The University of Michigan hockey team has an extremely strong and unified group of freshmen who are leading the team to a strong start this season.

Among them is defenseman Owen Power, a projected top-five pick in the 2021 NHL draft. The 6’5, 214-pound blueliner was born in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, Ontario but chose to develop his game in the NCAA as opposed to the CHL.

“I always knew I wanted to go to college,” Power said. “School is a big part of our family, and my parents really believe in going to university, but I also think there’s more time to develop when you go to college.”

Before college, Power made his mark with the Chicago Steel of the USHL. He was the USHL defenseman of the year after leading all defensemen in scoring with 12 goals and 40 points in 45 games. He also said his coaches helped teach him the importance of attention to detail.

“The coaches there were big on doing little things the right way,” he said. “The [Michigan] coaches are really big on the little things too.”

Teammate Brendan Brisson, who played with Power in Chicago, called him a “student of the game.” Power interpreted that to mean being “intentional” during practices, knowing what you want to work on, looking at video, and working on smaller details of his game.

Brisson is another of the Michigan hockey freshmen who are having an impressive start as well. The 29th overall pick in the 2020 draft and son of player agent Pat Brisson has four points in six games this season, but Brisson had an interesting transition from the USHL to the NCAA.

“Our season didn’t start two weeks ago against [Arizona State University], it started right when all of our seasons ended last year,” Brisson said. “We were on Zoom calls once a week, we were in different group chats, [so] right when we got on campus we were a group of brothers. We’re really close as a team and I feel like it shows on the ice.”

Additionally, Brisson said the extra practice time due to the delayed start of the season helped the team. “A lot of extra reps really helped and I feel that we practiced harder than any other team in the country,” he said.

Before dropping back to back games against Notre Dame this weekend, Michigan was 4-0-0. In those four wins, Brisson has appeared to develop chemistry with fellow French Canadian forward Thomas Bordeleau. They’ve assisted on each other’s goals as well as on junior Jimmy Lambert’s goal against Arizona State.

“I’ve known [Bordeleau] for a long time,” Brisson said. “He’s obviously a really good player [and he] just makes [the game] so much easier to play. He’s a player that’s really special to watch.”

Bordeleau put himself on the map recently with a terrific game-winning goal to beat the University of Minnesota. He said the pressure of his first overtime in college hockey didn’t get to him.

Top play on @SportsCenter belongs to Michigan Hockey and Thomas Bordeleau!#GoBlue〽️ @espn #SCTop10 pic.twitter.com/CbqVxLiza8

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) November 21, 2020

“I was trying to approach it like a normal three-on-three and not put too much pressure on myself,” Boredeleau said. “I was going out there for my second shift feeling confident and I just tried to read off what the team gave me.”

Through six games, Bordeleau is averaging over a point per game. He’s scoring at a higher pace than his two years in the USHL. He attributes that to a different style of play with Michigan, as opposed to the US National Team Development Program (USNTDP).

“Last year we really had to beat teams with 2-1 games or 3-2 games where we played tight defense and just grind them out,” he said. “This year’s a little different. We’re so much more skilled than my team last year that there’s a lot of different plays that can be done and different opportunities that we can take advantage of.”

He added that with the USNTDP, he had to put his personal goals aside and buy into the team identity. They won games not through skill, but by grinding other teams out, he said.

Michigan hockey lost back to back games against Notre Dame this weekend by scores of 2-1 and 3-2, with neither of the aforementioned freshmen scoring in either game. Michigan’s next matchup will be Wednesday in State College against winless Penn State.

Ben Baruch

Born and raised on Long Island. Isles fan since 2009. Studying journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park.