arizona state

The B1G's elite M&M's: Minnesota and Michigan [James Coller]

The final component of our three part Michigan Hockey season preview has arrived. Yesterday we focused on the defense and goalies and the series began on Wednesday by looking at the forwards. Today's edition will pivot away from the roster a bit and instead focus on the competition. Due to the COVID-19 abbreviated season Michigan will only play B1G foes, as well as the honorary B1G member Arizona State who is playing each member of the conference four times despite being an independent. The results of the ASU games will not count towards conference standings, but I will consider them in this article since Michigan will see the Ice Devils as much as they will any other B1G team. The goal of this final installment is to look at who Michigan will play, how they stack up, and what to expect from this weird and wild 2020-21 season.

The B1G Rebuilds: Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Penn State

One of the few times a Wisconsin goaltender made a save last season [JD Scott]

The bottom of the conference since its inception in 2013 has pretty consistently been one team, the Michigan State Spartans. Their 2007 National Championship is a distant memory at this point, buried by almost a decade of poor coaching and program failure that has placed Spartan hockey in a crater. Danton Cole was hired in 2017 to try and dig them out of the hole that Tom Anastos left the program in and Cole has done a fine job. Each season has been slightly better than the preceding one and MSU returned to respectability last year, actually cracking the top 25 after sweeping Michigan before stalling in the second half. Unfortunately for fans in East Lansing, this will probably be a bit of a reset season after Michigan State loses its two most important players, goalie John Lethemon and center Patrick Khodorenko. There are still significant pieces, Mitchell Lewandowski upfront and Drew DeRidder in net, but it's hard to imagine this being the campaign that MSU makes the jump with the players they lost.

[AFTER THE JUMP: 7 teams better at hockey than Michigan State]

the boys of late winter are off to a good start [Bill Rapai]

Calling it a clown show would be too kind. If you don't live in Ann Arbor, you can skip to the next section. Ann Arborites: last night the anti party city council majority fired the city administrator for no reason. They put the motion to fire him on the city council agenda at the last second. There was no discussion about why Howard Lazarus was getting fired; the anti party simply ignored the Open Meetings Act, decided to fire a dedicated civil servant, and set 300k of city money on fire.

This is par for the course for the current majority, which has openly considered violating state law—Bolt vs Lansing if you want to know—only for city staff to say "uh… that would violate state law." Firing Lazarus is like firing the crash alert system on your car. Since the goal of the anti party is to freeze Ann Arbor in amber to the detriment of the entire county outside their core constituency, this suits them just fine.

Ann Arbor can restore a city council majority not intent on driving off a cliff on August 4th. So here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna figure out which ward you're in and you're gonna vote for one of the following people on August 4th:

ERHBPY5WkAAR3F-

Then Ann Arbor governance can move on from the bit where the city council majority spends its time shrieking and flinging poo. Thanks in advance.

[After THE JUMP: Speaking of disastrous situations: the Cavs!]

run away from injuries please [Patrick Barron]

Injury status. You've probably heard about Charbonnet Panic 2019 by now, which had its origins in a Facebook post by a family member of a player, got Yodered by an OSU guy, and then ran around the world several times before meeting some pushback. Let's address that and Michigan's other walking wounded:

  • QB Shea Patterson: says he's 100%: "I did get banged up in the first game, and it did kind of wear on me a little bit, but I’m ready to go. … I think it affected all aspects of (my play). An oblique is no fun, but I’m ready to go." Patterson said he was 100% after the Army game, when he was apparently not 100%, so… yeah.
  • RB Zach Charbonnet: zillions of conflicting reports, some of which don't even make sense internally. Jon Jansen was pretty strident about the fact that Charbonnet has not had surgery and was walking around normally; Jansen said "fully expect[s]" Charbonnet to start Saturday. Other reports have been more circumspect. It seems certain that Charbonnet did miss practice earlier this week. That probably started up the rumor mill and now we're in the eight iteration of telephone.
  • RB Tru Wilson: "We'll see if he's back this week, or soon," per Harbaugh on his radio show three days ago. Did not practice the previous week, paving the way for Christian Turner to solidify the #2 job. Turner seems fine after taking a hard hit late in the Army game.
  • WR Donovan Peoples-Jones: ominous radio silence aside from a "not sure" from Harbaugh. His injury was reported very, very late in fall camp as a high ankle sprain, which is the kind of thing that can linger forever. No insider rumblings, which is in contrast to a lot of the other guys on this list. Signs point towards no.
  • LT Jon Runyan Jr.: "Ready to go" per Warinner.
  • DT Donovan Jeter: Played a few snaps against Army and was put in front of the media this week so should be full go.
  • DT Mike Dwumfour: Was reputed to be ready to go two weeks ago against Army; did not play. Apparently the only issue remaining is with his arm(?) and could have been left out of the Army gameplan for tactical reasons. Like DPJ, no encouraging insider noises may mean he's still out.
  • S Quinten Johnson. Johnson posted a picture in which he was about to undergo surgery. A redshirt, already likely, is now assured.

If Dwumfour is out I don't see how Michigan doesn't spend a significant chunk of the game in a 3-3-5. Michigan doesn't trust their freshmen, I can't imagine Ben Mason is going to be able to cope against the Badgers, and Kemp/Jeter are unlikely to play every snap.

[After THE JUMP: Spartan Stadium's beleaguered grass.]