Trailing Ohio State 3-2 on the road with his team’s CCHA lead hanging in the balance, MSU head coach Ron Mason had to make a switch.
Big, strong Buckeye centers R.J. Umberger (6-foot-2, 202 pounds) and Dave Steckel (6-5, 210) were having their way with the Spartans at Value City Arena and MSU wasn’t doing much to stop them. Umberger tallied two goals and an assist Saturday and Steckel had contributed two assists after notching a pair of goals the night before.
So Mason scanned the players sitting in front of him on the bench and decided to bust up his lines in hopes of slowing down the star Buckeyes, and, hopefully, producing a game-tying goal.
To whom did he turn to neutralize the massive duo? None other than 5-9, 160-pound freshman center Ash Goldie.
Mason elevated Goldie to MSU’s top line with senior right wing Adam Hall and junior left wing Brian Maloney for the third period, and the move helped the Spartans salvage a 3-3 tie.
Goldie, who turns 21 next month, set up Maloney’s game-tying marker with a perfect cross-crease pass for his second point of the game. But that wasn’t the only thing that caught his coach’s attention.
“I thought he was great both nights,” Mason said. “He scored the first goal tonight and he was winning faceoffs for us. He’s back on track for where he should be.
“I thought that (the switch) gave us better balance. It looked like we only had one line that could match up (with Steckel and Umberger) before.”
Hall said he was impressed with Goldie’s ability to adjust to another line in the middle of a game.
“He did a great job of stepping in and making things happen when he got out there with us,” Hall said. “Ash has great hands and he really knows his positional play well. He’s done a great job on faceoffs - he’s been very consistent there - and that goes a long way, especially in close games like this past weekend.”
Goldie, a native of London, Ontario, came to MSU after a season with the London Nationals of the Western Junior B Hockey League and has earned a spot on Mason’s top power play unit.
He carries a five-game point streak (2 goals, 4 assists) into this weekend’s series against Notre Dame. It’s his second five-game point streak of the year, but he has also been held pointless for stretches of four and six games at a time in his rookie season.
“At the start of the year, I was kind of feeling down on myself, just the way I was playing,” Goldie said Saturday. “But I’m feeling pretty good about myself right now and things are coming to me.
“We had to switch things up, we needed a goal out there, and coach just made a call. We were just lucky enough that things happened for us out there tonight.”
On Monday, Mason said he doesn’t expect the lineup change to be permanent, meaning freshman center Jim Slater will probably return to the Hall-Maloney line this weekend. That means Goldie, who has five goals and 13 assists this season, could be back playing with an all-freshman line that has excelled during the last month.
Goldie has centered for rookie wings Kevin Estrada and Mike Lalonde since a rash of injuries Jan. 15 forced Mason to reshuffle the Spartan lines. The trio has worked well together, with Lalonde scoring four points in the last five games and Estrada being sprung for a couple of breakaway chances.
But Goldie doesn’t want the line to be viewed as an all-freshman conglomerate.
“We don’t really look at that, we’re all freshmen,” Goldie said. “We’re all here on the team, playing and hoping to win.
“To me, it doesn’t matter who I’m playing with, I’m going to go out and work hard. It really doesn’t matter if you’re a freshman, senior, whatever. We’re out there with one goal, and that’s to win games.”
