SPORTSWEDNESDAY

KATE HUA/Daily
Design by Lys Goldman

IN PLACE
FROZEN

Michigan stymied by Quinnipiac, 5-2, 
for second straight Frozen Four loss

T

AMPA, Fla. — There was 
no telling when the No. 2 
Michigan hockey team would 
be back.
After a puck jumped over the 
stick of then-freshman defenseman 
Luke Hughes, the ensuing year was 
anything but predictable for the 
Wolverines. In just 364 days, a head 
coach, innumerable NHL talent and 
an established regime departed, 
leaving a return to the Frozen Four 
seemingly improbable.
Michigan was left to wonder when 
another moment would come.
Yet 364 days later, Michigan got 
that moment — but it wasn’t enough. 
Against a Quinnipiac team hungry 
to avenge a lopsided loss that kept 
the Bobcats out of the Frozen Four 
last season, the Wolverines (26-
12-3 overall) regressed to issues of 
old, falling to Quinnipiac (33-4-3), 
5-2, after 60 minutes of insufficient 
defensive effort coupled with bad 
bounces.
“Quinnipiac’s a great team and we 
have respect for them,” Michigan 
coach Brandon Naurato said. “They 
did a great job tonight. … Two goals 
from behind the net and one from the 
top of the circles near the boards, it is 
what it is. That’s why it’s so hard to 
win a National Championship.
“It’s one game.”
The 
Wolverines’ 
‘one 
game’ 
certainly didn’t start the way they 
had hoped. Plagued by defensive 
lapses, their play often left junior 
goaltender Erik Portillo hung out to 
dry. Unfortunate errors, lackadaisical 
play and a general lack of effort 
seemed reminiscent of Michigan’s 
early season struggles — not the team 
coming off of a Big Ten Championship 
and 
searching 
for 
its 
seventh 

consecutive win.
The Bobcats logged nine total 
shots on goal in the first period, 
but a torrent of chances left little 
solace as the Wolverines went into 
the first intermission down 2-1. 
Though Michigan faced unfortunate 
puck luck at times, odd-man rushes 
and missed defensive assignments 
often facilitated quality chances for 
Quinnipiac.
“It’s a big credit to them,” junior 
defenseman Ethan Edwards said of 
Quinnipiac’s structural game play. 
“They’re a very disciplined team over 
there and they were locking it down 
pretty well. Kudos to them.”
Such discipline proved hard to 
summit. While the second period 
had flashes of a return to form for 
the Wolverines as an equalizing goal 
by freshman forward Adam Fantilli 
10 minutes into the period brought 
new life, Michigan struggled to 
consistently execute and rarely took 
full command.
Across a rollercoaster period that 
often narrowly went the Wolverines’ 
way, it took heroic efforts from 
Portillo and near misses on the part 
of Quinnipiac’s rush chances to keep 
the score level going into the third 
period and stop the Bobcats from 
“(breaking) it open”, as Quinnipiac 
coach Rand Pecknold put it.
But early in the final frame, the 
Bobcats found more puck luck — and 
with that, the lead. After a Wolverine 
defensive lapse let up a 2-on-1 
opportunity, 
Quinnipiac 
forward 
Sam Lipkin chipped a backhand 
from behind the net off of the skate of 
Portillo. Initially unbeknownst to the 
goaltender amidst the chaos, the puck 
had found the back of the net for a 3-2 
lead.
“Just a bad bounce,” Naurato 
lamented.
After the Bobcats took the lead, 
Michigan couldn’t mount a response. 

While Portillo’s heroics kept the 
Wolverines in striking distance, 
the offense couldn’t break through. 
Stymied by Quinnipiac’s trap, the 
Bobcats seemed one step ahead at 
all times, blocking passing lanes 
and turning routine schemes into 
offensive nightmares.
And as Michigan woke up to 
the consequences of its offensive 
stagnation, 
puck 
watching 
and 
missed assignments made hope for an 
equalizer a distant possibility as the 
Wolverines fell onto their backfoot. 
Offensive lapses became defensive 
punishments as Michigan’s season 
started slipping away.
“It’s something we knew they were 
going to do,” Quinnipiac defenseman 
Zach Metsa said. “They’re run and 
gun, they love to try and make plays 
one on one and create offense. When 
we can turn that around and bring 
it right back down their throats — 
we always talk about playing north, 
playing with pace and that’s the result 
of that.”
While chance after chance proved 
insufficient for the Bobcats, Metsa 
finally delivered the dagger. Floating 
an unconventional shot, an absent-
minded Wolverine defense watched 
as it landed into the net for a 4-2 
Bobcat advantage. Without much 
time to even react to the dire situation, 
the empty net goal just minutes later 
left no doubt. 
364 days after an overtime goal 
vanquished its last Frozen Four 
chances, Michigan got its moment 
once more. A year of trials, tribulations 
and uncertainties made it somewhat 
surprising that the Wolverines were 
even able to claw their way back to 
the event that had spurned them 
just a year before. But 364 days later, 
Michigan exited with the same result. 
Leaving the Wolverines to wonder 
once again when they will get another 
chance.

JOHN TONDORA
Daily Sports Writer

The Michigan Daily
Page 12 — April 12, 2023

