Recapping a disappointing season

The MSU hockey team went from winning a national championship two years ago to finishing in second-to last place in the league and losing in the first round of the CCHA playoffs.

It was one bad thing after another for the Spartans this year.

Whether it was injuries, suspensions, or an impossibly tough schedule, the MSU hockey team would like to quickly close the book on everything that was the 2008-09 season.

Here’s a month-by-month breakdown of the Spartans season.

Offseason:

Forwards Justin Abdelkader and Tim Kennedy and defenseman Michael Ratchuk all decided to leave MSU early to pursue their professional hockey careers. Their departures put big holes in the Spartans lineup that they had to fill with freshman. MSU head coach Rick Comley was forced to bring 11 freshmen into the program, which is the most he’s carried in one season in 36 years of coaching.

October:

Record: 4-2-1

Interesting stat: Four wins was the most tallied in a single month by the Spartans all season.

Breakdown: In the first month of the season, the MSU hockey team looked like a team ranked in the top-20. The Spartans were relatively injury free and they were living up to the preseason expectations. However, a fight between the hockey and football teams forced a handful of Spartans to serve single game suspensions and sophomore defenseman AJ Sturges suffered a season-ending skull fracture as a result of the brawl.

Quotes:

Freshman forward Andrew Conboy — “Everybody needs to finish (their) checks offensively. That’s my game. If we could fight I’d be out there fighting.”

Comley — “I said since this summer that we would use (senior forward Kurt) Kivisto if he was in the lineup as the first shooter even though he didn’t get a point last year because he scores all the time in practice. So I might dress him in games just for that reason.”

Quote analysis:

Conboy established himself early on in the season as the team’s enforcer. His physical play had a big impact on a very unphysical team.

In Kivisto’s previous three years on the team he saw a very limited amount of minutes. But his skills in shootouts earned him ice time early on in the season and he proved he belonged in every game. By the end of the year, he was one of the best players on the ice for the Spartans.

November:

Record:0-8-2

Interesting stat: The Spartans scored 12 goals the entire month.

Breakdown: This was one of the worst months of hockey in the MSU hockey program’s history. The losses kept coming and injuries were starting to take a toll on the team — as senior forward Nick Sucharski suffered a season-ending shoulder injury. But the schedule was tough. In the nine games, MSU only played two at home. The one bright spot of the month came when the Spartans managed to pull out a 4-4 tie at then-No. 1 Minnesota.

Comley — “We just have to keep working and be honest and play the game properly. We have to hope there is some growth and that they can get a few bounces. But it’s not just lucky bounces. We have some players that need to pick up their workload if they are going to have offensive success. They have to play both ends of the rink properly, and if they do that we have a chance to get this thing turned around.”

Senior goaltender Jeff Lerg, after losing 7-1 at Nebraska-Omaha — “Friday was probably the most frustrating game I’ve played in my career here. After they scored their fifth goal the only thing that came to my mind was, ‘this is a joke.’ It was unbelievable.”

Quote analysis:

The big-name players for the Spartans weren’t stepping up and contributing offensively as they were expected to. The freshmen were still making the adjustment to the college game, and couldn’t be asked to carry the offensive weight. But one thing was clear — someone needed to step up.

Throughout November, Lerg was getting no goal support. He knew that if he let up more than one goal, his team would probably lose. Lerg was getting peppered every night, as the young defense was trying to mesh together and adjust to the speed of the college game.

December:

Record: 1-3-0

Interesting stat: Three of the four games in December were against U-M — all of which were losses.

Breakdown: The month of December featured three of the Spartans toughest losses of the season, and one of the biggest wins. As the losses piled up, the moral of the team was at an all time low. To make matters worse, junior defenseman Ryan Turek was dismissed from the team and freshman forward Mike Merrifield went back to juniors. But the 11-game losing streak finally came to an end against North Dakota in the opening round of the Great Lakes Invitational — easily the best all- around game for the Spartans all season.

Conboy — “Either myself or some of the older guys have to step up and say something. Or maybe I have to step up and fight somebody in practice to set the tone … we just have to learn to hate losing — not just not like it. I think we’ve been dealing with (losing) lately, and we just have to hate it.”

Lerg — “I’m going to say nothing (tomorrow). We’ve talked enough the last month straight and I’ve said all I can say. If they want to play, they can play hard for 60 minutes.

Quote analysis:

Conboy, like everyone else on the team, was fed up with losing. As the team’s enforcer he put it on his shoulders to swing the momentum in the Spartans favor every time he took the ice. But nothing seemed to be working.

After the Spartans 6-1 loss at U-M to keep the losing streak rolling along, Lerg was beyond frustrated. He had tried being more vocal in the locker room, but nothing was getting through to his teammates.

January:

Record: 2-6-2

Interesting stat: Six of the eight games in the month of January were against teams ranked in the top-20 — Alaska (18), Miami (9), Michigan (8).

Breakdown: Traditionally, Comley’s teams have seen greater success in the second half of the season. It looked like that might be the case in the first weekend when the Spartans upset Alaska in the first game of the month and kept the second game close. Then the following weekend, MSU upset Miami on the road. However, senior forward Tim Crowder injured his shoulder in the game and would be out for the rest of the season. In the Spartans last two meetings against U-M, the Wolverines again came out on top — thus winning all five meetings between the rivals. But then the unthinkable happened. In the final seconds of Jan. 24’s game at U-M, sophomore forward Corey Tropp and freshman forward Andrew Conboy attacked U-M’s Steve Kampfer. Conboy punched Kampfer to the ice and Tropp slashed him across the neck while he was down. Both players were giving season-ending suspensions by Comley and their loss was a huge hit to the Spartans lineup.

Quotes:

Comley — “I think the action that took place in the heat of the battle was inappropriate and something you don’t condone. I don’t think the kids are bad kids. I don’t think it was premeditated but I think they obviously made bad decisions at a critical time in the game and I think it reflected badly on the program and a young man was injured because of it. I felt it was serious enough that it was action I had to take.”

Quote analysis:

Comley wanted to make sure everyone knew the actions of his players weren’t premediated and that they weren’t purposely targeting anyone. The season-ending suspension resulted in Conboy leaving MSU and joining the Hamilton Bulldogs, an affiliate of the NHL’s Montreal Canadians. Tropp’s status for next season is still in the air and Comley said discuss his status in the spring.

February:

Record: 3-3-2

Interesting stat: The Spartans were shut out in back-to-back times for the first time in program history.

Breakdown: It looked like the Spartans were heating up down the stretch. They started the month by going unbeaten in five straight games. But on Feb. 25, Lerg tore his ACL in an unofficial morning workout. Lerg played through the injury for the last two weeks of the season and became the CCHA’s all-time saves leader in his final game at Munn.

Quotes:

Comley — “Every win is critical right now. These kids have been beaten down and beaten up and it’s been really hard for them. But they keep good attitudes and they are working hard. It helps to get rewarded with a win because you never know what a win will do. It might turn into another one.”

Lerg — “We’ve never had the CCHA playoffs mean this much. Usually it’s just a tune-up for us before the NCAA Tournament. Now it’s do-or-die.”

Quote analysis:

Despite the injuries and suspensions, the Spartans were working hard and finding a way to win at the beginning of the month. But the damage had already been done, and the Spartans knew they were going to be on the road in the first round of the playoffs.

Normally, the Spartans don’t even play in the first round of the CCHA Tournament. They are usually one of the four teams that get a bye into the quarterfinals. But with an ugly record, the Spartans were going to have to win the CCHA Tournament if they wanted to extend their season into the NCAA Tournament.

March:

Record: 0-2-0

Interesting stat: For only the third time since joining the CCHA, the Spartans failed to make it to Joe Louis Arena for the league’s championship weekend.

Breakdown: The Spartans ended the regular season in 11th place and were paired up against Northern Michigan — a team the Spartans took four points from early in the season. But things were different in Marquette. The Wildcats were clearly the superior team and ended MSU’s season by defeating the Spartans 8-2 in the second game of best-of-three series.

Quotes:

Comley — “It’s difficult to judge some of them because it’s such a depleted team in terms of what we started the year with. There will be some hard lessons learned by some young guys, but we’ve got to work hard this spring and summer to get stronger and infuse some new talent and move forward.”

Lerg — “It’s disappointing going out like that. 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.”

Quote analysis:

After a tough season, Comley said he isn’t sure what he’s expecting for next year. He’s confident all the playing time helped his young players, but he wants them to take the next step in the offseason.

In Lerg’s last career game for MSU, he gave up a career-high eight goals. But he was playing with a torn ACL and still found a way to make a handful of big saves. If not for him, the score could have easily reached the double digits. It’s hard to imagine this season without Lerg. Things could have been much, much worse.

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