DETROIT — Michigan had one strategy in this game, a strategy that wore down archrival Michigan State and solved the Big Ten player of the year, Spartans goaltender Jake Hildebrand: shoot the puck, shoot the puck, shoot the puck.
In their 4-1 win Friday, the Wolverines attempted 93 shots and registered 49 shots on Hildebrand, leading to goals by four different players and the opportunity to play Minnesota for the Big Ten title Saturday night.
[scg_html_b1g2015]”You always want to get a lot of shots on any good goaltender, especially on Hildebrand,” said Cristoval Nieves, who had the third Michigan goal at 9:14 in the third. “You’ve got to pepper the goalie and eventually they’ll start going in.”
“He’s probably the best goalie we’ve played against all year long,” said Alex Kile, who scored the final goal of the game from Nieves at 13:40 in the third. “When you play against a goalie like that, you’ve just got to get shots. You can’t get too cute.”
The Wolverines didn’t need to play cute. Relentless was good enough. By the end of the first period, Michigan had amassed 24 shots on goal to Michigan State’s eight and Michael Downing had put the Wolverines ahead 1-0 with his power-play goal at 12:59, a shot from the top of the slot that went through traffic and past a screened Hildebrand.
At 8:41 in the second, Matt Barry tied the score on a Michigan State power play, but the Wolverines answered less than three minutes later when JT Compher netted his 12th of the season, the end result of a beautiful feed from Kile on an odd-man rush following a Michigan State mistake.
“That goal was huge,” said Kile. “We always talk about that if we get scored upon we talk about scoring on the next shift.”
“We started to build a little bit of momentum and we made a huge turnover that resulted a two-on-one the other way,” said Michigan State coach Tom Anastos. “One of the reasons our goals against has been so low this season is that we gave up very, very few odd-man rushes. Tonight, we just gave up too many.”
After Compher’s goal, there was a sense that things might roll for the Wolverines, but even though they poured it on for the remainder of the game, Hildebrand stopped nearly everything he could save, making 45 saves in the loss.
“We gave up shots too easy,” said Anastos. “You can’t rely on your goaltender to make that many saves on a consistent basis.”
In the two games they’ve played this weekend, the Wolverines have outscored their opponents 9-2. Michigan coach Red Berenson said that the players are “doing what they like to do,” which is possess the puck and fire at will.
“You can just sense the enthusiasm and confidence that builds when things are going well,” said Berenson. “It’s not just a one-line team. We’ve got other guys who can chip in.”
Anastos said that the Spartans (17-16-2) just couldn’t match Michigan’s intensity in this contest. “We just couldn’t manufacture tonight in any part of the game,” he said. “Give them credit. They played a really good game.”
[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000ynyvEoNuNsw” g_name=”20150320-Michigan-MichiganState-LRadloff” f_show_caption=”t” f_show_slidenum=”t” img_title=”casc” pho_credit=”iptc” f_link=”t” f_bbar=”t” fsvis=”f” width=”500″ height=”375″ bgcolor=”#AAAAAA” bgtrans=”t” btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” crop=”f” trans=”xfade” tbs=”4000″ f_ap=”t” linkdest=”c” f_fullscreen=”f” f_constrain=”f” twoup=”f” f_topbar=”f” f_bbarbig=”” f_htmllinks=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”f” f_show_watermark=”f” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”f” f_up=”f” target=”_self” wmds=”llQ6QNgpeC.p1Ucz7U.f22Fbo5BPRuXHL4BJ1cFBw_H63lnnWkeRRdT.lJzGXRWVx1GGMA–” ]Winning the NCAA tournament automatic bid that’s at stake in Saturday’s title game against Minnesota is Michigan’s only chance of making the tournament. Berenson said that the Wolverines (22-14) are facing what “may be the best D corps in the Big Ten,” and that the Golden Gophers will have the advantage of rest.
“They’ve only played one game and we’ve played two,” said Berenson. But, said the Michigan coach, “We got the momentum and we like Joe Louis [Arena].”
