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The Central Michigan Chippewas spent the weekend in Canton, Michigan for the first and second rounds of the 2020 MCHC playoff tournament. With winning the Vezina Cup two seasons ago and falling in the semi-finals last season, the Chips are pursuing their second Vezina in three seasons.

CMU placed third within the east side bracket which matched them up with the Northwood University Timberwolves for round one last Friday night.

Just earlier this month, the Chips swept the Timberwolves by scores of 4–1 and 7–3. Not blowout wins by any means, but CMU still dominated play through the two matchups.

With Northwood not qualifying for the regional playoffs in early March, it was all or nothing play from the Timberwolves out of the gate as star forward Matt Hensley put NU up 1–0 just a minute and ten seconds into the opening period. A start the Chips definitely did not approve of.

It took a while for the Chippewas to respond, but they came back hard in the final minutes of the first. With CMU defenseman Kyle Bolger in the box for interference, Andrew Porzondek scored top shelf on an unassisted, shorthanded breakaway to knot the game at one apiece with 4:38 left in the first.

Just a mere three minutes later, Jackson Jennette netted a one-timer off a great feed from Porzondek and Joey Simoncelli to take the lead 2–1 heading into the first intermission.

Just under five minutes into the second period Northwood forward Brendan McCarthy got booked for holding, putting the Chips on the power play once again. It only took 44 seconds for CMU to capitalize and go up 3–1 with 14:16 to go in the middle frame. Chippewas forward Brendan Nelson slapped in his first goal of the tournament off a feed from Dalton Sutherland from the point.

The assist from Sutherland on the goal by Nelson finally gave the captain his 300th career point. A milestone that may never be caught by another Chippewa.

#4 Dalton Sutherland (Photo by Tyler Lajiness)

Just a minute later, Northwood University defenseman Nick Sleeper picked up a high sticking penalty with 13:16 left in the second. The CMU power play did not last long, as Jacob Lancucki picked up a 10-minute misconduct with a minor penalty, putting play to 4 on 4 for nearly a full two minutes. With the ice wide open, Nelson was able to connect on a pass into the attacking zone to Jacob Turowski. Turowski then headed deep towards the Northwood goaltender, splitting two defensemen in the process and going top shelf with a backhand to put the Chips up 4–1 with 12:26 left in the second.

#11 Jacob Turowski (Photo by Haley Zerkel)

Now having a three-goal lead before the halfway point of the game, CMU was far from done putting goals up on the board.

Jordan Wadge netted a goal with 9:32 remaining the middle period, followed by a second goal from Jennette (assisted by Porzondek) as he stuffed one through the pads of the Northwood netminder, Brendan Campbell.

An interesting event occurred a the 7:23 mark of the second period, as Lancucki was ejected just over halfway through his 10-minute misconduct. After an altercation with an overly-sensitive scorekeeper, Lancucki left the game and is disqualified for game two of the weekend if the Chippewas pulled off a win.

With the score now being 6–1 CMU, Timberwolves forward Justin Carter went bar-down over the shoulder of Michael Schwanke. Making the score 6–2 with just over five minutes to go in the second.

The final minutes of the second period and the entire third period resulted in three more unanswered goals from CMU.

Turowski smacked home a one-timer for his second goal of the game off a feed from Nelson. Followed by a wrap-around goal by Simoncelli (assisted by Keegan Moore) at the halfway point of the third period. Then, in the final minutes of the game, Porzondek scored his second goal of the night off what seemed to be an effortless wrist shot while on the powerplay.

After going 3/5 on the power play and 4/4 on the penalty kill, the Chippewas took the first-round game by a score of 9–2. As they starting preparing for their matchup against the #2 seed Oakland University the next day.

Central Michigan University vs. Oakland University (2/22)

CMU came into this game against the Oakland University Golden Grizzlies with a lot of confidence coming off their 9–2 win over Northwood University in round one. These two squads have not faced off against each other since October 19 of 2019. Which resulted in OU sweeping the Chippewas by scores of 5–3 and 7–4. Both of them being comeback wins.

The first 16 minutes of the game was very intense back and forth play between the two teams. Both goaltenders were playing great games with each of them stopping 8 shots each during that time.

After nearly a period of shutout hockey, Jacob Turowski broke the silence as he netted his third goal of the weekend. The original shot from Brendan Nelson snuck under the glove arm of OU goaltender Domenico Munaco and sat right on the goal line. The puck was then batted in by Turowski to take the 1–0 lead with just 3:18 left in the first.

CMU managed to hang on and head into the first break with the 1–0 lead.

Oakland came out hard to start the second period of play and managed to tie the game up just one minute and 20 seconds into the period. A power-play goal by Sam Palmeter (assisted by Steve Lauro) created a whole new game making it a 1–1 tie.

#5 Andrew Porzondek (Photo by Tyler Lajiness)

The tie game only lasted a few minutes until Andrew Porzondek got out in the open and netted a breakaway goal (assisted by Joey Simoncelli and Christopher Martin) going over the shoulder of Munaco with 15:07 left in the second period.

Later, at the 4:22 mark of the second, Alex Lasky, who was coming off of a multi-game suspension scored on a one-timer after a beautiful feed across the slot area from Simoncelli. Putting the Chips up 3–1 heading into the second intermission.

The third period was a very hectic and exciting period, to say the least. Right off the bat, Porzondek stuffed in a rebound to make the CMU lead 4–1 just 53 seconds into the final period.

Within the next nine minutes of play, the Golden Grizzlies cut Central’s lead down to one as John Artemenko and Lauro both buried goals making the score 4–3 with 10:34 left in the game.

After four minutes of repeated scoring chance for both teams, Charlie Hayes of CMU picked a great time to score his first goal of the year as he deked out Munaco after tic-tac-toe passing from McComas and Nelson. Getting the lead back to two goals, making the score 5–3 with 5:58 to go.

Less than two minutes later, at the 4:00 mark, Brendan Nelson battled two Golden Grizzlies along the boards for nearly 30 seconds and still managed to come out with possession of the puck. He then connected on a pass to Turowski, got open in the slot, and finished the play by netting a one-timer goal to make the lead 6–3 CMU.

The final minutes created a nail-biting environment as just 57 seconds later, at the 3:03 mark, Joey Savel cut the lead to 6–4, after being silenced on the scoreboard all game.

Late in the game, Josh Konczak headed to the box for OU with 1:24 left in the game. Oakland then had to pull their goaltender to get back to even strength. But, at the 47-second mark, Jacob Standre of CMU picked up a tripping call making it 4 on 4 hockey.

The Golden Grizzlies pulled their goalie to make it 5 on 4 and managed to net a goal on a beautiful redirect by Lauro. Tacking up his second goal of the night with just 40 seconds left. Making the score 6–5, CMU lead.

With Munaco still on the bench for the extra skater, OU kept the puck in the Chippewas’ zone for the final 40 seconds of the game. CMU goalie, Thomas Rofe came in clutch, making four saves in the 40-second span.

The game ended with CMU winning 6–5 over Oakland University.

Central Michigan will be traveling to Griff’s IceHouse West in Holland, Michigan on Friday, February 28 for a 7:40 P.M. puck drop. The Chips will be taking on the University of Michigan Wolverines in the MCHC semi-finals as they look to earn their ticket to the Vezina Cup Finals on February 29th.