Michigan will play Nebraska-Omaha in the second round of the CCHA playoffs this weekend in a best of three series all at Yost. UNO, as i like to call them, has one of the deadliest scoring combinations in the CCHA this year as well as in the NCAA in general. Bryan Marshall and Mike Lawrence both finished the season tied for fourth in the CCHA in scoring with Derek Whitmore of Bowling Green. Marshall has been out with injury for the past two weeks, which did nothing but hurt the Mavericks in their epic struggle of a series with Alaska this past weekend.
After squeaking out a 4-3 win in Thursday's game the Mavs got very little help from their offense as the normally offensively anemic Nanooks scored five goals en route to a 5-3 win on saturday. The Mavs then fought in a battle to the death on sunday in which neither side could get a leg up for two and a quarter of overtime while the score remained 1-1. Then junior forward J.P. Platisha scored about four and half minutes into the third overtime letting the few people that were still interested in the game know who was going to play Michigan in the second round.
Michigan swept UNO earlier in the year in Omaha, in the first game of the series Kevin Porter had his first hat trick of the year against the Mavs. That was also the game that would set the tone for the legthy stretch in which Michigan would dominate third periods in terms of scoring, Michigan scored five goals in the final stanza to get a 6-3 victory. The second game was a closer affair that was finished off by a late third period goal by Carl Hagelin for the 3-2 win for the Maize and Blue.
Both teams are coming in off of stretches in which they had somewhat tough stretches. Michigan split their last two series, and UNO went 2-3 in their last five, including getting swept by Northern Michigan.
For more info, tune into Charles in Charge on WOLV overtime later in the week.
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