 7:30 ET US Under-18 Team @ Michigan - Yost Ice Arena, Ann Arbor, Mich. 7:00 CT Lakehead @ Minnesota-Duluth - Amsoil Arena, Duluth, Minn. 7:00 CT No. Alberta IT @ Nebraska-Omaha - CenturyLink Center, Omaha, Neb.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014 Exhibition 7:00 ET Windsor @ Michigan State - Munn Ice Arena, East Lansing, Mich.
Julie
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