Michigan Folds in Second Period, Falls to Notre Dame 5-3

By Sean · Sunday, February 28, 2010 · 3:14 AM |  Share | Leave a Comment 

Because Northern Michigan won on Saturday night to complete its sweep of Lake Superior State, Michigan couldn’t have moved into fourth place to get a first-round bye in the CCHA playoffs regardless of what happened in South Bend.  What did happen, though, was one tremendous period followed by an absolute disaster.  Michigan blew a 2-0 lead and ended up losing 5-3, capping off a terrible regular season in a very fitting fashion.

Michigan led 2-0 after the first period thanks to Louie Caporusso and David Wohlberg.  Caporusso scored only 36 seconds into the game by coming down the right side of the ice and shooting the puck over Notre Dame’s goalie, who for some reason decided to crouch down in anticipation of a shot.  There was a shot, but it went right over the goalie and into the net.  Later in the period Wohlberg made an awesome deke to get around a Notre Dame player (as well as two others who seemed to be sleepwalking out there) and followed with a quick backhand for a goal.  Wohlberg’s goal came after Shawn Hunwick stoned a Notre Dame breakaway, giving the entire team a big boost of momentum.

Michigan seemed to be in good shape and well on its way to another victory even after Notre Dame made a great play to score on a redirected shot early in the second period.  I say that because it looked like Chris Brown put Michigan on top by 2 goals again with 1 of his own shortly after the deficit was cut in half.  No goal was signaled initially, however, so the play was reviewed after the next whistle.  The only angle available to the referees — an overhead shot — seemed to show that the puck went in and quickly exited the net after wrapping around the crossbar.  Referee Mark Wilkins disagreed, though, and upheld the call of no goal despite it looking like the puck was in.  I’m sure the argument was that the overhead angle didn’t show enough evidence that a goal was scored, but to me it looked like the puck clearly was in and past the crossbar for a split second.

Instead of leading 3-1, Michigan was only up 2-1 and pretty much fell apart in the following minutes.  Notre Dame tied the game on a shorthanded goal, took the lead on an even strength goal exactly a minute later, and extended its lead to 2 goals by scoring on a power play 5 or so minutes later.  Shawn Hunwick went from looking extremely good to extremely bad very quickly, and suddenly we saw exactly why Bryan Hogan had started every game of the season before last night.  All of the goals seemed rather soft, as did the Fighting Irish’s fifth goal with 5 minutes left in the game.  That was a big one because Louie Caporusso scored early on in the third to make it a 1-goal game.  Michigan tried to tie things up and had some great chances, but Notre Dame stood tough and iced the win with that fifth goal in the latter moments of the third period.

As a result of this loss, Michigan finished in fifth place in the CCHA with 43 points.  That sets up a series with Lake Superior State at Yost Arena this coming weekend.  These two teams played each other twice way back at the end of October at LSSU.  Michigan won both games of the series rather convincingly, taking a 5-1 and 6-3 victory back home to Ann Arbor.

If Michigan wins the best 2 out of 3 series and advances to the next round of the CCHA playoffs, there is a very good chance it could get matched up with Michigan State.  That would be interesting, to say the least, but that is looking way too far ahead for right now.  For Michigan to keep its NCAA tournament streak alive it has to win the CCHA playoffs, and that can only happen one step at a time.  Step one in this instance is taking care of business at home against Lake Superior State.

Here are all of the first-round matchups for the CCHA playoffs:

#5 Alaska vs. #12 Western Michigan
#6 Nebraska-Omaha vs. #11 Bowling Green
#7 Michigan vs. #10 Lake Superior State
#8 Ohio State vs. #9 Notre Dame

The four teams that will receive first-round byes are #1 Miami, #2 Michigan State, #3 Ferris State, and #4 Northern Michigan.