Kornacki: Three Goals in an 'Ann Arbor Minute'

By Steve Kornacki

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- You've probably heard of something happening in a "New York minute." It's a reference to the frenetic pace in "the city that never sleeps," and how things happen there just so fast.

Well, how about something happening in an "Ann Arbor minute?"

The University of Michigan hockey team supplied that definition by scoring three goals in a span of 52 seconds in the second period of Thursday night's (Jan. 24) 5-1 win over Penn State.

Bang-bang-bang!

Three goals in rapid-fire sequence.

CLIP: Slaker on the powerplay to extend U-M's lead to 2-0! #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/gPGCHlzW5I
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) January 25, 2019

Jake Slaker got it going by taking a beautiful backhanded pass from Jimmy Lambert and firing a one-timer past goalie Autio Oskar at 13:21 of the period.

CLIP: Boka buries Blankenburg's rebound to extend U-M's lead 3-0, 14 seconds after Slaker's goal! #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/s52pyJ09mX
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) January 25, 2019

Just 14 seconds later, even before Slaker's team-leading fifth power-play goal could be announced on the public address system at Yost Ice Arena, Nicholas Boka fired home another goal. Nick Blankenburg was trying to score from point-blank range, but lost the puck and Boka cleaned it up.

CLIP: It's a 4-0 game with @lockwood_will's ninth goal of the season!#GoBlue pic.twitter.com/r43QjtKDSf
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) January 25, 2019

The Wolverines were playing like dogs on a bone, completely relentless. They fired a couple shots on Oskar seconds later with no scoring reward, but then Will Lockwood backhanded it home for his ninth goal of the season.

Three goals in 52 ticks off the game clock. Wow.

"It's just dogged determination," Michigan radio analyst Andrew Merrick said, noting that the team's hard work was being rewarded.

The Wolverines have not scored three goals quicker than that since Big Ten Conference hockey began in 2013-14. And with Dakota Raabe opening the scoring at 3:10 of the second period, Michigan ended up with its third four-goal period of the season against Penn State.

"We would've been happy probably with three goals in a game," said Pearson, whose team had exceeded two goals only twice in the previous nine games. "But we did the simple things. We got to the net, we stopped in front of the net, we got pucks and people to the net, and we competed there.

"The first period, we didn't do any of that. You look at the shot chart and everything's off to the side, nothing from in front. Look at the second period, we're getting to the net and we spent a lot of time in the get-better week to work on those things. It came through tonight and so that's good, and it's nice to see the reward that they get in the net.

"We have to do more of that. We have to get those gritty goals because we're not going to make a lot of great plays and fancy plays. But if we can do those things -- we have enough guys who are hungry around the net."

Slaker said, "Raabe got the first one and we all got pretty excited. We were finally playing our game. We got the pucks behind the net. We were getting shots on net. Then Jimmy made a great play to me and I was just sitting there for an open shot. I just had to do my job as soon as he got it to me.

"Tonight, we found a way, and it was just exciting."

Slaker's 10th goal of the season tied Josh Norris and Nick Pastujov for the team lead.

Norris, a first-round NHL Draft pick of the San Jose Sharks in 2017, suffered a season-ending injury while playing for the silver medal-winning Team USA in the World Junior Championships, Dec. 26-Jan. 5. However, the unranked Wolverines (9-9-6, 5-5-4-2 Big Ten) have beaten three ranked opponents (No. 6 Notre Dame, No. 4 Ohio State and now No. 15 Penn State) without Norris.

Dakota Raabe kicked off the second-period scoring barrage 3:10 into the period.

"Three goals that quickly is always a good confidence booster for sure," said Raabe, "and after that, we just stuck with it and tried not to play cheating for the puck. We played good defense, and we played out the rest of that second (period) and used that going into the third period."

Wolverine freshman Blankenburg, moving from defense to forward, blasted high-scoring Liam Folkes with a legal, shoulder-to-shoulder hit that took the helmet off his head. That play early in the first period set the tone.

Pearson praised his team for blocking a season-high 28 shots as Luke Martin (six), Griffin Luce (five), Quinn Hughes (four) and Raabe (three) led the way in that department. Luce has a team-high 50 this season followed by 46 from Joseph Cecconi

"For us, we focused on defense more," said Slaker, "and that defense led to offense tonight. And when we keep them to one goal, that gives us a really good opportunity to win a game every time."

Pearson said, "We're starting to play much better defensively than we were in the first half of the year, and that's the key to this team. The beauty of it is, when you win some of those games, you get more buy-in. The guys say, 'The coaches know what they're doing. It actually works.' But everybody's got to buy in. It can't be just a few guys, and we're getting more guys buying in. You see the growth in some of our younger guys, and they've got a chance.

"I'm proud of the guys. They did a lot of the things you need to do to win – especially blocking shots ... It ripples through your team when a guy blocks a shot. We competed harder in battles and got good goal-tending from Hayden (Lavigne). As coaches, we were concerned with the (11) days we hadn't played and what our intensity level would be like. But Hayden did a good job of keeping us in the game, and as the game wore on, we got our second wind and started to play."

Lavigne still had to make 37 saves and was particularly sharp in the first period, stopping all 15 shots in what was a scoreless period.

"That's the Hayden Lavigne we all know," said Raabe. "I think we saw it all last year, and real well of late. We're going to start seeing that more out of him, and I'm happy for him. He's finding his game right now, and that's exciting."

Everything came together defensively as the Wolverines blanked Penn State on its four power plays. The Nittany Lions came in leading the NCAA with 4.67 goals per game, and left by equaling their season low of one goal.

Penn State cut Michigan's lead to three goals by scoring at 11:07 of the third period. Nittany Lions coach Guy Gadowsky opted to pull his goalie on a power play with about five minutes remaining, but Raabe set up Garrett Van Wyhe for an empty-net goal to thwart the 6-on-4 advantage.

It was a gritty win.

Pearson said, "I like this group," and was asked to expand on what he likes about his team.

"I like their work ethic," said Pearson. "They enjoy coming to the rink every day, and you'd think there's a birthday party going on here every day before practice. But they're professional enough that when they need to go down and work, they work. They're all really good young men and a lot of fun to be around."

Michigan completes the weekend series with Penn State at New York's Madison Square Garden at 7 p.m. Saturday (Jan. 26) in a game on the Big Ten Network.

"It's going to be one heck of an experience for sure," said Raabe. "I have a bunch of family coming out (from California) to see it, and so it's going to be a pretty special moment."

Slaker added, "Everybody has family coming and it's a special game. I think that building speaks for itself, all of the history and everything. It's going to be pretty amazing, and one we're going to remember forever."

If they can bring the "Ann Arbor minute" concept to the Big Apple, it could indeed be something special.