Goal Rush

Tambellini to Moss.

Moss to Tambellini.

The duo of junior Jeff Tambellini and senior David Moss
didn’t feel like sharing with others this weekend and teamed
up for five goals against Miami (Ohio). Tambellini added one more
empty-netter by himself at the end of Saturday’s game, and
Michigan came away with a weekend sweep — 5-2, 5-3.

At 17:20 of the third period on Saturday, Tambellini scored what
turned out to be the game winner off a faceoff from — guess
who — Moss. Tambellini got the puck at the top of the right
circle and fired. The shot just made it over the glove of Miami
goalie Brandon Crawford-West to give Michigan a 4-2 lead.

“To look back at it now — I know I made some pretty
good saves — but I would like to have the fourth goal
back,” Crawford-West said. “And that ended up making
the difference in the game.”

The goal put No. 2 Michigan (5-1-0 CCHA, 7-2-1 overall) up by
two with less than three minutes to go. But with just over one
minute left in the game, and the two teams facing off in
Michigan’s zone, No. 16 Miami (2-4-0, 4-6-0) pulled its
goalie to get an extra skater out on the ice. Forward Matt Christie
— who leads the nation in scoring with 17 points —
found junior Chris Michael right in front of the net. Michael
capitalized and narrowed the lead to 4-3. But 18 seconds later
Tambellini scored an open-netter.

Skating with an extra man with less then 30 seconds left
Saturday night, Miami lost control of the puck. Tambellini grabbed
it and shot it off the boards. As the puck drifted toward the open
net, both Tambellini and senior Jason Ryznar skated hard after it.
But Tambellini beat his teammate to the puck and put it into the
back of the net.

“I feel terrible right now,” Tambellini said.
“I thought I had a guy on my back, and I should have just
given it to Ryznar. So I think I’m going to be sending him
sorry cards all week.”

The goal was Tambellini’s second of the game and fifth of
the weekend. He led the team in shots even before this
weekend’s series with 47 — 19 more than the next
Wolverine — but had just one goal on the season.

“There’s nothing like scoring to get a goal-scorer
scoring,” Michigan coach Red Berenson said. “And you
could just see him. He really had his nose to the
grindstone.”

Tambellini — who led the team in points during his
freshman year with 45 — credited his breakout performance to
an added bit of confidence. A scorer by nature, Tambellini tallied
41 goals in his first two seasons at Michigan.

“You get a couple in the net, and you really start to get
an extra bit of patience and see the net better,” Tambellini
said. “I’m just trying to put shots away, and right
now, they’re going in.”

The first goal of the night was also scored by the
Tambellini-Moss pairing. But this time, it was Moss taking the
shot. Tambellini skated with the puck down the left side of the ice
through the neutral zone. At the top of the circle, he saw his
teammate alone in the right slot. The two-on-one breakaway paid
off, and Moss managed to push the puck past Crawford-West.

“He played unbelievable this whole weekend,” said
Tambellini of Moss. “He made passes that were just
phenomenal. He sees the ice so well, so he deserves to score some,
as well.”

Michigan took a 2-0 lead less than one minute later on a goal by
sophomore David Rohlfs. Senior defenseman Nick Martens got the puck
at the point and fired a slapshot. Rohlfs, standing in front of the
net, got his stick on the puck and deflected it past
Crawford-West.

Freshman Chad Kolarik also added a power play goal 6:18 into the
second period that gave Michigan a 3-0 lead. The goal was
Kolarik’s third power play goal of the season.