MSU head coach Rick Comley has endured plenty of surprises in his first year at the Spartans' helm.
From shocking losses to player desertions to an unimproved offense, Comley's initial season hasn't exactly followed the script.
But one of MSU's most pleasant surprises has been freshman left wing David Booth. The powerful 6-foot-1, 206-pounder is MSU's leading goal-scorer with 12 goals this season.
No other Spartan has more than eight.
Booth's early collegiate success has caught some people off guard. Coming out of junior hockey, he wasn't as highly regarded as fellow freshman forwards Nenad Gajic or Colton Fretter. Fretter had 104 points and Gajic had 91 points in their final seasons of Canadian juniors.
Booth had 29.
But the Washington, Mich., native made his contributions count in his years prior to coming to MSU.
Playing for the Under-18 U.S. National Development Team, Booth scored two goals in the Americans' 3-1 win over Russia in the gold-medal game of the Under-18 World Championships in Slovakia.
He committed to MSU last winter, and immediately recognized that he needed to get stronger to compete with older college players.
"In the off-season, I worked out three hours a day, four days a week," said Booth, a pre-dental major who turned 18 in November. "It was usually about an hour of abs and running and two hours of weight lifting. I take pride in that kind of thing.
"I wanted to prove I could play at this level as a freshman."
So far, so good.
Booth is the reigning CCHA Rookie of the Week, marking the second time this season he has earned that honor. He recorded his first career hat trick in Friday's win over Alaska-Fairbanks and tacked on an assist Saturday.
Comley has so much confidence in MSU's second-youngest player that he has made Booth a fixture on MSU's top line with sophomore center Jim Slater.
"He's an excellent young player, isn't he?" Comley said. "He has a very bright future. He plays hard, he plays strong and he takes the puck to the net."
Senior defenseman John-Michael Liles knows all too much about Booth's strength around the net.
A sore sternum often reminds him of encounters with the freshman in practice.
"He's just a bull," Liles said. "He's a huge kid. He's solid on his skates, he uses his body to protect the puck, and he's just going to get better throughout his four years here. He's very hard to move."
Booth might have 15 goals or more by now, but he missed the net on most of his shots in the first three games of the season.
He credits his linemates - Slater and sophomore right wing Mike Lalonde - with helping him adapt to college hockey.
"They see the ice very well, and it's a much easier game playing with them," Booth said. "They're creating for me, I can go to the nets and get the rebounds from the shots they take. Just bury my chances when I get them, that's how the goals are going in right now.
"I'm playing a lot more than last year and I'm playing with better players than last year. Those are the two main factors."
Freshman defenseman Corey Potter has played with Booth for most of the last eight seasons. They were teammates in the Detroit-area Honeybaked program for six years, and then again with the U.S. team in Ann Arbor last season.
Having known Booth for so long makes Potter an authority when it comes to deciphering his teammate.
Booth's manner of speaking always leaves some doubt as to whether he's serious or goofing around.
"That's the way he is," Potter said. "A lot of times, it's tough to tell if he's serious, but we get along pretty good, so I usually know when he's joking.
"He's just a free-spirited guy. Real humorous, liked by everybody, always happy. Just a good guy to be around."
