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Michigan Sweeps Spartans with 15-Goal Weekend
- Updated: January 10, 2016
Michigan, which currently sits as the only Big Ten team in the top 15 of the Pairwise, took care of business this weekend. But it wasn’t ordinary business, it was a two-game sweep against rival Michigan State, something quite meaningful no matter the relatively disparity between the teams in any given season.
In fact, Michigan routed the Spartans this weekend, winning 9-2 on Friday then 6-3 on Saturday.
Michigan had weekends before where it blew a team out Friday, then didn’t play well Saturday. So coach Red Berenson was happy his team followed through on back-to-back nights this time.
“I challenged our team last night, ‘Do we know how to finish off a weekend?’ We hadn’t proven that,” Berenson said. “And give Michigan State credit, they got first goal, and I thought our first goal was really important, because if they got two it could’ve been a different outcome. But I like that our team can play from behind and continue to play our game and when the puck starts going in, we can take a team right out of the game.”
Sophomore defenseman Zach Werenski scored for the second straight game in his return from serving as captain of the U.S. World Junior Team, leading a parade of six different goal scorers for the Wolverines. Senior goaltender Steve Racine improved to 6-0-0 in his last seven starts, as Michigan won its fourth straight game overall and improved to 8-1-2 in its last 11 games.
“JT Compher and Tyler Motte have been outstanding, and Werenski back in the lineup makes a difference,” Berenson said. “I thought we had a good team effort the whole weekend, with (fourth-liners) stepping up just makes us even better.”
The Wolverines earned their first home-and-home sweep against the Spartans since Dec. 5-6, 2008.
One night after scoring five goals in a period against the Spartans, the Wolverines scored four in the second period tonight to take control of a game that remained tied at 1-1 after one period of play.
“We’re trying to be a better defensive team,” Berenson said. “We shouldn’t have to score 4-5 goals at home to win a game. Right now we’re lucky the pucks are going in, but they’re going to go in every night. We have to be better defensively. Whether it’s penalty killing, goalkeeping, backchecking, D-zone coverage, so on.”
