3/11/2023 – Michigan 7, Ohio State 3 – 23-11-3 (9-7-3-5 B1G) In the first game of the second half of the season, Michigan played Ohio State at Yost and got plastered. The Buckeyes throttled Michigan in a way that no team that no team in the past half-decade has, completely overwhelming the Wolverines and crushing them with shot after shot directed on Erik Portillo. Michigan actually scored the first goal of the game and went into intermission tied, but the shots on goal for the period were 23-7 Ohio State. In the second, OSU scored five times, two at 5v5, two on the PP, and one shorthanded. The shots on goal in that period were 22-9. Through forty minutes, the Buckeyes led by four and were on pace for 68 shots on goal. They backed off in the third with a commanding lead but still tacked on one more goal. For the game, shot attempts were 79-49 for the Scarlet and Gray. It was the kind of performance Michigan puts up against a bottom feeder like Lindenwood, not something that happens to Michigan, a top 5-10 team in the country wire-to-wire this year. The overriding thought after that game among Michigan Hockey observers was "what the hell just happened?". As I wrote after the weekend, Michigan had gotten put in a pressure cooker. Ohio State ran a hyper aggressive offensive zone forecheck, all three forwards deep in the zone either pressuring the puck or providing support on any potential rims, with the defensemen hard pinching at the point/down the walls to keep it going. Against a Michigan team with lighter defensemen who prefer to skate the puck out of the zone and play with it on their stick, Ohio State had a matchup advantage by taking away time and space to do so. They forced Michigan's defensemen to make decisions in a split second and wanted to make them play a way they are unfamiliar with, quick passing and chips up the boards vs. controlled possession breakouts by one guy. The Wolverines came back the next night after that first meeting and generally handled it better, but they were still wobbly, allowing a goal right off the jump that was very similar to the goals they were allowing in buckets the night before, with a defenseman turning it over under pressure. When the teams met again in Columbus, Michigan put up a similar performance to game #2, handling it alright, but still seeing the ice tilted against them in a shootout loss. During the wacky outdoor game in Cleveland, Michigan handled OSU better than they had all season for the first 30-35 minutes, playing a very even game, but things spiraled and a series of mistakes (mostly on special teams!) let it get away from 'em. I described Ohio State in the preview last week as a "riddle (Michigan) has struggled to solve", but the reality is that Michigan had slowly been putting together the pieces to solve that riddle. With each passing game against the Bucks, Brandon Naurato's team was becoming more familiar, more comfortable with playing the kind of game that you need to break down Ohio State's system and open the floodgates open. We saw that in the outdoor game, but much of the analysis from it was obscured by the goofiness of an outdoor game, the poor ice conditions, strange camera angles, and then the team's ultimate meltdown in the third period. Under the surface, the clues were there. This weekend the Michigan team pulled out their magnifying glass, pipe, trench coat, and sluethin' hat and solved the damn riddle. [AFTER THE JUMP: Clips of team growth]