He sits next to his captains: senior forward Trevor Nill and juniors forward Anthony Hayes and defenseman Torey Krug – three players who were virtual strangers to him a year ago.

Discussing a loss doesn’t seem like an accomplishment, but for the MSU hockey program, competing in the game was a milestone.

In 2010-11, the team finished 15-19-4, good for tenth in the CCHA.

The year prior wasn’t as bad, as the team finished in second place in the CCHA. But MSU still failed to make it to the NCAA Tournament that year.

In fact, the Spartans haven’t faced off in an NCAA Tournament game since 2008. When Anastos became head coach, he was taking the reins of a losing program that he was determined to turn around.

“When Coach Anastos was hired he told us we were his guys and he was going to win with us,” Krug said. “Everybody bought into that and from that day forward everyone gave 100 percent effort 100 percent of the time.”

It was that very first day that Anastos began to seek out a way to turn the program around. A year is not a very long time, especially when some coaches have been with a single team for decades, but according to Krug, it took him very little time to adjust to coaching the team.

“With any coaching change I think there’s a period of nervousness and a period of anxiousness,” he said. “With Coach Anastos, that period of nervousness was very short-lived. He won us over on the very first day. So I’m very happy that we had that we had that group in the locker room that we did to take that change.”

It might have been Anastos’ history with MSU that allowed him to adapt so quickly to a MSU head coaching role. He was a four-year letterwinner with the Spartans from 1981-85, where he guided his team to four consecutive CCHA tournament titles and four NCAA Tournament appearances.

He returned to MSU hockey in 1990 as an assistant coach under Ron Mason for two seasons.

When Anastos rejoined the program on March 23, 2011, he was handed a team with no NCAA Tournament experience. Not a single player on the current roster had made it to an NCAA game before, but that was not an issue for the coach.

Krug said Anastos has a passion for MSU, and that passion is one they feed off of everyday. And it might just be that passion that got the MSU hockey team to their first NCAA Tournament game in four years.

The seniors who were recruited by former head coach Rick Comley have experienced first-hand the changes Anastos brought to MSU.

“We took a great step forward for the program, getting back to the NCAA Tournament,” senior forward Brett Perlini said. “He came in with a new attitude and allowed us to work hard everyday and taught us we can accomplish our goals if we really work at them. He’s believed in us since day one and the program’s on the right track now.”