Michael Hage Dominates In Season Opener

After the first period, the Wolverines were up 4-1. Even though Hage hadn’t gotten a point yet, he had chances, and it felt like something was going to happen eventually. It wasn’t until 7:47 into the 2nd period that Hage recorded his first point of the season, when he went on a 2-on-0 with his linemate Malcolm Spence, who fed him a perfect pass to score a beautiful goal to put the Wolverines up 5-1. 

It wasn’t much later that Hage got his first assist by winning a draw right onto teammate Will Horcoff’s stick, who sniped it into the net. While it wasn’t a fancy play to get the assist, it is the little things like that that can make him more valuable as a player when he’s in a scoring slump. Last year, there were times when he would disappear when not producing, but if Hage can win faceoffs and throw hits, he’ll be able to continue to contribute to his team’s success. Hopefully, he can continue to be a good faceoff man for the Wolverines this year.

Hage’s 3rd point of the game during a 3rd period power-play as he slid the puck to the slot to Horcoff to get an assist on his teammates’ hat-trick goal. This goal gave the Wolverines an 8-1 lead. 

A little over a minute later, Hage and the Wolverines were back on the power-play. Hage and defenseman Henry Mews were passing the puck back & forth on the point before Hage ripped a shot past the Mercyhurst goaltender to put the Wolverines up 9-1.

His final point of the game came when he repaid Spence for the earlier goal by finding his teammate’s back door for the easy goal that gave the Wolverines their final goal of the game.

Hage played a great game for Michigan and it wasn’t all about the points, as he also did a lot of the little things to help his team have success throughout the game, like winning 73% of his draws. He seemed to also help his teammates produce better throughout the whole game.

This is something that Hage can hopefully carry with him to the NHL when he joins the Montreal Canadiens in the next few years. If he can make his teammates better, he could really be that missing 2nd line centre for the Habs for the long-term future.

Hage will be looking to continue to build on his success from Friday night’s game next week when the Wolverines take on fellow Habs prospect Logan Sawyer and the Providence Friars next Friday at 7:00 pm ET.