TAMPA, Fla. — There was no telling when the No. 2 Michigan hockey team would be back.

After a puck jumped over the stick of then-freshman defenseman Luke Hughes, the ensuing year was anything but predictable for the Wolverines. In just 364 days, a head coach, innumerable NHL talent and an established regime departed, leaving a return to the Frozen Four seemingly improbable.

Michigan was left to wonder when another moment would come.

Yet 364 days later, Michigan got that moment — but it wasn’t enough. Against a Quinnipiac team hungry to avenge a lopsided loss that kept the Bobcats out of the Frozen Four last season, the Wolverines (26-12-3 overall) regressed to issues of old, falling to Quinnipiac (33-4-3), 5-2, after 60 minutes of insufficient defensive effort coupled with bad bounces.

“Quinnipiac’s a great team and we have respect for them,” Michigan coach Brandon Naurato said. “They did a great job tonight. … Two goals from behind the net and one from the top of the circles near the boards, it is what it is. That’s why it’s so hard to win a National Championship.

“It’s one game.”

The Wolverines’ ‘one game’ certainly didn’t start the way they had hoped. Plagued by defensive lapses, their play often left junior goaltender Erik Portillo hung out to dry. Unfortunate errors, lackadaisical play and a general lack of effort seemed reminiscent of Michigan’s early season struggles — not the team coming off of a Big Ten Championship and searching for its seventh consecutive win.

The Bobcats logged nine total shots on goal in the first period, but a torrent of chances left little solace as the Wolverines went into the first intermission down 2-1. Though Michigan faced unfortunate puck luck at times, odd-man rushes and missed defensive assignments often facilitated quality chances for Quinnipiac.

“It’s a big credit to them,” junior defenseman Ethan Edwards said of Quinnipiac’s structural game play. “They’re a very disciplined team over there and they were locking it down pretty well. Kudos to them.”

Such discipline proved hard to summit. While the second period had flashes of a return to form for the Wolverines as an equalizing goal by freshman forward Adam Fantilli 10 minutes into the period brought new life, Michigan struggled to consistently execute and rarely took full command.

Across a rollercoaster period that often narrowly went the Wolverines’ way, it took heroic efforts from Portillo and near misses on the part of Quinnipiac’s rush chances to keep the score level going into the third period and stop the Bobcats from “(breaking) it open”, as Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold put it.

But early in the final frame, the Bobcats found more puck luck — and with that, the lead. After a Wolverine defensive lapse let up a 2-on-1 opportunity, Quinnipiac forward Sam Lipkin chipped a backhand from behind the net off of the skate of Portillo. Initially unbeknownst to the goaltender amidst the chaos, the puck had found the back of the net for a 3-2 lead.

“Just a bad bounce,” Naurato lamented.

After the Bobcats took the lead, Michigan couldn’t mount a response. While Portillo’s heroics kept the Wolverines in striking distance, the offense couldn’t break through. Stymied by Quinnipiac’s trap, the Bobcats seemed one step ahead at all times, blocking passing lanes and turning routine schemes into offensive nightmares.

And as Michigan woke up to the consequences of its offensive stagnation, puck watching and missed assignments made hope for an equalizer a distant possibility as the Wolverines fell onto their backfoot. Offensive lapses became defensive punishments as Michigan’s season started slipping away.

“It’s something we knew they were going to do,” Quinnipiac defenseman Zach Metsa said. “They’re run and gun, they love to try and make plays one on one and create offense. When we can turn that around and bring it right back down their throats — we always talk about playing north, playing with pace and that’s the result of that.”

While chance after chance proved insufficient for the Bobcats, Metsa finally delivered the dagger. Floating an unconventional shot, an absent-minded Wolverine defense watched as it landed into the net for a 4-2 Bobcat advantage. Without much time to even react to the dire situation, the empty net goal just minutes later left no doubt. 

364 days after an overtime goal vanquished its last Frozen Four chances, Michigan got its moment once more. A year of trials, tribulations and uncertainties made it somewhat surprising that the Wolverines were even able to claw their way back to the event that had spurned them just a year before. But 364 days later, Michigan exited with the same result. 

Leaving the Wolverines to wonder once again when they will get another chance.