Friday, October 19, 2018 // FACEOFF 2018
3B 
Let it go

H

opefully, by now, 
you’ve regained 
your senses after the 
Michigan 
hockey team’s 
roller-coaster 
of a season 
last year.
The 
Wolverines 
started in 
the shadow 
of Red 
Berenson’s 
retirement 
and low 
expectations, struggled to 
escape the darkness until 
mid-January, then finished 
seconds away from a spot in 
the National Championship 
game. Not to mention this all 
happened in Michigan coach 
Mel Pearson’s first season 
running the team.
Last season certainly 
assured the Wolverines that 
rebuilding didn’t mean a long 
road back to relevance. On the 
other hand, Michigan’s 4-3 
loss at the horn to Notre Dame 
in the Frozen Four semifinals 
gave the program arguably its 
toughest lost in recent history 
— and a bad taste in its mouth 
going into the offseason.
Pearson knows that the 
tables are turned this year. The 
Wolverines are not sneaking 
up on anyone anytime soon — 
they started this season ranked 
No. 4 in the country — and 
although they haven’t looked 
as sharp as one would expect 
a preseason top-
five team to look, 
the target is on 
the Wolverines’ 
back. They 
are no longer 
the hunters. 
Michigan is the 
hunted.
“You’ve got 
something to 
prove still,” 
Pearson said. “If 
you’re picked to finish lower 
like you were, you’re trying to 
prove that they were wrong 
and that we have a better team 
than whoever picks the polls. If 
you’re picked high, then you’re 
trying to prove that those 
people know what they’re 
talking about ... You have to 

go from they don’t know what 
they’re talking about to being 
like, ‘OK they’re right.’”
And while that umbrella 
covers the general 
expectations of 
a team that just 
made the Frozen 
Four, Michigan 
still wants to 
prove, at least in 
some ways, that 
“those people” 
don’t know 
quite know what 
they’re talking 
about.
On paper, 
much has changed from last 
season to now. The top-line 
combination of Dexter Dancs, 
Cooper Marody and Tony 
Calderone — and all 122 of 
its net-shredding points — 
are gone. But who expected 
anything out of them when 
Michigan finished 13-19-3 the 

season before?
Sophomore Josh Norris 
returned to Ann Arbor despite 
being a first-round pick in the 
2017 NHL Entry Draft. He 
could be the new offensive 
ringleader. Same goes for 
sophomore defenseman Quinn 
Hughes, who was drafted 7th 
overall last season. He could 
surely be in the NHL right 
now, but he too returned with 
high expectations.
Junior Will Lockwood is 
back from a season-ending 
injury. Junior Nick Pastujov 
and his brother, sophomore 
Michael Pastujov, have shown 
flashes, albeit not for long 
enough to firmly establish 
themselves as forces quite yet. 
The recipe for success is not a 
quick one, and there may well 
be a lot of growing pains for 
the group.
Michigan seems to 
understand that. It’s why, even 

through a rough defensive 
start to the season and a slew 
of untimely turnovers, Pearson 
has remained level-headed 
about the flow of the offense, 
his blue line and 
the goaltender 
situation.
Success, be it 
over the course 
of a game, a 
season or a 
coaching era, 
is not a sprint. 
Even Berenson 
didn’t finish 
above .500 until 
his fourth season 
coaching the Wolverines and 
didn’t make a Frozen Four 
until his eighth. In one season 
behind the bench at Michigan, 
Pearson did both.
Reveling in their Cinderella 
run won’t help the Wolverines 
when they have to face No. 1 
Ohio State, which swept them 

last year and hardly lost any 
talent. Neither will sulking 
about the Frozen Four defeat 
to Notre Dame when they first 
gear up against the second-
ranked Fighting 
Irish.
Those things 
happened then, 
but this is now. 
Pearson and 
the Wolverines 
didn’t let 
poor prior 
expectations 
and following in 
the footsteps of 
a legend cloud 
their thoughts then, so why do 
the same now?
It’s time for Michigan to 
forget about last season, and 
enjoy the ride ahead.

Ratnavale can be reached 

at rian@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @RianRatnavale

FILE PHOTO/Daily
Michigan coach Mel Pearson had surprising success in his first season in Ann Arbor, but with some turnover on his roster this season, that doesn’t mean anything.

RIAN 

RATNAVALE

Michigan needs to forget about its past two seasons to have success with a new team in 2018-19

“You have to 
from they don’t 
know what 
they’re...

... talking about 
to being like, 
‘OK, they’re 
right.’ ”

