2 OT Winner Was 2nd Goal of Game, Punctuating His Breakthrough Season
by Jashvina Shah/Staff Writer (@icehockeystick)
(photo: Rich Gagnon)
ST. LOUIS Sitting in Owen Michaels’ stall while he was out of the room, was a golden helmet with a Western Michigan Broncos logo on it. The helmet itself was nearly hidden, but it’s hard to hide something that shiny.
It was the helmet the Broncos award for the team’s player of the game, and who better to give it to than Michaels?
He scored twice in the game, most importantly scoring 26 seconds into the second overtime period to send Western Michigan to its first national championship in program history.
“It was a broken play,” Michaels said. “I kind of saw the puck squirt out to me, and I just tried to get it off as quickly as possible.”
Michaels saw the puck go in the net.
And then he blacked out.
“He’s just dynamic,” Michaels’ lineman Alex Bump said. “He’s great in the O-zone, the D-zone. He can bury his chances when he gets them. You saw it tonight. He’s got an elite shot. He’s just a complete player. And I can’t say enough good things about that guy.”
It was the first overtime goal in Michaels’ career, at least that he remembers.
“Probably back in youth hockey. This tops that,” Michaels said.
This season, Michaels has almost almost quadrupled his point production, netting 32 points. Last year, he scored seven — with just two goals.
“What we see often is [that] Owen’s play was better than his point totals last year. So we saw offense in him,” Broncos coach Pat Ferschweiler said. “He did have a huge summer in the gym. So he’s stronger. That gym just allows your skills to show, right? And we talked about that. But also getting him to really believe in himself as an offensive player, pushing him forward to play with Alex Bump. These are good things, right? But a lot of the credit goes into the work he put in the summer.
“It wasn’t as big as a jump as it looks on paper. He had very good quality of play last year. The points didn’t follow, but the quality of play was there.”
It isn’t just Michaels who’s made a jump from last season; classmate Grant Slukynsky went from nine points his freshman year to 36 this season. Graduate student Tim Washe has a…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at College Hockey News from CHN…