MADISON — Michigan is far from perfect this season, but there may be no squad in all of college hockey that is more fun to watch.
The Wolverines are leading the nation in scoring offense (4.78 goals per game) for the second consecutive season, and are playing a blend of attacking hockey made for primetime.
Take this weekend for example, when Michigan fell just short of a clean sweep against Wisconsin. In two contests, the Wolverines tallied eight goals, gave away five leads and saw three players settle into the top four in the NCAA for points per game.
There was a shootout, a flurry of late-period goals and even some official review drama. Michigan won Friday’s matchup, 4-1, and salvaged Saturday’s contest with a 5-4 shootout win.
Through all of it, the sixth-ranked Wolverines played a wide-open game — beating defenders to the net with a combination of speed and creativity. It’s a contrasting style to hard-nosed “East Coast Hockey” that has defined the NCAA for years, but that’s part of the fun.
By playing to its strengths, Michigan has eschewed the conventional blueprint for NCAA title contention in favor of run-and-gun abandon. It’s tempting to debate whether this strategy can pay championship dividends, but the better reaction might be just to sit back and watch history unfold.
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There has perhaps never been an offense as prolific as Michigan’s in the modern history of college hockey.
No team since the 1999-2000 season has surpassed the scoring offense mark the Wolverines have set so far this season. The closest was Minnesota with 4.48 goals per game in 2001-2002.
On an individual level, the case is perhaps even stronger.
Freshman forward and budding superstar Kyle Connor leads the nation in points per game (1.78) by a staggering 12 percent. In second place is his center, junior JT Compher, who leads the nation in assists. In fourth place is junior Tyler Motte, the right winger on that line. Motte’s tally of 27 goals not only leads the country, but is also already the highest NCAA regular-season total in years.
And that’s just the first line.
The Wolverines have a deep roster of speed and finesse. Senior Boo Nieves centers the second line and became the first Michigan player to join the 100-point club since 2012 on Saturday night.
Senior Justin Selman and junior Alex Kile have made their mark on the score sheet as well, combining for a total of 44 points. And that’s without mentioning freshman Cooper Marody, who led the team in scoring early this season before being sidelined by sickness.
The level of success on the offensive end, even against inferior Big Ten defenses, is simply astounding. There’s little precedent for how to play such an aggressive brand of hockey, especially when it comes to tournament time, but there doesn’t appear to be one for defending it either.
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Michigan’s success this season has largely resonated from an ability to adapt. Opponents’ attempts to stifle the scoring onslaught have been stymied by the the Wolverines’ depth and perseverance.
Early in the season, rocky goaltending and an inexperienced defense hampered the team’s offensive momentum. Conceding easy goals would disrupt the flow of the game and leave players clearly frustrated. That frustration would snuff the Wolverines’ offense out like a light.
Fast forward to this weekend, when a defensive gamble resulted in a game-tying goal for the Badgers with 26.1 seconds remaining in regulation.
This time, frustration wasn’t the right word — players were pissed off. Compher slammed his stick into the endboards following the horn, and tempers continued to flare long after the team left the ice.
But in the overtime period, there was no sign of slowing down. Michigan’s offense continued to push the pace, trust the defense and play the brand of hockey it knows best.
Senior goaltender Steve Racine took the spotlight with a string of show-stopping saves — including denying a breakaway by Wisconsin star forward Luke Kunin in the final minute. That kind of poise was completely absent from Michigan’s net just a few months ago, but today this is a more complete team.
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The unprecedented offensive production shouldn’t come as a complete surprise.
Michigan coach Red Berenson has been one of the game’s great proponents of offense, dating all the way back to his playing days. His storied time behind the Wolverines’ bench has long since become the focal point of his career, but he is also one of just two players to score six goals — a double hat-trick — in a National Hockey League game since the end of World War II.
In the week leading up to the Wisconsin series, Berenson commented that offense wasn’t the only key to winning a game, but that it was certainly part of the answer.
Since missing the tournament for the first time in over two decades in 2013, it’s been Berenson’s formidable task to rebuild the program amid a changing landscape in college hockey.
Well, the product finally materialized in this year’s team, and it’s wildly enjoyable.
College hockey has always been about scoring goals, but this feels different. Michigan threatens to score on every shift and its passing around the net borders on telepathic.
Maybe the Wolverines’ success will usher in a new era of offense in the NCAA, or maybe it will never be replicated again. But those aren’t questions that need answering right now.
March will likely bring Michigan back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012. It’s anyone’s guess how this high-octane offense will fare in that setting, but one thing’s for sure — it will be entertaining as hell.