The weekend split against Northern Michigan led MSU head coach Rick Comley to repeat a message he’s been sending all season.

“This team has proven all year that it can’t even be compared to last year’s team,” Comley said. “I hope everyone realizes at some point that there was nothing wrong with last year, other than we just got beat up and ran out of bodies. There wasn’t anything wrong with the program. Right now the challenge is to win as many games from here on, and then everyone will feel even better about the team.”

Entering the weekend against Northern Michigan, the No. 14 Spartans (10-6-2 overall, 7-3-2-0 CCHA) were riding a four-game winless streak, the team’s worst stretch of the season.

MSU freshman forward Chris Forfar said Friday’s win was huge for the team, even if things didn’t go quite as smoothly in Saturday’s loss to the Wildcats.

“It was a momentum turner,” Forfar said of Friday’s win. “Everyone knew going into the weekend that it was a big weekend. It wasn’t the outcome we wanted on Saturday, but it was still a pretty hard-fought game for us.”

Despite the strong start by the Spartans, Comley said he can get a lot more from his team, who will play a home-and-home series
against Bowling Green this weekend.

“I think we can get better,” Comley said. “I think we’ve done a good job. They’ve bought into a style of play and we are pleased with that. We are good enough in goal and we are good enough on defense. But the power play and scoring goals are going to be the challenges.”

Strong ’tendin

Senior goaltender Bobby Jarosz earned his first career shutout in Friday’s win. And although sophomore goaltender Drew Palmisano took the loss on Saturday, the game-winning goal deflected off an MSU defenseman’s skate.

Comley said he’s been impressed with both goaltenders this season and said he will continue to play both, even though he’s called Palmisano the starter.

Having two strong goaltenders has helped give confidence to the MSU defensemen, who know they always have a solid goalie behind them, regardless of who receives the nod.

“You can make a mistake and not get hurt,” freshman defenseman Torey Krug said. “You can’t play defense and think you aren’t going to make mistakes. But to have goaltenders like Bobby and Drew back in the net, it’s unbelievable how much confidence it gives you.”

Keeping the chemistry

For the majority of the season, Comley has kept the lines very consistent.

But in the Minnesota loss in the College Hockey Showcase, Comley tinkered with every line — a move he said “completely backfired.”

“We haven’t changed lines very much, but we haven’t scored very much,” Comley said. “Sometimes you are what you are and you have to be really careful not to disrupt some good chemistry thinking there is a better solution.”