Being pegged as the preseason Hobey Baker favorite hasn't done Brendan Morrison any favors.
The Michigan center is known around the country as the best player on the nation's best team - so if there's one player for opponents to gear up for, he's the man.
The added attention has made Morrison a marked man, and the senior is getting a bit frustrated.
Some have said he's struggling. Some have said he's not producing.
But after a six-point weekend in which Morrison led the Wolverines to two nonconference victories, Michigan's captain removed all doubt about whether his supposed slump is over, and he did it without getting a break from the clutch-and-grab defense he has become so accustomed to dealing with.
It's no secret that Michigan's opponents have done everything they can - legal or not - to slow Morrison down, and the senior has taken a beating.
And it's true, his goal-scoring is down. With just five goals in 13 games, nobody knows better than Morrison that he could be putting the puck in the net more than he has.
But to say that Morrison is struggling is missing the point. It doesn't matter so much who scores the goals - what's important is that somebody scores them. And the Wolverines are scoring when Morrison is on the ice.
Regardless of how frustrating it may be for Morrison to have to deal with game after game of cheap shots and double-teaming, all the attention he attracts makes it possible for a guy like Matt Herr to score four goals in two games, like he did this weekend.
If it's not Herr, it's someone else. This weekend, Morrison set up goals for four different Wolverines. And Morrison spent both games peeling off Brown defensemen.
"Brendan's a wonderful player," Brown coach Bob Gaudet said. "But I think if teams just key on Morrison, those other guys can really light it up."
It's a trend that Gaudet picked up on after "those other guys" lit his Bears up on two consecutive nights.
But Morrison and the rest of the Wolverines have been seeing it all year.
The bottom line is that Morrison is creating things on offense. He has been all along - his 24 points are second-best for the Wolverines. If he were really struggling, Michigan simply would not be 11-1-1.