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.’ ”