Michigan returns to the Great Lakes Invitational finals tonight (7pm vs. Michigan Tech), looking to repeat at the holiday tournament, and the Wolverines have an ace up their sleeve – senior goalie Steve Racine.
Racine returned to action in last night’s 3-2 win over Northern Michigan after missing four straight games when he suffered a lower-body injury in the first period of U-M’s 1-1 tie with Dartmouth Nov. 28.
“Having an injury is tough, especially your senior year, but I tried to stay in shape and be ready when I came back,” Racine said after improving to 6-3-0 in games played at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
Michigan seems intent to turn over the reins permanently to Racine in the second half of the year, but he has to live up to his potential.
Handing him the keys at this week’s GLI made a lot of sense because Racine has been at his best when playing in front of the Detroit crowd (which had an announced attendance Tuesday of 15,967).
In nine starts at Joe Louis Arena, Racine has posted a 1.89 goals against average and a .944 save percentage, making 35 saves in last night’s victory and 71 on 73 shots in leading the Maize and Blue to a GLI title in 2014.
“I liked our goalie [play],” head coach Red Berenson said. “He had some early saves that could have been goals and could have been costly. He made the saves when he had to, and he gave us a chance.
“The break came at a good time for Steve. He had that time off. We got back on the ice 3-4 days ago. He’s had a chance to recover and refocus. I thought he started off strong [last night] and played well.”
On the surface, Michigan’s 3-2 win over the Wildcats may look pedestrian but the Maize and Blue were without their top two defensemen – sophomore Zach Werenski is playing for Team USA at World Juniors and junior Michael Downing was suspended two games by the Big Ten stemming from a hit against Minnesota Dec. 12.
Complicating matters further, the Wolverines were forced to kill off a five-minute major penalty at 13:00 of the third period, clinging to a one-goal lead. Incredibly, the short-benched Maize and Blue limited NMU to just two shots.
“I said it to start the year, one of the things we liked about team was we had good depth on defense,” Berenson started. “I didn’t know it would be tested like this. But it was tested and I thought our kids played really well.”
Michigan will try to win tonight’s championship game against Michigan Tech with no reinforcements coming. A win would greatly benefit the (Pairwise) eighth-ranked Wolverines, and to beat the Huskies, U-M will need Racine to play like he has in the comfy confines of JLA.
“I thought I was pretty good [against Northern],” Racine said. “A few things I need to clean up on it, but I’m happy to get back to winning hockey games, especially in an atmosphere like that.”
The game tonight starts at 7:00pm and can be seen live on Fox Sports Detroit.
