Michigan 5, Denver 17

This was expected to be a rough outing for Michigan, but it definitely outdid my expectations in that regard.

Tempo Free

From the official box score, a look at the tempo-free stats:

Bad things happen when you face Chase Carraro on faceoffs. However, Brian Greiner didn’t perform too poorly, but Michigan’s wing play was pretty bad. Based on Greiner’s performance, Michigan should have been nearly .500 on draws, but the wings were sloppy and/or didn’t put in maximum effort on a few faceoffs.

The efficiency numbers are staggering. Of course, Denver had an elite offense last year, and looks to have one again this season. A couple of their goals could have been saved, but on the whole, sometimes you’re playing a team that dominates possession and has Mark Matthews, and your defense isn’t particularly good.

The other side of the 6-v-6 was a disappointment. Michigan has a few talented offensive players and Denver’s defense was mediocre last year. The Pioneers’ D hasn’t been spectacular so far this year (albeit in a low-possession game against Ohio State, who might be pretty good), and the Wolverines should have been able to put more in. The turnovers doomed them, and many of them were unforced, the product of sloppy play.

Notes

Denver was simply the much better team, and it was obvious. As John Paul said after the game, their program is a goal for Michigan – and certainly not a current reality.

Every Michigan goal was unassisted(!). Doug Bryant led the way with two, and the other three scorers were Alex Vasileff, Jeff Chu, and Thomas Paras.

From a non-scoring perspective, it was a rough, rough day for Paras. He’s asked to do a lot for this team, but he committed six turnovers – the next closest Wolverine was Westerhold with three.

Westerhold allowed 17 goals and made ten saves. Considering twelve of the goals were assisted, and many of them on point-blank finishes with little help from the defense (more on that in the Air Force game recap), that’s actually not too bad a performance.

As JP mentioned (see below), Brian Greiner did a good job preventing Chase Carraro – one of the country’s best faceoff men – from winning faceoffs on his own. Carraro had only three ground balls on 12 faceoff wins. Unfortunately, Michigan’s wing play was poor.

The Pioneers had two saves and allowed five goals for a grand total of seven shots on goal by Michigan. Turnovers doomed the offense, and the Wolverines weren’t even getting many chances to put the ball on the net.

For the opposition, Eric Law, Mark Matthews, and Alex Demopulos each had five points. Thanks in part to Greiner’s effort, Chase Carraro was kept off the scoreboard (though he did take three shots, none on goal).

Quotes

From Michigan coach John Paul:

“We turned the ball over too much, making mistakes on the clear. Those are things we can control, those are parts of the game we can win, and we’re just disappointed we didn’t get that done today.”

“There are times [on ground balls] with guys sticks right in front of them and we’re not picking them up. We’re not making the play, and we have to make those plays. I thought Greiner did a great job today… He tied the ball up, made a lot of balls 50/50 balls, we just didn’t get those. They were winning them on the wings. Denver just out-athleted us on the wings today.”

“At the beginning of the year [Dylan Westerhold] wasn’t making the big save – in fact he wasn’t making the easy save either – now, he made some big saves today, some really nice saves. That wasn’t in his repertoire a couple weeks ago, so he’s definitely improved.”

Elsewhere

Official site recap from Denver. Official site recap from Michigan. GLS Game story. SBNation Denver coverage. Denver Post game story.

Up Next

Michigan has another two-game weekend, and they have a very short turnaround in the week in between, as well. They’ll head down to Florida over spring break, and on Friday they take on Jacksonville at 3:00 p.m. EST.

After yet another short turnaround, they play Mercer at noon EST on Sunday.