Spartan Hockey to Raise Championship Banner Friday

Oct. 15, 2007

East Lansing, Mich. - The Michigan State hockey team will raise its 2007 National Championship banner on Friday, Oct. 19 in conjunction with its home opener against Colgate.

In addition, members of the 1966 and 1986 NCAA title teams will participate in the on-ice ceremony before the game. New banners commemorating those two titles will be unveiled prior to the raising of the 2007 banner. All three will hang over the ice in Munn Ice Arena.

Date/Time: October 19-20, 2007, 7:05 p.m. ET; Munn Ice Arena
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On Friday, the first 3,000 fans arriving at Friday's game will be given a pin (pictured), commemorating the school's three NCAA titles - all three years (1966, 1986, and 2007) appear on the pin. Fans are reminded to arrive early, as the ceremony will be prior to the game, which begins at 7 p.m.

The first 3,000 fans in the arena on Friday will receive a pin commemorating MSU's three National Championhships

The notes you need to know about the Colgate series and Spartan hockey ...

for starters
Michigan State snapped its two-game winning streak in season openers when it fell at North Dakota last Saturday after capturing wins in each of the last two seasons. MSU is now 2-4 in curtain-lifters under Rick Comley, 4-5-1 in the last 10 years, and 38-26-3 all-time (not including exhibition games).

series history
Michigan State and Colgate do not share an extensive history - Friday will serve as just the second meeting between the schools. The first and only meeting happened on Oct. 12, 2002 in the Maverick Stampede, a 2-1 Spartan victory in the consolation game. It was Rick Comley's first victory as the MSU mentor.

ecac success
Michigan State is 4-1-1 against ECAC Hockey teams during his tenure - he owns the victory over Colgate in his MSU coaching debut, and also a win over Harvard in last year's GLI. In 2003-04, he earned a win and a tie over Cornell, then his team split a two-game set with the Big Red in Ithaca the following year.

last time out
MSU fell to the top-ranked North Dakota, 6-0, in front of 11,738 fans at Ralph Engelstad Arena on Saturday. The Spartans outshot their hosts 23-22, but could not solve senior netminder Jean-Phillipe Lamoureaux, who finished with a 22-save shutout.
North Dakota got on the board midway through the first period, converted on a power play chance with just 12 seconds remaining in the man advantage, as T.J. Oshie took a feed from Ryan Duncan and ripped a shot from the right face-off dot that beat netminder Jeff Lerg high, glove-side for a 1-0 lead.
Oshie was whistled for a five-minute major for checking and assessed a game misconduct from behind at 6:08, which is an automatic game misconduct - jettisoning one of NoDak's top forwards from the balance of the game. Justin Abdelkader was whistled for his second penalty of the night at 15:10, putting the teams at four-on-four. At 16:28, Duncan flew up the left wing on a scoring chance, but his centering pass intended for Andrew Kozek went off the toe of Dustin Gazely's right skate at the bottom of the left circle, and the slight redirection found its way past Jeff Lerg for a 2-0 North Dakota lead, which the Sioux took into the first intermission.
The Sioux added to their lead with one goal in the middle frame, put on the board at 6:55. Taylor Chorney's slapshot from just inside the blueline rocketed off the endboards and out to the right side of Jeff Lerg, and an opportunistic Chris VandeVelde was there on the doorstep and swiped at the puck in midair, swatting it past the stick hand of the netminder.
Michigan State came out with a purpose in the third period, and had three good scoring chances in the opening 2:15 from Michael Ratchuk, Chris Mueller, and Joey Shean. However, momentum switched when North Dakota broke into the zone on a three-on-one, and freshman Matt Frattin wristed a shot from the left circle that beat Jeff Lerg five-hole. The Sioux added two more in the final four minutes for the final margin.

scouting the raiders
Colgate opened the season with a sweep of Sacred Heart (6-2) and RIT (6-5) in the season's opening weekend in a pair of home games. Senior Tyler Burton led the Raiders in scoring in the sweep, recording a goal and four assists. Classmate and linemate Jesse Winchester had a pair of goals and two assists, while frehsman Francois Brisebois posted a four-point weekend in his collegiate debut. Senior netminder Mark Dekanich returns for Colgate, and posted a 3.50 GAA and .875 save percentage in his first weekend - he boasted a 2.23 GAA and .923 save percentage when carrying the load for the Raiders a year ago.
The Raiders are coached by Don Vaughan, a 1984 graduate of St. Lawrence who is in his 15th season at the upstate New York school.

whitewash, the wrong way
MSU was shut out in its season opener for the first time 2002, a 5-0 loss to Denver in the Maverick Stampede. That was the first game behind the MSU bench for head coach Rick Comley.

margin-al
The 6-0 loss at North Dakota was the first time that MSU had lost by six goals since Jan. 3, 2003 at Lake Superior State (7-1). It was also the largest losing margin for the Spartans since dropping an 11-1 decision to Michigan at Joe Louis Arena on Jan. 30, 1993.

the number ones
The loss to North Dakota snapped a two-game winning streak for the Spartans against teams ranked No. 1 in the national polls. In last year's NCAA Tournament, the Spartans defeated both Notre Dame (2-1) and Boston College (3-1) when they held the top ranking.

home cooking
Michigan State plays its next four games at home, and has 10 of its next 12 games in the friendly confines of Munn Ice Arena. The lone road trip is a significant one, however - to the CCHA's furthest outpost, Fairbanks. Visiting after Colgate will be Northern Michigan, which will kick off the CCHA slate. The Spartans head to Alaska the first weekend in November, but MSU will host two-game sets with Mercyhurst and Miami before hosting the College Hockey Showcase the weekend after Thanksgiving. preseason honors
The Spartans were selected first in the CCHA pre-season media poll, and second in the CCHA coaches' pre-season survey. The Spartans earned 25 first-place votes in the media poll and 701 total points, followed by Miami (21 and 667). In the coaches poll, the Spartans had a slight edge in first-place votes, slotted first on six ballots, but Miami (five first-place votes) finished with 114 points, one ahead of Michigan State, to earn the top spot in the poll. Defending CCHA regular-season and tournament champion Notre Dame was selected third and Michigan fourth in both polls.
Four Spartans earned spots on the CCHA pre-season All-Conference team. Jeff Lerg was one of two consensus selections, and was the first team goaltender; Tim Kennedy earned a spot on the second team as the fourth-highest vote-getter among forwards. Both Bryan Lerg and Justin Abdelkader were honorable mention picks.

more preseason kudos
Jeff Lerg has been named a pre-season first team All-American by InsideCollegeHockey.com

law of averages
MSU's roster averages: 6-0, 188 lbs., and the average age is 20 years 11 months.

high-yield returns
Michigan State is one of four teams in the CCHA that returns 20 letterwinners this season, the highest number in the CCHA. The Spartans return 83.9 percent of their goal scoring from a year ago (115 goals), tops in the league. MSU returns 73.9 percent (263) of its points from a year ago, which ranks second in the CCHA behind Miami (81.5%). The Spartans return five of their top six forwards: seniors Bryan Lerg and Chris Mueller and the all-junior line of Tim Kennedy, Justin Abdelkader, and Tim Crowder.

if it was baseball, they'd win the cy young
Michigan State has won 20+ games in 15 consecutive seasons.

let's end this streak
The Spartans will look to snap a rather inauspicious streak: neither of the last two NCAA titlists made the tournament the year after they won the championship: both the Denver Pioneers (2005 champions) and Wisconsin Badgers (2006 titlists) failed to qualify for the 16-team field.

home sweet home
In 2007-08, MSU will play 20 regular-season games at Munn Arena, compared to 15 a year ago. Seventeen of the 20 will be televised.

second-half surges
During the Rick Comley era, the Spartans have traditionally been a second-half team. The first three months (October, November, December) of the previous four seasons (2002-06), the Spartans went 37-34-7 (.519), then compiled a 55-27-8 mark in January, February, and March (.656). The trend of second-half surges continued into 2007, as Michigan State went 19-6-2 its final 27 games.

cardiac kids
On 20 occasions in 2006-07, the Spartans scored a goal in the first or final minute of a period. MSU scored four times in the opening 60 seconds, and the Spartans tallied 16 goals in the final minute of play in a period. Eight of those goals were empty-netters, but one - Justin Abdelkader's at Northern Michigan on Dec. 9 - stood as the game-winner in a 3-2 MSU win.
Michigan State owned a record of 10-1-1 in games in which it scored a goal in the final minute of a period, and 2-2-0 when it scored a goal in the opening minute of a frame.

oh-so-special
Special teams were crucial to the Spartans' postseason success in 2007, particularly its prowess on the penalty kill. MSU's man-down unit was an impressive 16-for-17 in the NCAA Tournament; the PK extinguished 42 of its last 46 chances against (91.3 percent), and did not allow a man-advantage goal in seven of its last 10 games. On the year, the penalty kill executed at 86.7 percent (170 of 196).
Against North Dakota, the Spartans allowed just one goal in six chances against, but failed to convert in four man-up opportunities.

netminding workhorse
Jeff Lerg started all 42 games last season and played 2465:06 in the Spartan net, which calculated to 96.9 percent of the time possible - the highest percentage of any netminder in the CCHA and the second- highest percentage in the country. Cory Schneider of Boston College topped the list having played 99.2% of available minutes (2516:33).

in the annals ...
Jeff Lerg has moved into the top 10 in several netminding categories at Michigan State: Career wins (43), ninth; career games played (73), T-10th; career GAA (2.22), third; career save percentage (.920), T-second; career shutouts (6), T-fifth; Wins in a season (26), T-fifth; games played, season (42), T-first; saves, season (1,042), fourth.

one stops `em, the other puts `em in
Bryan Lerg emerged as one of the most dangerous - and exciting to watch - forwards in the CCHA. His 23 goals led the Spartans and bettered his single-season career high by eight markers. The senior led the country last year with eight game-winning goals, and in addition, he has also assisted on five other Spartan game-winners. His eight game-winning goals is tied for the highest single-season total all-time at Michigan State, shared with Mitch Messier (1986-87) and Steve Beadle (1989-90).

iron men
Only five Spartans appeared in all 42 contests last year, and four of the five return to the roster this season: alternate captains Chris Mueller, Daniel Vukovic, Tim Kennedy, and Jeff Lerg. The fifth was graduated senior Tyler Howells.

2007 career superlatives
Bryan Lerg's 23 goals bettered his previous single-season best of 15, set as a sophomore. Justin Abdelkader's 15 goals pushed him past the 10 he netted as a freshman, and Chris Mueller topped his career best of 11, with 16 on the year.
Daniel Vukovic scored six goals after netting just one in his first two collegiate seasons combined and had 12 points on the year after a combined five in his freshman and sophomore campaigns. Jeff Dunne, who had six assists as a freshman and no points in an injury-shortened sophomore year, netted 10 helpers. and scored his first career goal in the Spartans' final regular-season game.

firsts
Justin Abdelkader posted the first goal of the 2006-07 campaign, just 1:44 into the opener against Western Michigan. Of course, he also scored the most important of the season, the game-winner in the NCAA title game with 18.9 seconds remaining. That was the latest the Spartans scored a non-empty net goal last year.
Abdelkader also scored the first goal of the 2005-06 season, at the 2:03 mark of the first period against Wayne State in the Lefty McFadden Invitational in Dayton, Ohio.

trends
In 2006-07, Michigan State owned an 18-4-0 record when Justin Abdelkader registered a point, was 14-0-0 when Chris Mueller scored a goal, went 8-1-1 when Tim Crowder lit the lamp, 12-0-1 when Jim McKenzie had an assist, and 9-0-0 when Jeff Dunne added a helper.

an even dozen
A total of 12 former Spartans are currently on NHL rosters: David Booth (Florida), Rod Brind'Amour (Carolina), Adam Hall (Pittsburgh), Shawn Horcoff (Edmonton), Duncan Keith (Chicago), John-Michael Liles (Colorado), Ryan Miller (Buffalo), Jim Slater (Atlanta), Bryan Smolinski (Montreal), Mike Weaver (Vancouver) and Mike York (Phoenix).