Icers end season on low note

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In the final two weeks of the MSU hockey season, senior goaltender Jeff Lerg was playing with a torn ACL, his father, Ken Lerg said.

And in March 7th’s 8-2 season-ending loss to Northern Michigan, Lerg surrendered a career-high eight goals as the Wildcats completed a weekend sweep to eliminate the Spartans in the first round of the CCHA playoffs.

Lerg’s injury stemmed back to Feb. 25 during an unofficial morning workout. The captain sat out the Feb. 27 game against Notre Dame but played in the last three games of the season.

While Lerg said his knee was sore and stiff in the Spartans’ last two weekends of play, he wasn’t aware of the seriousness of his injury until Tuesday after having an MRI.

Lerg had successful surgery on his knee on Friday and is expected to be back on the ice in four to six months in hopes of being signed by a professional team.

But even if Lerg would have been sporting a healthy knee against Northern Michigan, it wouldn’t have mattered.

The Wildcats were simply too good in their home barn.

“They had too much energy for us right off the bat,” Lerg said following the season-ending loss. “Even if we had extended it one more game, I would have to play probably the best in my career to have this go my way.”

Northern Michigan head coach Walt Kyle was surprised his team was able to score 13 goals on Lerg in a single weekend series, as its 8-2 victory was coupled with March 6th’s 5-3 win.

“If you said we were going to score 13 goals on him, I’d ask if that was over a four-year span,” Kyle said.

While the Spartans played disciplined hockey in their last game of the season and didn’t give up a single power-play opportunity, Northern Michigan simply had too much firepower for MSU to handle.

And of the Wildcats’ 18 skaters, only four didn’t record points on the night.

In the opening game of the series, Kyle said his underclassmen carried the weight. But the following night he said he was happy to see his top lines heat up.

“On Friday I thought we played hard, but I didn’t think our top players played very well,” Kyle said. “(Saturday) they were better. We had a couple great individual efforts but we also had good balance.”

While Lerg faced only 29 shots, the Wildcats kept him busy all night and had countless high-quality scoring opportunities.

“That top line they have, they have the ability to score and they control the puck really well,” Lerg said. “They cycle it and control the tempo of the play.”

The Spartans took four points from Northern Michigan in a two-game home series starting Oct. 24, but MSU head coach Rick Comley said the Wildcats became a much better team down the stretch of the season.

“Their second half is a lot different than the first half,” Comley said. “I thought they played really, really well. It was a very deserving win.”

While Lerg admitted playing his last game for MSU couldn’t have gone much worse, he said he will always remember his time as a Spartan.

“It’s disappointing going out like that,” Lerg said. “It was a lot of fun here and there’s a lot of pride in that jersey. It was the best four years of my life.”

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