Riley Kennedy got his second goal of the year to put Michigan on the board first, but St. Joe's rattled off seven consecutive goals by seven different players. Ian King, who has been the undisputed star this season, tallied his 20th score of the season, but Michigan would still go into halftime with an 8-2 deficit.
King would score the first Michigan goal of the second half, but not until after Pat Swanick put the Hawks up 9-2 just 49 seconds into the second half. After King's score made the score 9-3, David McCormack found the back of the net and cut the deficit to 9-4. It would never get any closer than that.
St. Joe's would score another five consecutive goals lead by Pat Swanick's two more scores, bringing his total to four on the game. Also scoring four goals for the Hawks was Michael Rastivo, but it really felt like everyone scored four goals, soooo y'know.
Michigan | St. Joseph's | |
Goals-Shot Attempts | 6-32 | 15-48 |
Shot % | .186 | .317 |
Shots on goal | 19 | 28 |
SOG% | .594 | .583 |
Man-Up Opps | 1-7 | 1-6 |
Ground Balls | 28 | 32 |
Turnovers | 18 | 12 |
Caused Turnovers | 5 | 10 |
Face-Offs | 9-24 | 15-24 |
Clears | 18-21 | 17-20 |
Saves | 13 | 13 |
Penalties-Minutes | 8-8:00 | 8-5:30 |
Upon reviewing the above stats, you'll see that Brad Lott's performance at x was poor once again (8 of 16), but the loss can't be placed entirely on him; St. Joseph's was winning almost 60% of their face-off opportunities coming into the Michigan game, which meant that Michigan would have to be solid in other areas to give themselves a chance. Those other areas didn't really come through, though. Causing only five turnovers shows that the defense wasn't creating much pressure. With clearing 18 of 21 chances, the offense was placed in a good position to take advantage, but the .186 shooting percentage shows that they just couldn't get anything clicking.
On a positive note, sophomore Chase Brown recorded his first career goal for Michigan, but it just wasn't enough. Goalie Robbie Zonino made 13 stops on 48 shots going his way, but his overall save % is sitting at .450 and needs to see significant improvement in order for Michigan to win some games the rest of the way.
Also notable from the game is the number of penalties. Each team had eight penalties called against them, but Michigan was a man down for a total of eight minutes to St. Joseph's 5:30. Consider, too, that five of Michigan's penalties were of the 1-minute variety, and one was two minutes. Most of St. Joe's penalty time came by way of face-off violations, while Michigan's came off of cross-checks and slashing. That tells me there was lack of discipline out on the field; whether they were frustrated with the way the Hawks were handling them, or with their own shortcomings on offense, it seems that things got careless. With Michigan's struggles, having a man in the box for what amounts to almost 50% of an entire quarter just isn't going to win them many games no matter who they're playing.
The Wolverines will take on fellow ECAC member Air Force at 3:00 p.m. ET on March 29 in Colorado Springs. The Falcons are 5-3 and, like Michigan, are 1-0 in the ECAC. Their last game was a 10-8 victory over Binghamton. I should have a preview of this game later in the week, so stay tuned.