It’s been a successful first half of the season for the MSU hockey team.
The Spartans head into the holiday break with a 12-3-2 record – the best such start under head coach Rick Comley – with all three losses coming to teams ranked No. 1 in the country at the time of the game.
On top of that, the Spartans are undefeated in six games.
“I don’t think we’ve really reached our potential yet as a team,” Comley said Monday at his weekly press conference. “We’ve done a pretty good job and I think we are chasing people ahead of us and I think we can play an awful lot better on a consistent basis that what we’ve done.”
Comley said the only disappointment of the first half has been the two losses to Miami (Ohio).
“I don’t think they’re two games better than we are,” Comley said.
After getting some time off, MSU gets to look forward to the Great Lakes Invitational at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
This season, the Spartans get Michigan Tech on the opening day while Michigan will battle Providence.
Divided league
At this point, the CCHA standings are quite divided.
U-M, Miami, Notre Dame and MSU occupy the top four spots with MSU coming in at 16 points. After that, there’s quite the drop off, as the next four teams are bunched between 10-12 points while the final four have 2-5 points each.
“Everyone thought the top four would be who they are,” Comley said. “I never dreamed there would be this much of a separation, though. There’s some teams that have struggled a lot more than I thought they would struggle. There’s a lot of players around the league who are going players who haven’t been able to score and I expect a lot of teams will have better second halfs.”
Another honor
Junior forward Tim Crowder was named the CCHA Offensive Player of the Week for his efforts in the weekend sweep against Ferris State.
Crowder scored two goals both nights and has seemingly overcome a slow start to the season with five goals in his last three games.
“Getting four goals in a weekend is obviously great,” Crowder said Saturday. “(Hopefully) I can just carry that over from Christmas and do the same thing.”
Nationwide
The CCHA continued its national dominance this week, as four of the nation’s top six teams were from the conference.
U-M moved to No. 1 while Miami fell from the top spot to No. 2 after a loss to Alaska.
The Spartans remained at No. 5 while Notre Dame stayed at No. 6.
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
