We are four games into the Adam Nightingale on-ice experience, and I am finally able to tread water and get a newsletter out, so I appreciate all of your readerships and patience. Doing this for fun, as I also raise a 2.5 year old feral hog of a human, work in an understaffed academic office, and get off the ground this season advising hockey players in a small business I have found writing time to be extremely limited. Am I putting one of the three above off, to sit down and craft this letter? Maybe. Is this because despite the newsletter being free my Midwest sensibilities say I owe some production? Maybe but less motivating than what is really happening… talking MSU hockey is fun again!
The summer felt like a speed run through the MSU athletics department: Mel Tucker/Alan Haller years. MSU hockey had a relentless recruiting culture, they took off like a speeding bullet train through the top 2006 recruiting classes, they had an energized social media and Spartan Vision propaganda run. And a once in a generation facility renovation led to endless videos of alumni back in town, gleaming facilities that back up the moonshot in recruiting and it was hard to blame someone for forgetting all this momentum came with a 0-0 record under Adam Nightingale.
So on the ice what is happening? Is all this noise just close to 2 decades of frustration and yearning boiling over, all to be let down again?
As I made appearances on other podcasts to discuss the team I was left trying to pump the brakes on enthusiasm in the on ice product, only because you hate to see people walk away due to unreal expectations. I can never remember a feeling of the entire Spartan community behind this program like this since Ron Mason was on the rise with Tom Izzo and we had #1 in both basketball and hockey bumper stickers. (They were real, you can find them at Crunchy’s still to this day).
4 games into the Adam Nightingale experience the Spartans are sitting at 2-2. Not a bad record, including a top 20 win, over a maybe not quite top 20 good, UMass-Lowell. As was expected to be a concern for the season, goals are not flying around, as the Spartans have 2.25 goals per game through 4. The 9 goals are spread across 6 players, there are 2 power play goals in the mix (11.11% 43rd of 55 teams in the country). Dylan St. Cyr has started all 4 games, and despite being a step down from the unreal season of Drew DeRidder, he has still been solid as MSU fans have gotten used to their goaltenders being. St. Cyr has a 2.2872 goals against and a .906 save percentage, numbers you will certainly take.
So how has the product looked outside of the surface level analysis though?
The first thing that has absolutely jumped off the page is this team has taken on the mindset of a Guy Gadowsky style Penn State and there is no single bad shot at the net. MSU under Danton Cole was always under talented, and that is still mostly the case of course, but unlike under Cole, this team is not getting their brain caved in on possession and shot metrics. The Spartans (all stats provided by the great work of College Hockey News Advanced Stats page) sit 3rd in the country for Corsi For %. They are shooting 63.2% of all shots in any contest right now (this stat includes shots that miss the net and are blocked). What is more amazing is that this stat is actually dragged DOWN by their power play. The Spartans are better at even strength in terms of possession than they are at the power play right now. This is an absolute 180 from years and years of play under two previous regimes.
In conjunction with shooting the puck a ton more, this team has shown early they get better as the game goes on and are absolutely a beast in the 3rd period. 5 of the 9 team goals this season have come in the 3rd period. The Spartans have had 18, 12, 6, and 24 shots in the 3rd period this season, with the only outlier being a game they led 3-2 over UMass-Lowell heading into the final frame. A ton of credit goes to coach Nightingale, Towns and DeMichiel for instilling a culture of being persistent. However, I also want to throw out some love for new S&C coach Will Morlock. Multiple players raved about the work in the summer to get them in better shape, to customize workouts, and to build a team, and the early returns show Morlock was a dynamite hire by Nightingale to bring him with to East Lansing.
What to watch this weekend
This weekend, the Spartans welcome the 2nd newest program in NCAA Division I hockey to town, the Long Island University Sharks. The Sharks have also completed 4 games on the season and stand with a record of 1-2-1. The sole win for the Sharks was a 7-1 win over the newest D1 NCAA hockey team, Stonehill College. That game represents 7 of the 11 goals the team has scored all season, playing to a 3-2 OT loss to Northeastern, a 2-2 tie with Quinnipiac and a 1-0 loss to RPI.
This is a team with some bite, they play a structured system under coach Brett Riley (son of the longtime Army HC Rob Riley, who is now on staff as an assistant with Brett). The Spartans had 24 shots in the 3rd period in their loss to UMass-Lowell last Friday, and that would be more than the LIU Sharks put on net in each of their last two games. I say all this to say, I expect the Sharks to play a bit of a shell, keep Michigan State and their new found appreciation for pucks on net to the outside, and look to spring transition counter attacks without leaving themselves exposed. The last two games the Sharks have struggled with discipline taking 7 and 6 penalties respectively in those games, so that is a space to watch and an opportunity for the Spartans to try and find some improvement in their power play.
The goal this weekend is absolutely a sweep, and hopefully a spot start for Pierce Charleson to keep him warm as well. Spartan fans will be treated to the debut of Viktor Hurtig, the hulking freshman Swedish defensemen, fresh off a 4 game NCAA suspension to add some size to the lineup. Local hockey fans will get to see a familiar face as well, as Okemos native, and MSU graduate Adam Goodsir will be back in Munn. He has 1G, 1A 2PTS as he is using out his grad year at Long Island.