DETROIT—A lucky shot and bounce gave Michigan its 14th Great Lakes Invitational Tournament championship.
A.J. Treais scored with 4:04 left to lift Michigan (12-5-4) to a comeback 6-5 win over Colorado College (12-9-1) on Thursday night in the championship game of the 46th annual edition of the country’s oldest college tournament.
Colorado College took a 5-4 lead on goals 55 seconds apart early in the third period by Stephen Schultz and Tyler Johnson. Johnson’s power-play goal came 5:40 into the period.
“A lot happened in a little amount of time,” Treais said. “I think everyone was flustered at that time. We just needed to take a deep breath and regroup as a team.
The Wolverines did that, and Lee Moffie’s power-play goal with six minutes left tied the contest at 5. His wrist shot from the left point found its way past screened Tigers’ goalie Joe Howe.
“I just threw it on in,” Moffe said. “Lucky it went in.”
Michigan got the lucky bounce when Treais’ shot out of the right corner deflected in off the skate of Colorado College defenseman Eamonn McDermott in the crease for the game winner. That came after Treais was cleanly beaten on a face-off by Nick Dineen but was able to go into the corner and get the puck.
“I took a peek out of the corner of my eye and threw it at the net, hoping it would go in,” Treais said. “And it did.”
Tournament MVP Luke Glendening scored twice, Ben Winnett had a goal and an assist and Louie Caporusso also scored for Michigan. Shawn Hunwick made 24 saves.
Schultz had two goals and an assist, Johnson a goal and an assist, and McDermott and Dineen also scored for Colorado College. All but Schultz’s goal early in the second period were power-play efforts.
Joe Howe stopped 33 shots.
“We held our own but just got a little unlucky at the end,” Tigers coach Scott Owens said.
Colorado College had already received bad news before the game. The team learned that forward Jaden Schwartz—one of the Tigers’ top players who is playing with Team Canada in the International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championships in Buffalo—fractured his left ankle in Tuesday night’s 7-2 win over the Czech Republic.
Michigan got off to a fast start.
Winnett scored 39 seconds into the game and Glendening got a short-handed goal with 9:17 left in the first period. But McDermott came right back with a goal 34 seconds later.
Schultz first goal tied the game at 2 with 5:07 remaining in the opening period.
NOTES: Joining Glendening on the All-Tournament team were forwards Schultz and Michigan’s Carl Hagelin, the defensemen were Colorado College’s Gabe Guentzel and Michigan State’s Torey Krug and Hunwick was the goaltender. . . . Michigan State beat Michigan Tech 5-3 in the third-place game earlier Thursday. . . . The announced crowd was 14,718.
