In trying to sum up his team’s offensive struggles earlier this season, MSU hockey head coach Rick Comley kept coming back to one central theme - several sophomore forwards weren’t fulfilling their potential.
Undoubtedly, sophomore center Ash Goldie was one of the guilty parties.
The 5-foot-9, 178-pounder from London, Ontario, wasn’t playing with the same pizzazz that earned him a spot on one of MSU’s power-play units as a rookie last season.
He finished fifth in scoring with 27 points last year, a stat he achieved after notching at least one point in 13 of MSU’s final 17 games.
But Goldie was pretty much a nonfactor in both the Maverick Stampede and MSU’s 10-4 loss to Northern Michigan last month. Against the Wildcats, Goldie finished a paltry minus-4 in the plus/minus rating, which helps measure a player’s effectiveness on the ice.
“It didn’t have anything to do with the systems, I just felt sluggish out there,” he said. “I didn’t feel like myself.”
Perhaps Goldie’s slow start can be attributed to the surgery he had “to remove a bunch of junk” from his right foot in June.
The procedure cleared up an injury commonly known as “skate bite” or “lace bite,” which is caused by the pressure that skate laces put on one’s ankle while skating. Technically, the affliction inflames the sheath covering the tendons on the top of one’s foot.
In essence, it’s tendinitis and it killed Goldie’s offseason training regimen and dulled his game-timing early this season.
“I couldn’t really do much cardio during the summer,” Goldie said. “I rode the bike, but that doesn’t really get you in game shape. I didn’t skate from the time we played Colorado (College) in March until I got here, so I kind of had a slow start.
“But things are starting to work for me out there. I’ve started to get a few chances and I’ve felt a lot better.”
The player finally notched his first points of the year with a pair of assists in MSU’s 7-0 win over Lake Superior State two weeks ago. And he simply looks more comfortable on the ice - both offensively and defensively - than he did at the start of the season.
Goldie also consciously bulked up by 18 pounds during the summer, and Comley hypothesized that the weight gain might have been another factor in his slow start.
“Sometimes that hurts you more than helps you, and I think it hurt him,” Comley said. “I think he’s settling into what his proper playing weight is.
“I’ve seen his quality of play pick up and I think his production will follow. He’s become a good player - and we needed that desperately - but to be honest with you, I’m still waiting for some other players to find themselves offensively.”
Sophomore left wing Brock Radunske, who has played well this season, agreed that Goldie has been a force in the last three games. But unlike Comley, Radunske doesn’t think his roommate has ever played poorly.
“I don’t think he’s really been playing a lot different, he just hasn’t been getting the bounces that he got last year,” Radunske said. “Every practice, he’s been working hard, so he’ll be ready to go.”
