8A — Wednesday, March 18, 2015 Sports The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Goaltending solution a key before Big Ten Tournament By ERIN LENNON Daily Sports Editor Though this year’s Big Ten field looks far different than it did in the conference’s inaugural season of hockey competition, one thing has stayed the same: strong goaltending. Michigan State goaltender Jake Hildebrand stole the show in the regular-season finale against Michigan to secure his title as both the Big Ten Goaltender and Player of the Year. In doing so, the junior became the second straight netminder to earn both honors after Minnesota’s Adam Wilcox did last year. If the Wolverines can get past Wisconsin’s standout goaltender in senior Joel Rumple — who led the Badgers to a Big Ten Championship and an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament last season — they will face Hildebrand for the sixth time this season in the Big Ten semifinals Friday. Of course, Michigan will have to overcome its own goaltending woes if it hopes to advance past Thursday’s first-round contest. Having played 52 percent of the Wolverines’ goaltending minutes, junior Steve Racine carries the league’s worst save percentage (.892) among Big Ten netminders who have logged significant time. And though his counterpart, Zach Nagelvoort, is currently the conference’s second-best netminder on paper, the sophomore hasn’t been consistent enough to prevent Michigan from falling off the NCAA Tournament bubble. In two starts last weekend, Nagelvoort allowed five goals. Saturday, he gave the Wolverines one of his best performances but was bested by Hildebrand in the 2-1 goaltending battle. He wasn’t stellar, but he kept Michigan in the game — something coach Red Berenson has been looking for in a starter all season. But against proven postseason goaltenders in Rumple and Hildebrand, the Wolverines will need to be stellar if they want a championship of their own. “I’m a one-goalie coach, but we’ve got two goalies,” Berenson said. WOLVERINES DRAW WISCO: As the No. 3 seed for the second straight year, Michigan will play the conference’s last- place finisher. This year, the Big Ten bottom feeder was Wisconsin by a landslide. On paper, the quarterfinal matchup — which will take place Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit — should mean an easy ‘W’ for the Wolverines. Michigan swept the Badgers in four games this season. And Wisconsin won just two conference matchups, compiling a 4-25-5 overall record and marking one of the worst seasons in program history. Then again, that’s what was said about Penn State one year ago. In their second year as a varsity program, the Nittany Lions entered the tournament having dropped 16 of 20 conference games — despite picking up two wins against Michigan — before playing spoiler in St. Paul, Minnesota. Like Wisconsin, Penn State had skated with teams like Minnesota all season, as the Nittany Lions had eight conference games decided by one goal. They, too, were a young team improving by the day. Two 20-minute overtimes later, Michigan walked off the ice having been stunned, its postseason plans erased. So with nothing in terms of reputation or “status” to lose and a surprise Big Ten automatic bid to gain, the Badgers are as dangerous as anyone heading into the first round of the conference tournament. “The last two games they played here, they were a different team,” Berenson said. “I think they got a little confidence here even though they lost.” COMPHER COMING BACK?: Forward JT Compher is listed as day-to-day, Berenson said Monday. The sophomore left the game in the second period after taking a hard hit into the boards in East Lansing on Friday. He did not return in the third period and missed Saturday’s season finale at Yost Ice Arena. Compher has held one of Michigan’s hottest sticks down the stretch, having notched two hat tricks in his last five games. After a quiet first half, Compher — last year’s Big Ten Freshman of the Year — scored seven goals in four games to tie his career record for goals in a season (11). The final decision on his return will be made Wednesday after practice, Berenson said. JAMES COLLER/Daily Zach Nagelvoort hasn’t been consistent enough to nail down Michigan’s starting job this season. NOTEBOOK Baxter building special teams from ground up The coordinator is focusing on teaching the basics this spring By ZACH SHAW Daily Sports Writer The Michigan football team didn’t make a single field goal in practice Tuesday. But for special teams coordinator John Baxter, things are going just as planned. A year removed from his last stint at Southern California, Baxter is building his special teams unit from the ground up. After losing punter Will Hagerup and kicker Matt Wile to graduation, Baxter has his hands full tweaking the replacement candidates. “What we’re doing is what pro baseball players call ‘the bullpen,’ ” he said. “They’re just spinning balls into the net, they work the mechanics from the ground up, and that’s what we’re doing here. I’m taking these guys, and they’re kicking way less than they probably ever have, and we’re rebuilding them from the ground up. “Once the season gets going, it’s going to get hot out there, its going to get dicey, and if you can’t bring a kid back to some place he’s familiar with, he’s going to spend the fall lost.” Anticipated starter Andrew David doesn’t arrive on campus for a few months, but in the meantime, Baxter is treating all of his players like starters. Sophomore Kyle Seychel, freshman Ryan Tice and senior Kenny Allen are all getting equal reps — albeit into the net. In addition to the kicking game, Baxter tried out 14 Wolverines in the kick return position Tuesday. “My job at this point is not to pick a starter, name a starter, or even think about a starter,” Baxter said. “My job is to build as much depth as possible. I’m just trying to build a GM car, where you can take a carburetor on an Olds, put it on a Buick and keep going — build as much depth as possible. “Someone will be standing out there at the stadium in Utah, but I’m not sure who it’ll be.” Regardless of who it is, there’s a good chance Baxter will know him well. The only coach who didn’t go on any of the team’s flurry of recruiting trips, Baxter stayed in Ann Arbor to help implement his trademarked and nationally utilized “Academic Gameplan” program, which focuses on strategizing academic success. With many players taking extra credits to create wiggle room in the fall, Baxter knows that building a program from the ground up requires persistent support both on and off the field. “(In the past,) we were drinking out of a garden hose. Today they’re drinking out of a fire hydrant,” Baxter said of academics today. “So we need to help them sort through that chaos. It’s one thing to say we have student-athletes — it’s another thing to live it.” On the field, Baxter’s grassroots special teams campaign involves a lot of strategizing, but not a lot of results. Not yet, at least. “Imagine being a swing coach in golf,” Baxter said. “If you’re going to break a guy’s swing down and make changes, you can’t expect him to be hitting great drives down the middle right away. There’s going to be some glitches. “But it’s March. I’m not really worried about March, I’m worried about September. So if we don’t take this time to make fundamental changes — their mobility, their core, all that kind of stuff — then we’ll never have a chance to change them.” For a team that made just 71.4 percent of its field goals and ranked 127th out of 128 teams in return yardage last season, Baxter knows the ‘swing’ won’t come right away. But with plenty of depth in all units returning to campus, he feels that the talent is there, it just needs to be discovered. “If you’re going to work on their swing, you’ve got to take the results away, because they’ll worry about the results,” Baxter said. “I’m not worried about the results. I’m worried about getting that swing right. The results will be there. “There are guys out there right now that you’ll say they’ll never see the field that will be on the field. There’s a guy that you don’t even know his name that’s going to make the play of the season, and I don’t know who it is either.” FOOTBALL “So we need to help them sort through that chaos.”