'M' will need its own hero to escape slide, make tourney

Michigan's NCAA playoff chances seem to be following the same plot line. Once a virtual guarantee to make the tournament's 12-team field, the Wolverines are now on the bubble - an unfamiliar perspective for a team that last missed the NCAA postseason in 1990.

And while Michigan graduated quite a bit of goal-scoring talent from last season's national championship team, the Wolverines returned more than enough to be a player in the national championship hunt. This year's sophomore class, under the guidance

CHRIS DUPREY Dupe's Scoop

of senior captain Bubba Berenzweig, was supposed to grow and take a greater leadership role.

It's possible that development is taking place. It's possible the Wolverines will be all right in the long term.

But for now Michigan is in trouble. Carrying a 17-9-6 record with four regular season games left to play, the 20-win plateau has become a challenge for a team that was surely capable of 25.

Last season's team was happy to be at home in Ann Arbor in March, when it won the Yost regional. It used the friendly confines of the Old Barn to skate its way to the Frozen Four. This year's Wolverines might not have a choice.

The old men who decide the NCAA field will have severe distaste for a Michigan team that surrenders three-goal leads to bottom-of-the-barrel opponents like Western Michigan.

They will disapprove of a team that is playing its worst hockey of the season when it is supposed to be playing its best - although the Wolverines' second-period showing against Michigan State on Saturday night had a shred of promise.

The players continue to point to a lack of execution as the reason for their slide down the mountain. We're just not burying our chances, they're fond of saying.

That explanation was acceptable for the early part of this streak. Yet as the winless skid hits eight, maybe there are other problems - problems behind closed doors.

Maybe the egos that highly-recruited players are prone to have are clashing in that Michigan lockerroom. Maybe the losing and the tying and the lead-blowing have caused destructive finger-pointing among the Wolverines.

It would be easy to understand if Michigan had no talent. But its November hot streak proved otherwise, as the Wolverines defeated Michigan State and Notre Dame in businesslike fashion, playing some of the best hockey in the country at that point of the season.

The time has come for these guys to play like Michigan, to honor the tradition that would take such a hit if the Wolverines didn't qualify for the NCAA tournament. Whatever the problem, whatever the frequent cliché, Berenzweig and Michigan must find it, before it's too late.

Time is running out. Where's MacGyver when you need him?

- Chris Duprey can be reached via e-mail at cduprey@umich.edu

- Comments about our hockey coverage can be sent via e-mail to dailyhockey@umich.edu

02-22-99