Updating Past Stories

Apparently I didn't talk about Miami's defensive success enough when I tried to give them some credit earlier this week. There's a number of things I could have said about Miami. They've been excellent at home and on the road. They've given up the fewest goals in league play and scored the second most goals in league play.

I still think the biggest key to their defense has been the improvement in net though. I mentioned the difference in goals against average between Zatkoff/Effinger and Crawford-West last season. If Miami was allowing goals at the same rate they did last year with Crawford-West, they drop down to 4th in the league in goals allowed. I didn't crunch the save percentage numbers, but I'm sure they would net similar results.

Another piece of news I talked about was the potential for Andrew Cogliano to leave Michigan this summer to play for the Oilers. I talked with MGoBlog proprietor and inexplicable Oilers fan Brian Cook about this and he seemed confident that Cogliano will be back in Ann Arbor next season. I still think all things being equal, the Oilers would rather have Cogliano in the lineup next season over their other top prospects, Robbie Schremp and Marc-Antoine Pouliot. But the Oilers are in a position that they have to sign Schremp next season while they can let Cogliano marinate for another season in college, and it would be difficult to break in all three youngsters at once. I'm basically getting the impression that Cogliano will likely be back next year, but gone after his sophomore season, which will likely be fine for Michgian since they're bringing in a pretty large forward class in 2007.

Speeaking of Michigan's 2007 recruiting class, one player that I've mentioned before is Omaha Lancers forward Brett Bruneteau. Bruneteau, who is an Omaha native, told the Omaha World-Herald that his college choices are down to Michigan, Colorado College, Denver, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Nebraska-Omaha. Basically, Bruneteau dropped a couple of Eastern schools, specifically BU and UNH, off his list. If I had to guess, it sounds like Michigan might have a bit of an inside track, but they might not have room for Bruneteau, especially if Pat Kane commits to Michigan.

I had mentioned that Wisconsin goalie Brian Elliott is healthy and ready to play again. It's been decided that Elliott will play one game this weekend.

An astute reader noticed that after my plug of Parseforhobey.com, Scott Parse jumped to the top of the fan vote standings. I doubt I had much to do with it, but if people want to give me credit, I'll happily accept.

There's a dedicated group of Michigan State fans trying to get Bryan Lerg up in the standings. It's an uphill battle since most Michigan State hockey fans would rather harken back to a simpler time when Orson Welles terrorized the country with cruel hoaxes and their Tin Lizzie got 8 rods to a hogshead than go near one of those scary computer things. They got Lerg over 1000 points though which is a respectable showing.

If you've been following CSTV's Hobey Baker Watch, you might have noticed CSTV announcer Matt McConnell had a curious ballot this week.

He had Matt Carle first, Brian Elliott second, David Booth third(!), Scott Parse fourth, and I don't know who fifth.

The Booth thing is incredibly strange to me. He does give his reasoning, saying that Booth has scored in 10 straight games and has average a point per game since the GLI. I guess I can accept that argument for putting him on the list, but above Scott Parse? Parse has only scored in seven straight games(though in half of those games in Booth's streak, Booth has only tallied a single assist), but Parse has averaged more points per game than Booth since the GLI. That's not even taking into account the first half of the season when Parse was dominant and Booth was out largely due to injury.

The other weird thing was McConnell moving Matt Carle over Brian Elliott into the top spot. I can certainly understand the reasoning for it, but McConnell mentions that it's simply due to Elliott missing time due to injury. The question is, why is Elliott punished for missing games, while David Booth, who missed more time than Elliott, is not? It's just strange all around.