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Ohio teams disrupt Morrison, power play

BOWLING GREEN -- The last time Brendan Morrison was this frustrated, he was sitting in the press box, nursing a knee injury. This weekend, the Wolverines' star and Hobey Baker award candidate, was irritated, not by some swollen cartilage, but by a pair of choking defensive schemes.

Ohio State and Bowling Green not only managed to shut down Morrison, but also rendered Michigan's power play practically nonexistent.

Morrison entered the weekend leading the conference in scoring and leading the country in points per contest. He scored 11 points in one weekend earlier this month and was named CCHA Player of the Week for the fourth time last week.

But in two games against Ohio State and Bowling Green, he only made a cameo appearance in the box score on a goal that bounced off his stick on the way to the net. It wasn't so much that Morrison was ineffective, but rather both opponents made a blatant attempt to stop him.

"Coming in we knew we had to take their best player out of the game," Ohio State coach John Markell said. "(Sean Sutton) did a great job on him."

Markell's game plan going in was to have Sutton hang on Morrison like jewelry on Deion Sanders. And while Sutton was choking Morrison, the rest of the Wolverines were too busy trying to give him the Heimlich maneuver to start any consistent offense -- especially on the power play.

Against the Buckeyes, Michigan went scoreless in three chances with a man advantage -- the first time they didn't score a power play goal since a 5-0 loss to Western Michigan Dec. 9.

The next night, the Wolverines found themselves in nine man-up situations, but could only manage one goal -- when Harold Schock's slapshot took an accidental bounce off Morrison's stick and hopped into the goal.

"We were just getting a little lazy on the power play," Michigan center Mike Legg said of the Wolverines paltry effort. "Instead of picking it up when we had the man advantage we laid back thinking it was a break."

Michigan's special teams were horrendous compared to past performance. Not only was the power play unsuccessful, but even more distressing to Michigan was their torrid penalty killing.

After not allowing a power-play goal in nine contests -- holding opponents 0-for-46 in those games -- the Wolverines allowed Ohio State, the lowest scoring team in the league, to convert one of its three chances.

The next night, Bowling Green cashed in on three of its seven chances -- the most power play goals Michigan has surrendered all season.

And if you wanted to point to something as the reason the Wolverines came out of the weekend with only one point, get this statistic:

In Michigan's 20 victories it has converted 35.8 percent of its power play opportunities. In the their five losses and one tie, the Wolverines have connected for only two power play goals in 36 chances -- a 5.6 percent success rate.

THE STREAK STOPS HERE: Michigan managed to alter the record books a bit this weekend, but probably not in the way it would have liked. Friday's tie at Ohio State snapped an eight-game win streak. Saturday's loss to Bowling Green ended a similar nine-game unbeaten streak.

But what hurt most were the one-on-one battles. The Wolverines had won 22 consecutive matchups with the Buckeyes before Friday. And dating back to 1992, Bowling Green hadn't beaten Michigan in 12 straight games.

BACK IN THE THICK OF THINGS: After sitting out two games with a leg injury, junior defenseman Blake Sloan returned to the lineup Friday night, as expected. Sloan made his presence felt, sending the game into overtime with a mammoth blast just 64 seconds before the end of regulation.

"It was a good feeling," Sloan said. "But we still didn't win it."