After compiling a 20-17-4 overall record last season with the expectations and hopes that the program had coming into the 2004-05 campaign, MSU head coach Rick Comley is determined to leave last year in the past.
"It was a season obviously, we had good expectations and there was no reason to think we weren't going to do well and then it just didn't work," he said. "It was very frustrating.
"We had some attitude issues and then we had some distractions and then we never really got going until that one stretch at the end."
Although Comley said last season wasn't the hardest in his coaching career, he had to deal with a number of problems, most notably the choice to release then-sophomore defenseman A.J. Thelen from the team.
"In coaching you see a lot of different things," Comley said. "Attitude can tear apart a team and prevent a team from being successful and I think that's exactly what happened last year.
"You just have to put it behind you."
Comley said that he doesn't foresee attitudes and off-ice incidents being a problem this season.
"This year it's fresh and everything is very positive, everything is very upbeat," he said. "There's a group of guys in the locker room that like each other, that all work hard and that's usually the tonic for doing well.
"There's going to be lots of speculation about me and my future. You have to kind of let it go. Whatever happens, happens. I'm very confident with this team. Expectations are always going to be extremely high."
And while Comley enters his fourth year behind the Spartans' bench and has failed to take MSU to the 16-team NCAA Tournament in two of his three year tenure, he said that a return to contention is not far off.
"We've missed the NCAA Tournament two out of three years, but we were the 17th team both times," he said.
"We were a win away each year from being there so you're not as far away as some people might think."
The Spartans open up the regular season in Dayton, Ohio in the McFadden Invitational. They first face Wayne State at 4 p.m. on Saturday and then play North Dakota at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
Slater makes NHL club
Despite not being initially slated to make the Atlanta Thrashers, former Spartans standout Jim Slater finds himself on the roster to start the season for the team that drafted him 30th overall in the 2002 NHL Entry Draft.
The six-foot, 190-pound forward concluded his four-year Spartans' career last season where he compiled 48 points (16 goals, 32 assists).
After an impressive training camp and preseason campaign, Slater has earned a spot in the NHL, an accomplishment that doesn't shock Comley.
"You love Jimmy Slater," Comley said. "Every coach that gets him. The passion he plays with, how physical and how intense he plays, it's not surprising at all."
