Detroit 12, Jacksonville 11

Jason Weber starred, as usual. (Photo via UDM Media Relations)

It took four tries, but Detroit finally got up off the mat and took home a victory in 2017. Will it help them turn the corner and finish the year strong?

Tempo-Free

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

UDM got abused on faceoffs, but mostly made up for it by playing solid defense and generating opportunities to clear on the basis of that defense. They forced Jacksonville into a sub-.800 clearing day, and that helped make the difference.

Notes

I’m so used to touting Jason Weber’s performances that I almost don’t know what to do when he has a pedestrian day. He allowed 11 goals and made 10 saves, a rare performance with worse than a .500 save percentage. The Dolphins didn’t even get that many shots off (or one-goal when they did fire), which means this game appears to be the rare performance that the defense in front of Weber, rather than Weber himself, led to the opponents’ inability to score.

That solid defense allowed Detroit to even up possession when the faceoff spot could have seen them get worked in overall opportunities with the ball. I’m at a loss for what to expect on a game-in, game-out basis from the Titans’ faceoff unit, which can be awesome at times, but then flop against poor competition (even with this domination, Jacksonville is at .475 on the year). Ben Gjokaj had a mediocre-minus 8/21 day, while the two backups combined to go 1/5. This appears to be a random number generator going forward.

Detroit’s starters were extremely solid offensively, despite a dearth of assists. Kyle Beauregard scored three goals, while Alec Gilhooly, Sean Birney, and Matthew Vangalen all had a pair (Vangalen also added an assist). Only one of those came on the man-up – and as expected, the EMO goal was assisted – meaning three of 11 even-strength goals were assisted. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely tough to sustain without the top-end offensive talent that the national powers have.

The giveaway problem continued for Detroit, with 10 turnovers in just 32 possessions. The number itself isn’t particularly horrible, but when you look at the concentration of giveaways among key personnel (Sean Birney and Seth Mendell both had multiple – though sometimes that’s the blessing and the curse of being relied upon by your team), it’s still something the Titans can work on.

This was a back-and-forth affair in the second half, but UDM actually seemed to have the upper hand for much of the contest, with a couple runs by Jacksonville first keeping the Dolphins in the game, then making them a serious threat to steal it from the home team.

JU had a couple standout performances in possession terms, mostly thanks to their dominance on faceoffs (specialist Hunter Forbes had six ground balls while LSM Tommy Barnhorst had five). Offensively, all three attackmen were multi-point scorers.

Elsewhere

Detroit recap. Jacksonville recap. Boxscore. Photo gallery. Highlights.

Up Next

Detroit got smacked around by Robert Morris before getting back on the winning side of the ledger lat weekend… More to come.