For the first time in about a month, MSU head coach Rick Comley bemoaned his team's effort after Friday's 5-3 loss to Miami (Ohio).
"We had a lot of players that didn't work hard enough," Comley said. "Players who we need to play well, who are good players, I thought were very, very weak. You've gotta compete. The game's always about competing.
"If you get outworked, more often than not, you're going to lose. We had so many forwards that just didn't impact the game at all."
Every week, Comley stresses his team's No. 1 priority should be to out-hustle its opponents. But he acknowledged the Spartans might not yet be mature enough to do so every night.
"We have a lot of young kids," Comley said. "If you're being carried by freshmen and sophomores, at times, they're going to not be there."
According to the NHL's Central Scouting Service, MSU is tied with Notre Dame for the second-youngest team in the CCHA with an average player age of 21.2. Only Michigan (21) is younger.
He knows how to use 'em
Sophomore right wing Mike Lalonde's left leg has been a magnet for fast-moving pucks the last two weeks.
At Notre Dame on Jan. 25, Lalonde took a slapper off his knee in the first period and hobbled to the bench. He missed the final two periods of the game.
Then, in the first stanza of Saturday's 3-2 win over Miami, a slap shot hit the same leg and relegated Lalonde to the training room for a short while. This time, however, he returned to action later in the period and finished the game.
Both incidents occurred as Lalonde was killing a penalty.
"I just try to get in the way," Lalonde said Saturday. "It's something you've gotta do. If I have to, I have to.
"It stung for a second tonight, but it didn't affect anything longer than a couple of minutes."
Still knockin' on the door
For the second straight week, the Spartans (15-10-2 overall, 11-7-1 CCHA) are one spot out of the two national polls.
The Spartans garnered 10 votes in the USCHO.com ranking and four votes in the USA Today/American Hockey Magazine poll.
The Spartans are No. 15 in this week's Insidecollegehockey.com Power Rankings. "INCH," a Web site in its first year of operation, is the brainchild of former MSU sports information directors Nate Ewell and Mike Eidelbes.
In the Pairwise Rankings, which mimics the selection process for the NCAA Tournament, the Spartans were tied for 18th on Tuesday afternoon.
Vidal Slater
Sophomore center Jim Slater chopped off most of his hair before Saturday's game.
The Lapeer native had been growing his hair for months, but he downsized his locks to a crew cut this weekend.
"It's a little cold in here now," Slater joked before Saturday's postgame interview session. "I think it was a woman's cut I got because they charged me more money."
Can't spend the night together
Although there are four away games and a neutral-site contest still on the Spartans' schedule, none of the road trips will involve an overnight stay.
The Spartans play at Bowling Green on Saturday, at U-M on Feb. 14 and Feb. 28 and at Western Michigan on March 7.
MSU also plays the Wolverines on March 1 at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
All five of those games are close enough to East Lansing that the team will take a bus home immediately after the games, instead of staying in a hotel.
