Inside College Hockey | 2005 NCAA Midwest Regional Final

March 26, 2005
NCAA Midwest Regional Final
What's My Line?
Frischmon, Crabb heroes in Colorado College rally

By James Jahnke

Colorado College 4, Michigan 3
Team	Goal	Str
Time	Assists
First Period
1-UM	Jeff Tambellini (24)	PP
9:17	E. Werner, A. Ebbett
2-UM	Brandon Kaleniecki (13)	PP
15:14	D. Moss, B. Rodgers
Second Period
3-UM	Eric Nystrom (13)	EV
1:32	A. Ebbett
1-CC	Marty Sertich (27)	PP
6:13	L. Sweatt, B. Salcido
2-CC	Trevor Frischmon (9)	SH
17:49	M. Stuart, J. Crabb
Third Period
3-CC	Joey Crabb (16)	EV
4:24	T. Frischmon
4-CC	Trevor Frischmon (10)	EV
10:06	J. Brunkhorst, B. Salcido
Goaltending
UM: Al Montoya, 59:08, 19 saves, 4 GA
CC: Curtis McElhinney, 60:00, 24 saves, 3 GA
Penalties: UM 9-26; CC 6-12
Power Plays: UM 2-5; CC 1-7
Attendance: 6,571
All-Midwest Regional Team
F: Trevor Frischmon, Colo. College (MVP) F: Jeff Tambellini, Michigan F: Marty Sertich, Colorado College D: Brandon Rodgers, Michigan D: Brian Salcido, Colorado College G: Al Montoya, Michigan

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Colorado College has one line to thank for punching the school’s first ticket to the Frozen Four since 1997 – and it’s not the one you think.

Center Trevor Frischmon and right wing Joey Crabb inflicted the kind of damage people have come to expect from Hobey Baker finalists Marty Sertich and Brett Sterling during the team’s 4-3 comeback victory over Michigan in the Midwest Regional final at Van Andel Arena. Frischmon, the regional MVP, scored twice and picked up an assist on Crabb’s tying goal early in the third period. Crabb assisted on Frischmon’s first tally.

Sertich and Sterling, meanwhile, were held to one combined point, a second-period Sertich goal. They weren’t non-factors, but Michigan did a good job of bottling them up.

Enter, to every Tiger’s delight, the Crabb-Frischmon duo to pick up the slack.

“They’ve been great for us all year,” Sterling said. “They’ve spent most of it playing against the top lines in the WCHA, and they’ve put in some great goals this year. They haven’t put up great numbers, but they’ve been real steady all year long for us. Tonight, they just came up huge. They stepped up and played amazing.”

The Frischmon line is generally considered the Tigers’ best defensive unit, but you can’t really call them the checking line, because they’re also the No. 2 scoring line. Crabb and Frischmon both said it was neat to upstage Sterling and Sertich – if only for a night.

“Marty and Brett have so much pressure on them, there’s so many times when they have checking lines on them, shadowing them,” Crabb said. “I think it’s huge when our line or other lines can step up like we did tonight.

Frischmon and Crabb also played major roles on the most controversial play of the game. Down 3-2, Crabb launched a slap shot from the center point that navigated through a maze of bodies and found the net. Michigan goalie Al Montoya immediately signaled that the puck was touched by a high stick – apparently, Frischmon’s – in the slot, and, thus, shouldn’t have been a goal. But even on slow-motion replays, it was impossible to tell whether Frischmon’s stick touched the puck, much less whether the stick was too high. So referee Scott Hansen let the original call – and goal – stand.

Montoya swears the puck was touched, but Frischmon isn’t so sure. Berenson said Hansen didn’t tell him whether the puck was touched with a legally high stick or not touched at all, just that it was a good goal. Sterling thinks it hit a Michigan player’s stick. The truth might be taken to the grave.

“I didn’t feel it hit my stick at all,” Frischmon said. “But if you look at the replay, it kind of looks like it might have. I think it was just a great shot by Joey.”

SAD FAREWELL
Emotions were raw during the Wolverines’ postgame press conference, especially among the seniors. Ten Wolverines – forwards Eric Nystrom, David Moss, Jason Ryznar, Michael Woodford, Milan Gajic and Charlie Henderson, and defensemen Brandon Rogers, Eric Werner, Nick Martens and Reilly Olson – were part of their final college game Saturday.

“It’s a terrible feeling,” Rogers said. “We had the guys in the locker room, the leadership, the whole package to really give it a good run, so when it ends prematurely, it’s a real tough pill to swallow.

Nystrom was even more despondent, saying he couldn’t even talk about the game without wanting to throw his microphone across the room. The most grating part, he said, was losing after holding a three-goal lead.

“I’m just real pissed off that that’s the way we have to go out,” Nystrom said. “You don’t get to the regional finals every year, you don’t get to the Frozen Four every single year. There are no guarantees. You have to take advantage of the chance every time you’re there. Every year, we say we’re going to learn from this, but when are we going to? We’ve been saying it for four years, but now, our four years is up.

"These guys (coming back) have to make sure that when you get in a situation like this, you have that real killer instinct that maybe we didn’t have this year. The killer instinct to put a team down and get to that game you want to be in. We’ve been saying it, but we just haven’t done it. It’s ridiculous. I’m just so upset, so pissed.”

Even stoic coach Red Berenson was sorrowful that a season with so much promise ended before Columbus.

“The seniors ran out of time. They gave it everything they had, and I feel bad for them,” Michigan coach Red Berenson said. “I’m running out of time. I’d like to get back and be in a situation where you win a national championship. It’s a great thing, and if you’re team is good enough, then it’s realistic. I think our team was good enough, so I’m disappointed.”

INCH's Three Stars of the Midwest Regional

3. Trevor Frischmon, Colorado College
ThejJunior from Ham Lake, Minn., earned tournament MVP honors for scoring CC’s second and fourth goals and assisting on its third against Michigan. As a center, he also was a major factor in shutting down U-M counterpart T.J. Hensick.
2. Jeff Tambellini, Michigan forward.
After a four-point game against Wisconsin, Tambellini scored Michigan’s first goal against CC on a power-play laser from the point. He was a marksman all weekend.
1. Marty Sertich, Colorado College
A Hobey Baker front-runner, Sertich’s power-play goal in the second period made it 3-1 and gave the Tigers some badly needed confidence. Sertich also had two points Friday and impressed onlookers with his responsible defensive efforts throughout the weekend.

SEEN AND HEARD AT VAN ANDEL

• Attendance Saturday was 6,571, or about 200 more than Friday. At least 5,000 of them were Michigan fans. Proportionally, it looked like more Colgate fans stayed behind to watch the championship than Wisconsin supporters.

• Throughout the weekend, the scoreboard over center ice flashed the most recent national champions in each NCAA sport. The only one that caught INCH by surprise was Army winning the rifle title. Go figure.

• Michigan shots were the subjects of two other video reviews during the weekend. On Friday, Chad Kolarik was victimized by a tremendous paddle save along the goal line by Wisconsin netminder Bernd Bruckler. Inconclusive replays held up referee Scott Hansen’s original call of no goal.

But the whole review thing worked out for the Wolverines on Saturday, as Eric Nystrom was credited with a goal after CC defenseman Jack Hillen slid into McElhinney and knocked the puck over the goal line. Hansen had blown the play dead, but upon consulting with the men upstairs, determined that the puck went in before the whistle blew.

• Asked about his future after the game, Michigan goaltender and New York Rangers first-round draft pick Al Montoya said: “To tell you the truth, this game just ended, so give me some time to think about it.”

• The biggest play of the night arguably came with the scored tied, 3-3, with 9:30 to play. That was when the puck squirted to Michigan forward Andrew Ebbett, who was alone at the side of the CC net. Ebbett’s shot from a tough-but-not-brutal angle slid through the entire width of the crease and exited just outside the far post. Had he put it in, as most onlookers thought he would, Michigan might have recaptured the momentum. Instead, Frischmon scored the game winner about 36 seconds later.

• If Ebbett’s miss wasn’t the game’s most important play, it might have been CC goalie Curtis McElhinney’s save on a Milan Gajic one-timer during a Wolverine power play with 2:05 to play. Gajic had a wide-open net when he got the puck, but McElhinney came across the crease quickly enough to deny U-M’s top goal hound with a scrambling stick save he termed “a lucky break.” It was one of about four tremendous saves in the latter half of the game by McElhinney, who had been battling the puck for the first four and a half periods of the weekend.

PLUSSES AND MINUSES

Thank goodness for Z’s Restaurant and Bar, which was the only known establishment near Van Andel showing Saturday afternoon’s out-of-town games. Even formerly reliable establishments such as Taps and the B.O.B. were without satellite dishes when it became crunch time. So, after plenty of walking from place to place, diehards wound up at Z’s for the DU-BSU and Maine-Minnesota games. Among those in the crowd was Jason Christopherson, an academic All-American on the Colorado College team that lost to Michigan in the 1996 NCAA final. Big props also go to the two Jones Soda guys for their passion and knowledge of the game.

Even in their state of disappointment, Michigan’s players were cordial and accommodating during their postgame press conference. And, judging by Nystrom’s remarks, they spoke from the heart. It was a nice display.

Fans at Friday’s games were denied the opportunity to buy regional programs – containing Jess Myers’ wonderful piece on old-time barns, no less - because the collectors’ items were accidentally shipped to Amherst instead of Grand Rapids. Fortunately, they made it to Van Andel in time for Saturday’s action at a cost of just $5. Of course, having them in the correct building is priceless..

Michigan forward Milan Gajic might have a bit too much curvature on his stick. During a second-period breakaway, his shot didn’t just go over Curtis McElhinney and over the crossbar, it went over the boards. The officials correctly moved the subsequent faceoff outside the zone..

WHAT'S NEXT

For Colorado College, it’s the winner of Sunday’s Denver-New Hampshire game in a Frozen Four semifinal April 7 in Columbus, Ohio. The Tigers are
2-3 against the Pioneers, their archrivals, this season. Their last meeting against UNH was a 6-2 Wildcats win in the Badger Showdown on Dec.
27, 2001.

Michigan graduates 10 seniors, including eight who played Saturday. Among the key players departing are forwards Eric Nystrom and Milan Gajic and defensemen Brandon Rogers and Eric Werner. Montoya’s status is up in the air, and very well might be as long as the NHL lockout continues. But, as is always the case in Ann Arbor, Michigan will reload. The team’s top three offensive threats, T.J. Hensick, Jeff Tambellini and Brandon Kaleniecki, all have eligibility remaining, as does solid blueliner Matt Hunwick. Expect the Wolverines to be the CCHA preseason favorites and contend for the Frozen Four again.