Billy Sauer backstops Wolverines to Frozen Four
Ask any Michigan hockey fan their biggest concern heading into this upcoming season and it was netminder Billy Sauer. The junior netminder really struggled during the 2006-07 campaign, allowing 3.03 goals per game and stopping only 89.6% of the shots he faced. There wasn’t anything in his body of work to that point to suggest he’d turn into a goalie capable of guiding a team to the Frozen Four.
Fortunately his play took a huge turn for the better, as he’s turned into the polar opposite of Al Montoya, a guy who started off brilliantly at Michigan before his game completely fell apart during his junior year at Michigan [stopping 89.5% of the shots he faced]. Through last night’s game Sauer is averaring 1.92 goals allowed per game and has a 92.7% save percentage. My guess is that a fair amount of the credit has to go to new goaltending coach Josh Blackburn, a former Wolverine netminder who was the starter for the 2000-01 and 2001-02 seasons.
The Michigan Daily has a good article on the role Blackburn has played in Sauer having a breakout season this year.
…where did Blackburn, Michigan’s netminder from 1999-2002, start with the goaltender?
“The biggest thing that we worked on was him playing out of the net more,” Blackburn said. “And him staying out when pressure was coming, staying out, not backing in.”
Rather than backing up toward the net after a defensive breakdown, Sauer now positions his giant white pads at the edge of the crease.
But aside from working on reading the rush and fine-tuning the fundamentals, Blackburn helped Sauer in the more intangible aspects of playing the position.
He’s now addressing aspects of Sauer’s game, such as how to prepare for and compose himself in games, something Sauer said he had never considered.
“This is the most coaching Billy has probably had on a week-to-week basis,” Michigan coach Red Berenson said. “Whereas last year, our coach was here for a couple days, then he wouldn’t be here for three or four weeks.
“I think (Blackburn’s) presence alone has been huge for Billy Sauer.”
If Red says so, then it’s true. Sauer turned in one of his better performances this season last night, as he blanked the Clarkson Golden Knights 2-0. The backstop saved his most impressive feats for the end of the game, when Clarkson had a two-man advantage and pulled their goalie for a sixth attacker. The Golden Knights weren’t able to get the puck past him during a furious goalmouth scramble. The Wolverines were able to eventually clear the puck and with that the team advanced to the Frozen Four.
Kevin “Hobey Baker” Porter potted the insurance goal while Aaron Palushaj opened scoring with what would turn out to be the game-winning goal. The areas where Michigan seemed to struggle were in the faceoff circle [Clarkson soundly beat them by winning 58.8% of the draws], taking too many penalties and being forechecked in their own end. The Wolverines are lucky Clarkson has an awful power play. They hadn’t connected on something like their prior 18 power play advantages heading into the game and they went 0-9 last night.
Clarkson played really well in the opening period and seemed to have some success setting up scoring chances when they forechecked Michigan deep in their own end. The Wolverines did look a little better along the boards as the game went on, so that is a good sign as I suspect teams will continue to try and put pressure on Michigan’s blueliners to force turnovers.
The Wolverines will face Notre Dame for the opportunity to play for the national championship. The Irish knocked off Michigan State and in doing so eliminated Michigan’s biggest threat. Michigan has gone 2-0 against Notre Dame this season so they should feel pretty confident about their chances of advancing. The Irish have to feel pretty good as well, coming through a very tough bracket to advance to their first Frozen Four in school history. If Miami can advance that would put three CCHA teams in the Frozen Four. But I think BC is going to be a significant foe so we’ll see how that plays out.
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