Déjà Vu

One more win and Michigan would be going to the Frozen Four, which was the bare minimum expectation in this NCAA Tournament considering that the Wolverines were the 1 overall seed in the tourney. They were faced with the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs, a good team out of the always-difficult NCHC, armed with a Hobey Baker contender and a bevy of skilled playmakers. Duluth dispatched Penn State two days prior, signaling that this would be no cakewalk. The first period was everything you want in these sorts of games on paper. Scoring first is critical in elimination hockey games and Michigan did that, getting a deflection goal just three minutes in via Will Horcoff. Then, despite facing the team with the best special teams in the NCAA, Michigan owned the special teams battle for the remainder of the first period. They scored a power play goal midway through the first period thanks to nifty passing, scored by Adam Valentini with a one-timer that put Michigan up 2-0. Garrett Schifsky finished the period off by stealing the puck from a Duluth power play drop-pass in the UMD defensive zone, skating in on goalie Adam Gajan, and finishing in tight. Add it up and Michigan scored three times in the first period, once at 5v5, once on the PP, and once on the PK. There were a couple close calls for the Bulldogs at the other end but Jack Ivankovic did his job in net, holding them scoreless. After one period, the score stood at 3-0. Some may have felt that Michigan had already scored all the goals they would need to make the Frozen Four. All that was required was 40 more minutes to get there. [David Wilcomes]The second period passed by without too much issue. Duluth came out on fire to begin the second period, peppering Ivankovic with chances and hitting the iron multiple times. One of those was a breakaway for Duluth star Max Plante, who sped in and beat Ivankovic, but rang the post despite having a yawning cage to shoot into. Michigan was getting a little luck, but as the period went along, the luck went the other way too. Kason Muscutt hit iron himself on a chance that could've made it 4-0. And Michigan wasn't merely enjoying luck, since there was a ~10 minute stretch in the second period in which UMD didn't muster a shot on goal. The final few minutes of the 2nd period were a bit of a mad scramble, with Michigan having to kill 1:29 of a Garrett Schifsky penalty before getting to the break. But they did it, and now led 3-0 after two. It may have been hasty thinking to book tickets for Las Vegas in the first intermission but in the second intermission? With 20 minutes to go? I don't think the idea was crazy. The best team in the country should be able to kill the remaining clock without too much issue, right? Right? What followed was anything but smooth. Just after they killed the remainder of that penalty, Michigan allowed Duluth's Harper Bentz to walk down the slot off an entry and wire a shot by Ivankovic to get UMD on the board. 3-1. Jayden Perron's goal on an odd-man rush a few minutes later restored the three-goal lead (4-1) and seemed to put the game on ice, but nearing the halfway point of the period, the Bulldogs put another one by Ivanokvic. It was similar to the first, this one coming on the power play for real though, but it was off an entry again and victimized the same defensive pair.The 4-2 goal is when all hell began to break loose. From that point forward, Michigan was on their heels, reeling. They salted the next 6.5 minutes away thanks to blocked shots and great goaltending, but the pressure was on. Duluth had all the momentum and kept the foot on Michigan's throat all the way up until they scored the third goal, with 3:04 on the clock. A jam play at the side of the net ended with Scout Truman flipping it by Ivankovic from a tight angle and now, Michigan was merely holding on for dear life. [David Wilcomes]And boy did those next few minutes look like holding on for dear life. Just moments after the third goal, a the puck came from behind the net to set up Jayson Shaugabay with an A+ chance from the inner slot, forcing Ivankovic to make a massive stop to preserve the Michigan lead. Duluth continued to attack in waves, testing Michigan's resolve as the Wolverines on the ice looked overwhelmed and feeble, with multiple soft clearing attempts being held in at the line. The final, best, chance came with under 30 seconds left, when Zam Plante picked up the puck on the right side of the net and tried to wrap it around to the left post. Ivankovic was down and exposed, leaving that entire side of the net open, but Garrett Schifsky's Skate of God held the far post and denied the chance with his boot alone. The puck improbably trickled away and Michigan cleared it. The Bulldogs wouldn't get another chance on net and with six seconds left, the Maize Blue chipped it down ice. Schifsky won the race to the puck just as the horn sounded. When the clock read triple zeroes, Michigan fans could take a deep sigh of relief. To the Frozen Four the team was headed, to face Denver in the national semifinals. But it was not time to think about that yet, but to pace around until the heart returned to a regular pulse. You never apologize for beating a stellar team like Duluth, no matter how sketchy it got. Michigan got it done, in a way that rival Michigan State comically couldn't a day earlier, and that's what counted. Your author enjoyed the victory, a feeling of sudden serenity and satisfaction at the accomplishments that this 2025-26 Michigan team keeps stacking together. But there was one more feeling hanging in the back of my mind. The feeling that strangely, we had all seen this before. ---[AFTER THE JUMP: a look to the past][David Wilcomes]Four yeas ago, Michigan was the first overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, playing in another quaint town in the northeastern United States. They beat American International, the Atlantic Hockey champion, in the 1/16 game in fairly comfortable fashion (this year's game was a tad more comfortable, but the point stands). Then, on Sunday afternoon in the last of the four regional finals to be played, they went to do battle against their region's 2-seed (in that case, Quinnipiac) for a trip to the Frozen Four, a trip that felt like the minimum expectation for their participation in this tournament. Michigan scored just 33 seconds into the game to set the early tone and they led by two after the first period. Early in the second period, Michigan scored a power play goal via Thomas Bordeleau and near the end of the second period, they scored a short-handed goal thanks to Garrett Van Wyhe (huh, a SHG and a PPG?). The Wolverines thus led by a score of 4-0 and seemed to be cruising along. With 20 minutes to go until the Frozen Four at the intermission, some of us were beginning to brainstorm trip ideas and make travel reservations for Boston. And then things got dicey. Just over four minutes into the third period, Quinnipiac scored once. That's okay, as Michigan still led by a score of 4-1. Sound familiar? Around the midway point of the third period, the Bobcats scored again to whittle the lead down to 4-2. At that moment, all hell broke loose. Quinnipiac smelled blood in the water and started attacking. For the next seven minutes, they dominated the run of play. The Bobcats' energy level went soaring and Michigan was trying to figure out what hit them. A third goal went in just over two minutes into that span and it was suddenly 4-3. [David Wilcomes]That Michigan team was hanging by a thread. With a few more minutes of 5v5, they very well might have tied it. But Michigan was let off the hook ever so slightly. They took a penalty, which ironically helped by putting QPac's wretched PP on the ice and disrupting their momentum at 5v5. Then, not long after the game returned to 5 aside, Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold made the surprising decision to pull the goalie with a full four minutes on the clock. The early pull gave Michigan an opportunity to end the game prematurely, rather than having to sit through another few minutes of 5v5. Get one empty netter and suddenly, the game is deposited into the bag. Which is what happened. With the door cracked open, the Wolverines pounced. A good defensive stick from Bordeleau forced a Quinnipiac turnover in the defensive zone and then a good pass from the centerman sprung his winger, Michael Pastujov, up ahead. Pastujov sped in on the empty net and restored Michigan's lead to two goals. Just like that, a ton of air went out of the Quinnipiac balloon.I was watching that game with a friend and after having been calm for about 45 minutes of gmae time, that last ~11 minutes made us sweat bullets. When Pastujov scored, we hugged almost out of desperation at the feeling of relief. Not just about the win but that this special team wouldn't be wasted by missing the Frozen Four. The remainder of the game only serves to taint what actually unfolded, as the 7-4 final score (one more ENG and a humorous PPG with 35 seconds left) does not reflect what it felt like to watch. When the final horn sounded, we all finally exhaled and the only feeling one could have was something of just win, baby. My column a couple days later was titled Whatever It Takes and talked exactly about that mentality. After this past Sunday's repeat of 2022, I think the whole Michigan Hockey fanbase can relate to that feeling. ---[David Wilcomes]So here we are again. Michigan is headed to the Frozen Four to play Denver in an all-western Frozen Four featuring another B1G team on the other half of the bracket. Just like 2022. This regional and Frozen Four setup is indeed déjà vu between 2022 and 2026 but you can also have a discussion about 2023 as a similar situation, a really good team with superstars that went to the Frozen Four with a chance to win it all. The 2018 and 2024 teams were underdogs and were happy to be there after euphoric regional wins. The '24 team also was about to face a buzzsaw while the '18 team felt too incomplete to win it all. But if you stack it all up, the program having lost four consecutive games in the Frozen Four, it weighs on you. If you go back to the days before I was following the team, Michigan has lost eight of the last nine games they've played in the national semifinals since winning the 1998 national championship. It's one of those stats that feels impossible, almost as impossible as Michigan having won ten in a row in the regional stage. This program has been stuck in strange cycle of preditcability, unable to lose in the first weekend but unable to win on the first night of the Frozen Four. It's a better world than the one that Michigan State inhabits, having gone three consecutive seasons with a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament and yet they still haven't made a Frozen Four in twenty years. Making the Frozen Four over and over at least is a token to signify the success that this Michigan program has had, so that all these NHL stars who have walked through Yost Ice Arena in the past 28 years haven't been totally wasted. Covering Frozen Fours, either at home (2023-now) or in the arena (2018, 2022) has been a lot of fun (I decided after Boston that I would not attend a Frozen Four again until Michigan finally wins at least a freakin' game in the semis). Getting to be on college hockey's biggest stage is worth something. Time to right this wrong [David Wilcomes]All of that said, it's time. At the very least, it's time for Michigan to win a semifinal game for god's sake. Denver is a very good team that is currently scorching hot due to an Andrew the Hamburglar Hammond-esque goaltending performance out of an unheralded, undersized freshman. I get the fear that Brian expressed on the MGoPod about Denver, considering that David Carle's Denver team is something akin to Danny Hurley's UConn basketball in terms of being killers in the NCAA Tournament. The Pios seem to have snatched Duluth's chain as the Team of Destiny relying on black magic to win. Denver is a team to respect, but you shouldn't feel like Michigan is an underdog. Denver is really good and really well-coached but so is Michigan. The Wolverines have great top line talent, better than DU can offer I'd say (except for at 1D where Erik Pohlkamp >>>). As hot as Denver's goalie is, Michigan has a great goalie too. Denver isn't a dominant possession team and thus, they shouldn't have a decided puck control advantage. The Pioneers have relied on PDO factors to win and Michigan is the King of PDO. Michigan can win this game. It NEEDS to win this game... for our collective sanity. It's been a magical ride, as I said while toasting the team a week ago. I wouldn't trade this season for anything and am so glad that they got B1G hardware and now some NCAA hardware. They deserve that ticket to Vegas and belong with those teams on that stage. But I'm tired of losing in the semifinals. If we're going to re-run 2022 through the regionals to end up in the Frozen Four against Denver again, let's not re-run this next chapter. Even more than 2022, this team has felt like our team of destiny, the most balanced, most consistent, most Dawg In Them team of the era. They just knocked off one really good NCHC team... why not two more? [David Wilcomes]HockeyBullets - Hats off to Minnesota-Duluth. There was a reason that I was not a big fan of the draw that Michigan received for this regional in last week's column: I think Duluth is really good. This is a team that in the previous two weeks before the NCAA Tournament walked into North Dakota's barn and beat them 5-1 in a playoff game and then rallied from 3-0 down on the road against Denver to tie the game up, before eventually losing in 2OT. Their play sagged a bit in January and February, but they were a borderline top 5 team in the first half and their performance in those NCHC Tournament games indicated that they were back in form. I would've much preferred to play Quinnipiac or Providence, which is what North Dakota drew, but oh well. Iron sharpens iron and I think Michigan is better off by having to face adversity and survive against the Bulldogs. That's a team with a talent and skill, particularly in that sophomore class with the Plante brothers, Jayson Shaugabay, and Ty Hanson. If that group runs it back next year and adds the third Plante brother (Victor), I think they will be a foremost contender for the national championship. Which is probably another parallel I could've drawn in the main narrative, as the QPac team that Michigan barely fended off in 2022 won the national title the very next year. The Bulldogs are comin'.[David Wilcomes]- There are few things I like less in hockey than going up 3-0 in the first period on a skilled team. I uttered that same sentence on the MGoPod on Sunday, which got much laughter out of Brian and Seth and I get it, it sounds stupid. I hate taking a big lead . But in actuality, it's the sort of score effect that shifts the game in a way that is very uncomfortable. You go from focusing on matching the other team's intensity and playing your game to suddenly changing the game plan in order to enter into end the game mode. If you're up three late in the 2nd period, that's one thing. But in the first period, it's way too early to go into end the game mode. If you're a team built around protecting leads and parking the bus, it's easier to pull off. But as solid as Michigan has been this year defensively, they're still not a defense-first team at heart. They win games by attacking and creating chances that their elite finishers bury at an NCAA-best clip. Going up big early against a team with players who can make highly skilled plays to break down your defense is just not something I wanted to see. I liked when Michigan was playing at full send and matching Duluth shift for shift. But if they sat back too much, the Bulldogs took advantage. The final 40 minutes of this game were pretty up-and-down, as I described in the narrative. There were periods where Michigan was handling it well and periods, like the final 10 mins, where it was all UMD. The best sign of the on their heels nature of Michigan's performance late in the game on Sunday was the play at the DZ blue line. Michigan was bad in the neutral zone in the second half of the game and they gave up two goals directly off of entries. Both were against the Luca Fantilli and Tyler Duke pair who have usually been very good but had their coverage assignments messed up, like in the below clip: As we got down to the final five or so minutes of the game, Michigan was struggling to impede possession entries. Duluth walked into the zone with the puck too often as Michigan backed off defending the line, playing soft gaps and ceding tons of space. They gave a dangerous offensive team tons of room to breathe and Duluth took it. I'm not really worried about what this means for Michigan's defense in the Frozen Four because we have a big sample of this group and this game was related to score effects more than anything else for me. Sometimes you have to pay a price for being too good at finishing your chances. - RefTalk. Well, here we go again. There were three main incidents in this game to discuss. The most discussed at the time was a goaltender interference challenge from Michigan on the 3rd Duluth goal: The goal involved a jam play at the side of the net, involving Gaffney of Duluth, who went sliding into Ivankovic, just as Scout Truman shot it by the Michigan goalie. Overall, I found this one to be very borderline. Gaffney and Cole McKinney go sliding into Ivankovic, who is in the blue paint. In the NHL, the rule is (essentially) that if you go into the blue paint on your own volition and you make ANY contact whatsoever with the goalie, the goal is disallowed. I am not familiar enough with how the NCAA adjudicates this rule because they don't happen that often and refereeing varies so widely from conference to conference, let alone how they would handle a review in the NCAA Tournament. All I can tell you is how I'd assess it using the NHL interpretation of the rule. And under that... I'd probably leave it alone? Gaffney is sliding and he's being pushed from behind by McKinney. It's not enough to say it was the fault of the defender but not really enough for me to say he went into the blue on his own for sure. What I also struggled with is when the contact between Gaffney and Ivankovic (vs. the contact between McKinney and Ivankovic) happened, relative to the puck going into the net. The video was fairly grainy and ultimately, I felt it was too borderline to support an overturn. Just my take, though. I didn't catch the other two incidents live but they made their way around the internet in the hours after the game. To summarize them, the referees missed two blatant penalties in the final two minutes, one going against each team. On Duluth, they missed the Bulldogs playing with seven skaters on the ice for like 15 seconds(????): Saw @AlRandall2 posted this video of UMD with a 7-skater shift late last night. So thankful it didn’t end up mattering. Glad our bench saw it at least and was screaming at the officials to make a call. pic.twitter.com/Qh1C9XYQws— Michigan Hockey's Future (@FutureBlueIce) March 30, 2026And on Michigan, they missed Tyler Duke tackling Harper Bentz right in front of the net on one of the last mad scrambles: Apparently this isnt a penalty when you tackle a guy right in front of the net on a scoring chance??? How do you miss that??? @DStarmanHockey @UMDMensHockey pic.twitter.com/YA0G9QWjrV— Gary (@gflan79) March 30, 2026On an egregiousness scale, the former is a lot worse than the latter for me. The latter is obviously a penalty, don't get me wrong, but there's a lot of wrestling that happens during the course of mad scrambles at the end of games. You should be able to catch this, but with 11 skaters on the ice and most of them clumped together, banging away at each other, it's far from impossible that the stripes can miss something like that. But that too many men? Come on, man. I'm not going to say I've never seen it, because it just happened in equally egregious fashion in the Canada/Czechia Olympic game, but it really really shouldn't. Not for multiple rushes up and down the ice like this. All on-ice officials are in charge of monitoring the numbers of skaters on the ice. And in a 6v5 situation, you'd think that at that time, more than any other, the referees would be keeping track of the number of players on the ice. Just can't happen. Thankfully, for as bad as these two misses were, they cancel each other out and don't impact the outcome of the game. [David Wilcomes]- Depth scoring saves the day. TJ Hughes had a nice game against Bentley, picking up three points, but Michael Hage missed the game with the injury he suffered against Ohio State. Hage returned on Sunday but didn't play much. He and Hughes were held scoreless in the Duluth game, meaning that Michigan put up four goals on a superb team without their two superstars getting a point. I would say that's crazy but it's in line with this team, which features such a ridiculous amount of depth scoring. The four goals that Michigan scored against Duluth were from some of these second tier stars that Michigan has. Jayden Perron scored the goal on the sudden-developing 2v1, tapping in the puck after his attempt to pass it across was blocked by the defender. It was a heads up play for Perron, who was able to read and react to his initial plan being foiled and capitalize anyway. Garrett Schifsky scored the super skilled shorthanded goal, which was his 14th of the season (and three shorties, tied for 2nd-most nationally!) and he has three double digit goal seasons in his career now. And you can play him on the 3rd or 4th line!One of the other goals came from Will Horcoff, who had a wicked deflection of a Ben Robertson shot, which bounced off the ice, off the post, and in. Horcoff isn't really bcak to what he was in the first half but he now has three goals in his last five games, despite playing only ~12.5 minutes a night, which is probably fine. The final goal to mention was scored by Adam Valentini on the PP, but it came off an incredible saucer pass by Nick Moldenhauer. If you had asked me one year ago what the probability was that the 2025-26 season would see Moldy transform into NCAA Mitch Marner, I probably would've said like 2 or something. If there's one takeaway from this weekend, it's that the number of good college players Michigan has is wild. See ya in Vegas, Ice Badgers! [Anthony Wilcomes]Recapping the rest of the tournament There was other college hockey played this weekend too! The four teams going to Las Vegas happen to be the four teams with the most national championships in college hockey history, two from the B1G and two from the NCHC. If you are a John Bacon-aged Michigan Hockey fan, you will recognize that all four teams are all from the 1970s WCHA: Michigan, Denver, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. That collection of four teams is also designed to inflict maximum pain on Minnesota fans, who had to suffer through the worst season of Gopher hockey in 50 years, only to see the postseason culminate in a Frozen Four with their two bordering state rivals and a top B1G rival participating. Ouch! As I have done in all the past game columns when Michigan clinched Frozen Four trips in 2022-2024, I will provide a quick rundown on the other regionals for fans who only tuned in to Michigan's games but want an early scout on the Frozen Four: Sioux Falls Regional: This one was a snoozer. This region was designed to get North Dakota back into the Frozen Four after a decade of tourney ineptitude and it worked. Merrimack managed to hang around with NoDak in the first round game before ultimately losing 3-0, while Quinnipiac outplayed Providence in a 5-2 win. In the regional final in front of a 99 NoDak crowd, the Hawks demolished QPac 5-0 in a game that was over in the blink of an eye. NoDak led 3-0 after one and 5-0 after two and cemented a pair of regional shutout wins. *yawn*Worcester Regional: Well, well, well. Michigan State, a dominant possession team, was outshot 42-22(??) by a middling UConn team and only eked out a 2-1 win. Wisconsin took a while to zoom by Dartmouth but put it away in the 3rd to set up an all-B1G regional final. The Badgers opened the scoring and seemed to be in command until two quick MSU goals put Sparty ahead. A 3rd period PPG gave MSU a 3-1 lead but two Wisconsin goals in the span of 34 seconds tied the game with under five minutes left. Then a screened shot from the point found its way through in the first minute of OT to give Wisconsin their first ticket to the Frozen Four since 2010 and gave MSU as crushing of a tourney defeat as you'll ever see. Sayonara, Sparty (and Trey Augustine for good) [David Wilcomes]Loveland Regional: As expected, we got the all-NCHC matchup between (1) Western Michigan and (2) Denver, without too much question in the first round. Minnesota State put up a decent fight but WMU dispatched them 3-1 and Denver nuked Cornell 5-0. In the much anticipated regional final, the fifth matchup between the two teams was similar to the first four, all of which were multi-goal wins. Denver won in front of the home crowd to claim the rubber match of the season series and take a ticket to yet another Frozen Four by putting up four first period goals, with the final score eventually resting at 6-2. So, you have NoDak and Denver getting through in comfortable fashion, Wisconsin getting through by rallying in the regional final, and Michigan getting through by hanging on in the regional final. The end result is that teams 1, 2, 5, and 7 in KRACH are headed to the Frozen Four and I think you can make a case that these are the four best teams in college hockey. NoDak and Michigan spent the whole season in the consensus big three, while Denver/WMU were jostling for the fourth spot. By winning on Sunday and taking the season series 3-2, I think we can say Denver was in that group. You'd probably say that MSU was the other of the four best teams but the one thing we've seen all season is that when Wisconsin gets even decent goaltending, they're a top 5 team. Wisconsin with Daniel Hauser not actively submarining their season is probably a top four team in college hockey and if he shows up to Vegas, this is as loaded of a Frozen Four as it was in 2022 and 2023, when three 1 seeds and one 2 seed qualified. All the best teams will be on display and we'll have more coverage leading up to the event next week. Log in or register to post comments BlueAggie April 2nd, 2026 at 3:00 PM ^ Before your time, I suppose, but I'll never quite get over Michigan blowing a 3-0 lead in Grand Rapids in '05 against CC to lose 4-3. (Not in the first, granted, the third goal came a couple of minutes into the 2nd.)That team was deep and talented with the last of the '01 monster recruiting class (Nystrom, Moss, Ryznar, etc.) plus juniors like Tambellini, Ebbett and Montoya and bunch of young talent (Hensick, Hunwick, Porter).Yup. Still hurts. Joined: 11/17/2008 MGoPoints: 3976 I Bleed Maize N Blue April 2nd, 2026 at 3:16 PM ^ Augustine signed a 3-yr entry-level contract which starts next season, and was assigned to Grand Rapids for an amateur tryout. [NHL news link, 2nd bold] Old news, but yay! for going pro.Go Blue! Beat Denver! Joined: 09/27/2008 MGoPoints: 86268 lhglrkwg April 2nd, 2026 at 3:26 PM ^ I'll never say no to a 2 or 3 goal lead but sometimes it feels like Michigan will get those and then go into a shell and it's butt clenching time the rest of the way. Maybe every team deals with that, but I hate it.For Denver, this will be similar to the Arizona game imo in that it's a match up between two titans that could go either way. They are very good, they are very well coached but I do think the degree of 'hotness' Denver has coming in is a little overstated. You look down the schedule at what their 14-0-1 entails and they played NPI 30, 8, 31, 43, 41, and 33 to finish the regular season on that 10-0-1 run. They beat WMU in OT and UMD in 2OT in the conference tournament, before bludgeoning teams in a home regional. They are tournament wizards for sure, but they also lost to North Dakota 5-0 and to Western 6-2/4-1 back in January. We can get over the hump. Joined: 07/03/2008 MGoPoints: 101670 hockey column 2026 ncaa hockey tournament nick moldenhauer garrett schifsky tyler duke jack ivankovic jayden perron