Some fans were grinding their teeth just as hard as the MSU hockey team was trying to grind out a goal during the NCAA Tournament West Regional on Friday in Ann Arbor.
In the end, the toil didn’t pay off for the Spartans - who wrapped up their season with a 2-0 loss to Colorado College that day. Meanwhile, the Spartan fans who made the trip to Yost Ice Arena had to be wondering if MSU was really still a premiere college hockey team.
Defense and goaltending haven’t been problems for Spartan teams in recent years, but offensive inadequacies have cropped up at terribly inopportune times, such as Friday and the 2-0 loss to North Dakota in last year’s Frozen Four.
Both shutouts cut short seasons in which the Spartans held national title hopes. In all, MSU hasn’t scored a goal in 134:18 of NCAA Tournament play.
The Spartans’ defensive-minded system is not necessarily to blame, but it is a factor. It has gotten the Spartans to two of the last four Frozen Fours and won numerous CCHA regular-season and tournament titles. But some fans have grumbled that the Spartans are too big and slow to compete with fleet Western Collegiate Hockey Association teams in the NCAA Tournament and that’s why MSU hasn’t won a national title since 1986.
Rick Comley, MSU’s newly named head coach, wants to remedy the problem.
“The one thing I will try to do here - and I won’t say Ron didn’t try to do it - is try to pick up the tempo a little bit, be a little bit more offensive and not sacrifice the defensive part of the game,” said Comley, who was officially hired Monday.
“The hardest thing in today’s game is scoring. I like up-tempo hockey, players like playing up-tempo hockey, and that’s what we’ll try to do.”
Comley, who coached Northern Michigan for 26 years before accepting the MSU job, was known to have effective offensive teams with the Wildcats. This season, Northern was third in the CCHA at 3.38 goals per game, while MSU was sixth at 3.15 - although the numbers might be skewed a bit because Northern plays on wider Olympic-size ice.
MSU junior left wing Brian Maloney, who figures to be one of MSU’s top offensive weapons next season, said Comley relayed his preferred style of play during a meeting with MSU’s players Monday afternoon.
“He wants to control the puck a little more, keeping it in their zone and controlling it down low,” Maloney said. “When we have the puck, it’s hard for other teams to score. So we’re going to be working on that, but still taking pride in our defense.”
Plenty of coaches subscribe to the theory that offense is recruited, not taught. If that’s true, Comley can take solace in the fact he will inherit a few natural scorers.
Freshman centers Jim Slater (11 goals, 21 assists) and Ash Goldie (9, 18) and underachieving freshman left wing Kevin Estrada (4, 7) all have raw offensive talent and could flourish under a more open system.
Incoming forward recruit Colton Fretter, who scored 51 goals and 53 assists in 52 games in junior hockey this season, should also thrive under Comley.
But overall, Spartan goalies might wind up being the biggest benefactors of an offensive boost.
Numerous times this year, junior goaltender Ryan Miller was forced to protect slim one-goal leads for lengthy stretches of play - which is a precarious way to compete.
“(Comley) really believes in playing offense, and I think that’s something we were trying to do here,” Miller said. “MSU was famous for it in the ’80s and early-90s and then went a little more defensive and we were successful that way.
“I think you’re going to kind of start seeing it turn back to where it was. We’ll be able to really compete with the WCHA teams. Not to say we don’t now, but when you step into their game and have to play an up-tempo game, there’s little room for error on defense. As you saw this weekend, we got down a goal and it was just kind of tough.”
