MSU hockey begins 2009-10 campaign

Hockey season is almost upon us, and during today’s MSU hockey Media Day, it felt great to be back in the rink.

MSU head coach Rick Comley said some interesting things today in his press conference — most notably, that he feels this year’s team is much better than last year’s team.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, as last year’s team couldn’t have been much worse.Things were really bad last season, and the general consensus between everyone on the team is to try and put it in the past.

Easier said than done.

Comley also announced his projected starters, if the season were to start today.

Forwards:

First line: freshmen Derek Grant, senior Nick Sucharski, junior Corey Tropp

Second line: junior Andrew Rowe, sophomore Daultan Leveille, junior Dustin Gazley

Third line: freshman Kevin Walrod, freshman Zach Golembiewski, freshmen Chris Forfar

Fourth line: freshman Dean Chelios, freshman Anthony Hayes, and TBA

Defense:

First line: freshman Torey Krug, junior Jeff Petry

Second line: freshman Zach Josepher, Matt Grassi (injured)

Third line: sophomore Matt Crandell, sophomore Brock Shelgren or sophomore Tim Buttery

These lines were a huge surprise to me.

I knew Comley had brought in a solid freshman recruiting class, but I had no idea he had this much faith in them.

This also brings up the question: Are these freshmen that good or were last-year’s freshmen that bad?

It’s hard to believe that Leveille was the only sophomore forward mentioned as a starter.

Wasn’t all the ice time logged by last year’s freshmen supposed to put them ahead of the game for this season?

But I suppose Comley does know best. At least talented freshmen will allow competition for ice time during practices, compared to last season, where if you were on the team, you were logging considerable time on the ice, regardless if you deserved it or not.

*And another interesting tidbit: *

In freshman defenseman Matt Grassi’s first night on campus, he fell out of his loft in the middle of the night and broke his thumb.

Comley said Grassi will be one of the team’s top-four defenseman, and joked that “all the lofts were taken out of the dorms the next day.”

The 6-foot-3, 215 pound Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada native is expected to return to the lineup when the Spartans travel to Maine on Oct. 16.

“Matt’s not been able to be on the ice with a stick up to this point,” Comley said. “We are going to need his size.”

There’s lots of questions to be answered with this year’s Spartans team, and I’m excited to get back to this blog.

We’ll have lots of hockey coverage in the paper over the next few days and here on LTL, so make sure to check back often.

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