Before Saturday, the Michigan hockey team had gone the entire season without a winning record.
But thanks to three first-period goals in the finale of a weekend series against Rensselaer (4-2 ECAC, 6-9-1 overall), the Wolverines coasted to a 6-0 victory. And, alas, with five wins in its past six games, Michigan (1-1 Big Ten, 7-6) finally crept above the .500 mark.
“I thought we got better as the weekend went on,” said Michigan coach Red Berenson. “Not only because we scored some goals, but I thought we played better. We got out of our own zone cleaner, we started to play the right way … Today, we were better on faceoffs, we didn’t give up as many shots against (and) as many chances against.”
Junior forward Boo Nieves led the way with two goals and one assist, marking the 13th multi-point game of his career. In addition to his breakout performance, the first-period outburst included sophomore forward Alex Kile’s team-high seventh goal of the season, and sophomore defenseman Kevin Lohan’s second career goal.
For his first tally of the evening, Nieves gathered a loose puck at the left circle and fired a well-placed slapshot to give Michigan a 3-0 lead with 3:06 left in the first period. Just two minute earlier, his crafty, cross-ice pass to Kile helped the Wolverines end a scoring drought with the man-advantage, one that comprised an 0-for-13 stretch on the power play.
Nieves’ second tally came off a highlight-reel goal in which he made a nice move through traffic to cut to the net before roofing a shot over goaltender Scott Diebold with 8:42 remaining in the second period. Prior to this weekend, Nieves had recorded one other multi-goal game in his career, a two-goal performance on Feb. 1 of 2013 in a 3-2 win over Michigan State.
“It was pretty similar to tonight, too,” Nieves said. “We got up early and then, you know, we just got some plays, broken plays again, that kind of turned into goals. We capitalized on all of our opportunities, which made the difference in the game.”
In the early going, RPI came out of the gates with some fire as it peppered sophomore goaltender Zach Nagelvoort with five shots before Michigan could record one of its own. It took the Wolverines more than six minutes to finally test Diebold, but a flurry of chances guided them to a 1-0 lead shortly thereafter.
“I was really impressed with (RPI) all weekend,” Berenson said. “They’re hard to play against. They don’t give you much. That could have been a 1-0 game going either way, so I think it was important we got the first goal.”
At the 12:07 mark of the first period, Lohan corralled a rebound off a shot from freshman forward Tony Calderone, and he was able to slip it over the goal line.
Lohan’s goal kept an impressive trend in tact for Michigan. After Wolverine defensemen scored just three goals in the 2013-14 season, this year’s blue-line corps has nearly tripled that mark with eight goals in 13 games.
Calderone would also get a goal of his own — the first of his career — midway through the third period off a feed from sophomore forward Tyler Motte. Sophomore forward JT Compher would slam the exclamation point on the lopsided victory with a great individual effort with just over seven minutes remaining, netting Michigan’s sixth goal and his third in as many games.
“I think that we made it one of our goals to kind of turn it around this homestand,” Compher said. “(It’s) what we call ‘protect Yost,’ so just coming in, working all week for these games and making sure we’re sound defensively. When we’re letting up less than a few goals, we’re winning games so that’s been our main focus.”
Behind the defense, Nagelvoort looked strong for much of the evening, especially in the moments following Lohan’s tally when he made a pair of crucial saves behind heavy screens. Nagelvoort recorded 24 saves before he was replaced by senior Luke Dwyer, who made two saves to cap off Michigan’s first shutout since Nov. 22 of 2013 — a 6-0 win over Niagara.