Michigan skunked by Northeastern, Union

By Bob Miller/Michigan Beat Writer

The discerning Michigan football fan woke up from this holiday weekend with a big smile due to the Wolverines' victory over Ohio State on the gridiron.

The discerning Michigan college hockey fan had anything but that waking response.

Two eastern-based teams visited Yost Arena this weekend and planted three-goal losses on the Wolverines, who continue to struggle at both the offensive and defensive ends of the ice.

Travis Lynch's first period goal proved to be the only Michigan score in Friday night's 4-1 loss to Northeastern. Michigan consistently lost all the little battles for the puck in the game as the Huskies out muscled and out hustled them for most of the 60 minutes.

Union College jumped on the Wolverines early Sunday afternoon and used Michigan defensive lapses to post a 4-0 lead by early in the second period. Evidence for Michigan's defensive sloppiness was shown by the odd occurrence that three of Union's four goals were unassisted, directly related to Wolverine turnovers in their own zone.

Michigan managed to pull back into the picture, 4-2, early in the third period until a Union scoring spurt put the game out of reach. The resulting 6-3 loss left Michigan winless in their last six outings with the next chance at redemption coming this week when they make the long trek to Alaska for a two-game series with the Nanooks.

Head coach Red Berenson summed up the Wolverines' plight best after the Northeastern game.

“We need to play better defensively and we need to play better offensively,” said Berenson. “You can't win games when you score one goal, but you can't win games when you give up six. There is a fine line between offense and defense.”

Michigan will have the perfect chance to way get away from it all, attempting to thaw out both offense and defense 3800 miles away from their Ann Arbor home base in Fairbanks this upcoming weekend.