Michigan's candidates for a breakout year
It’s no secret that Michigan’s freshman class is insanely talented.
The three 2020 draft eligibles were all drafted this week, with Brendan Brisson going in the first round (29th) to the Vegas Golden Knights, Thomas Bordeleau going early in the second (38th) to San Jose and the Vancouver Canucks picking up Jacob Truscott in the fifth round (144th).
The three 2021 draft eligibles — Owen Power, Kent Johnson and Matty Beniers — ranked second, third and fifth in Corey Pronman’s latest 2021 rankings, and Pronman wrote that he’s hearing about a 50/50 split between Power and Finland’s Aatu Räty for first overall.
The rest of the class is less heralded, but Erik Portillo (2019 third round pick by the Sabres) will be a strong backup to Strauss Mann and, in the event that Mann doesn’t continue his same form from last season, could make a serious push for the starting job. Philippe Lapointe put up 55 points in 36 games as the captain of the Trail Smoke Eaters in the BCHL last year, and both Steve Holtz and Josh Groll have solid upside.
But having said all of that, Michigan’s returnees should not be overlooked.
Let’s talk about some of the players I think could be primed for a breakout year.
Forwards
Michigan lost a lot up front. Jake Slaker, Will Lockwood and Nick Pastujov were key players throughout their four-year careers, and Jacob Hayhurst found a lot of success in the second half of his one season with the Wolverines. Slaker led the Wolverines with 31 points last season, while Lockwood and Pastujov came in second and third with 23 and 18, respectively. Hayhurst finished fifth with 15.
Pastujov was also the Wolverines’ best option on faceoffs, winning 55.84% of his draws. Michigan’s three returning centers — Johnny Beecher, Jimmy Lambert and Garrett Van Wyhe — combined to win 45.66% of theirs.
Though the losses will be impactful, the Wolverines are well-positioned to fill the gaps. Beyond the incredible offensive talent in the freshman class, there are a few key returners who should take big strides.
Jimmy Lambert
Junior | 6-0 | 175 | C/RW, right shot | 2-11—13 in 2019-20
After leading all freshmen with 13 points two years ago, Lambert matched his point total last season but scored two fewer goals. He spent most of the first half of the season playing right wing and picked up just one goal and four total points through the first half of the year.
After moving to center in the second half, he was much more comfortable and started to really find his footing. Lambert tallied another goal and added eight assists in his last 10 games of the season.
But right as he was looking comfortable, in the midst of a 1-4—5 weekend in Michigan’s series against Wisconsin in February, Lambert suffered a groin injury and missed two games. When he returned against Notre Dame later that month, he suffered what was initially diagnosed as a broken foot on Feb. 23 and was expected to miss the rest of the season. It turned out the foot wasn’t broken. Lambert missed two more games and returned for the final series of the year, picking up an assist, but it was clear he wasn’t fully healthy.
Now that he’s healthy, I think he’ll keep building on the success he was having late in the year. Michigan’s got a logjam at center with plenty of talented pivots on the roster, but in an ideal world, Lambert would have one of those spots locked up. If he can get comfortable again like he was toward the end of the season, he’s a serious candidate for a big year.
Eric Ciccolini
Sophomore | 6-0 | 170 | LW/RW, right shot | 1-10—11 in 2019-20
Ciccolini never impressed me that much in the games he played last season, and then I learned he was playing with a shoulder that would partially dislocate on a regular basis. Suddenly, his 11 points in 26 games felt different. Ciccolini had surgery in February to finally fix the injury, and he was expected to be fully ready when the season started. With the season delayed by about six weeks, that’s even more time for him to be ready to go.
Ciccolini showed repeated flashes of high-end skill, even while typically playing limited minutes and dressing as the extra forward. Now that his shoulder is fully healthy and he’s had an extended offseason to both heal and get in extra practice with his team, I expect him to look very different than he did last year.
Nick Granowicz
Sophomore | 6-1 | 174 | RW, right shot | 7-4—11 in 2019-20
I’ll admit that Granowicz largely makes this list because I just want to talk about him for a minute. His mom passed away last summer, mere weeks before he was supposed to be on campus in Ann Arbor to start preparing for his freshman season. Understandably, he didn’t arrive in the best shape to compete for serious playing time right away.
Granowicz didn’t play his first game until Nov. 2 at Ohio State and he appeared in just five games — without a point — in the first half of the season. But even in that first game, there were signs that he was going to be an impact player once he settled in.
After scoring a goal off his head at Notre Dame in January, Granowicz didn’t leave the lineup again. He added two goals at Penn State a week later on his late mother’s birthday and scored the season’s only hat trick against Wisconsin on Feb. 7. At Minnesota in late February, he scored arguably the largest goal of the season — the game-winner to seal home ice for the first round of the Big Ten Tournament.
I’m looking for Granowicz to keep building on his freshman year success and make some serious noise as a goal-scorer this year, even if it might fly under the radar compared to some of his highly-touted teammates.
Johnny Beecher
Sophomore | 6-3 | 209 | C, left shot | 9-7—16 in 2019-20
Early in Beecher’s freshman year, Mel Pearson had someone video him through an entire practice because his effort level and body language had been so poor. He got things together quick enough that Pearson never had to show him that footage, but it’s an anecdote I come back to a lot when I think about Beecher’s freshman year.
He might’ve had the most pure talent of anyone on the roster. I know that’s a big statement, but I stand by it. Beecher blew me away on a regular basis with his combination of speed, skill and competitiveness. His maturity, though, was always a bit of a question. Whether it was being visibly frustrated when a teammate didn’t catch a pass or getting into it with Ohio State’s goalie after being ejected from the game, Beecher often looked like exactly what he was — an 18-year old freshman.
Beecher also battled a couple upper-body injuries, including playing with a broken right thumb for the last six games of the season. There’s some room for improvement in his play now that he’s healthy and has a year of college hockey under his belt, but the biggest improvement I’m looking for is maturity. He grew up a lot as the year went on, and I expect that to continue. Increased maturity will lead to increased composure on the ice will lead to increased success.
Here’s my favorite goal he scored, just because it’s fun to watch. He did it with a broken thumb, too.
Defensemen
On face value, it doesn’t look like the Wolverines lost that much from the back end. Luke Martin and Griffin Luce were textbook stay-at-home defensemen and combined for 13 points last season.
They were also Michigan’s two biggest defensemen at 6-foot-3 (yes, size doesn’t matter that much, but a little size never hurt) and combined for 145 blocked shots. Martin finished second in the nation with 85 blocks on his own. As the only two seniors on the back end, they were alternate captains, valuable sources of education for the younger players, and played a key shutdown role.
Nick Blankenburg and Cam York will both have new defensive partners this year, and the Wolverines’ blueline will look pretty different. Blankenburg and York both benefited from having shutdown defensemen as their partners, and it remains to be seen who they’ll be partnered with this year. Jack Summers and Keaton Pehrson formed an effective third pair, and I’d expect them to play more minutes this year if they stay together as a pair.
Michigan had one of the best defenses in the country last season — largely buoyed by Mann’s performance, though the defensemen played a big role — and it’ll be interesting to see how that carries over this season. The talent on the blueline is certainly increased, but I think the losses of Martin and Luce could loom larger than expected.
As far as potential breakout candidates go, I could write 300 words about each of the returning defensemen, but the fact of the matter is they were all pretty darn good last year.
The one thing I will say, though, is that Pehrson pretty quietly led all defensemen and finished second on the team with a 63.16% goals-for percentage. He also tied Martin and Lockwood for the team lead in plus-minus at +10. He didn’t play a ton of minutes, but he was really effective when he was on the ice. I’d keep an eye on how many minutes he plays this season and if he’s similarly effective — I bet he will be.
Now that there’s a date for the college hockey season, I’m hoping to ramp up my work here at Fresh Ice! I apologize for my absence of late — I started a full-time internship at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which has been incredible but definitely required an adjustment of how I get work done for this newsletter.
If there’s something you’d like to see me cover in this space, whether it’s Michigan-specific, about another college hockey team, or anything else, please drop me a line! My email is baileyannej16@gmail.com and my Twitter DMs are always open.
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