Spartans Open Season Hosting No. 8 Maine

10/13/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey

Oct. 13, 2010

No. 20/RV Michigan State vs. No. 8/6 Maine

Date/Time: Thurs. Oct. 14, 7:05 p.m / Fri. Oct. 15, 7:35 p.m.
Arena: Munn Ice Arena (200x85); cap. 6,704

Audio: Thurs: WVFN 730 AM / Fri.:WJIM 1240 AM
all audio can also be heard at www.spartansportsnetwork.com

Television:
Thursday:.: Comcast; Digital Ch. 900 in Mid-Michigan.
Friday:: CBS College Sports Network; DirecTV ch. 613 / Dish Network ch. 152 /check local listings

Tickets: A limited number of tickets remain for this weekend's series. Thursday's game features the "Four Seats, Four Treats" promotion (not available at the door).
Purchase Tickets

Live Statistics: http://www.livestats.ath.msu.edu/hockey (also for PDA/Blackberry)

Live Video Webstream: Thursday's game available at www.msuspartans.com/allaccess/

Download MSU Hockey Notes (PDF)

Press Conference Video:
Rick Comley

Press Conference Audio:
Rick | Daultan | Trevor | Dustin

Promotions: : Thursday: Four Seats, Four Treats (Thursday only, not available at the door) | Friday: Season Ticket Holder Appreciation Night, Chuck-A-Puck (second intermission) ; Post-Game Autographs by team captains Torey Krug, Dustin Gazley, and Trevor Nill

FROM THE POINT: What you need to know about MSU Hockey and the Maine Series ...

storyline
Michigan State prepares for its home opening weekend against the University of Maine. The Spartans and Black Bears will play a Thursday/Friday set at Munn Ice Arena.

media darlings
Comcast will carry Thursday's game with a 7:05 p.m. puck drop, while CBS College Sports will televise Friday game from Munn Ice Arena, a 7:35 start. Matt Shepard and Lyle Phair will call the action with Rob Otto on rinkside duty for Comcast. For CBS College Sports Network, it will be Dave Starman and Eric Frede, with Shireen Saski doing rinkside. On the radio, all games will air on WJIM 1240 AM; the radio call can also be heard on www.spartansportsnetwork.com. Scott Moore and Rob Woodward begin their sixth season together on the call of Spartan hockey.

traditionally strong
In 25 of MSU's 28 seasons in the CCHA, it has finished fourth or better. MSU has won six regular-season titles, finished second eight times, third eight times, and fourth three times.

series history
The Spartans are 10-5-1 all-time against the Black Bears, including a 3-0-1 mark in games played at Munn Ice Arena. Maine has not made the trip to East Lansing since the mid-80's - there was a two-game series in November of 1986 at Munn, a 3-3 tie and a 4-0 Spartan victory. Later that season, the Black Bears were sent to East Lansing for an NCAA regional, games which were swept by MSU (6-2, 5-3). The two squads have played six of their all-time 16 games in the NCAA Tournament. The Black Bears downed MSU, 5-4, in the Northeast Regional Final in 2006 in Albany, NY. The Spartans returned the favor a year later in the NCAA Semifinals in St. Louis, Mo., eliminating Maine from National Championship contention (4-2). The teams most recently played a series last October at Alfond Arena, splitting a pair of 5-3 decisions.

scouting maine
The Black Bears began their season last weekend, earning a conference win over UMass-Lowell (8-2) in their opener and tying Connecticut, 3-3. Maine was fourth in the country last season in team offense (3.67 goals per game), and boasted the top power play in the country, with a 27.7 success rate. Head coach Tim Whitehead returns 20 letterwinners from the 2009-10 season, including its top seven and 11 of its top 12 scorers from a year ago. Detroit Red Wings prospect Gustav Nyquist led the team and the nation in scoring last year with 19 goals and 42 assists for 61 points. Brian Flynn chipped in with 19 goals and 28 assists for 47 pointsand Tanner House had an 18-21-39 scoring line to round out the top three. Maine is thin on experienced goaltenders, as just sophomore Shawn Sirman, who played in eight games last season, returns; he and freshman Martin Ouellette split last weekend's contests against UMass-Lowell and Connecticut.

last time out
MSU is coming off a 5-3 exhibition loss to Western Ontario on Friday. Daultan Leveille contributed two highlight-reel tallies in the contest, with Derek Grant getting the other Spartan score off of assists from Dean and Jake Chelios.

survey says ...
The 2010-11 CCHA Pre-Season polls find picked fourth by the conference coaches and third by the league's media. For the third time in four years, the coaches and media disagree over who should own the No. 1 position in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association's annual preseason polls. The conference's 11 head coaches ranked defending playoff champion Michigan first, while 75 media members named defending regular-season champion Miami as the preseason favorite.

roster preview
The Spartans return 19 players from a 19-13-5 team a season ago, including Second Team All-CCHA selection Drew Palmisano. Seventeen of the 19 returnees were letterwinners a year ago. MSU is quite "middle-classes" heavy - the roster features just two seniors and five freshmen on a roster of 26 student-athletes. The Spartans lost four players to graduation and three would-be seniors to professional hockey in the off-season. Sophomore Derek Grant is the team's top returning scorer (12-18-30), followed by junior Dauyltan Leveille (6-19-25). Palmisano boasted a 2.44 GAA and .917 save percentage in his first season as a starter.

the mentor
Rick Comley is beginning his 38th season behind the bench of a college hockey program, and his ninth season at MSU. With 768 victories entering the season, Comley ranks among the top five coaches all-time in wins and top three among active coaches.

gaining ground
Comley captured his 750th career victory on Friday, Oct. 9, 2009 with a 6-1 victory over Clarkson. He now owns a 768-596-106 (.559) career overall coaching record, good for fourth place on the all-time wins list. Former MSU coach and athletic director Ron Mason finished his career behind the bench in 2002 with 924 wins, while Jerry York of Boston College has 852 and Jack Parker of Boston University has 836.

season in review
Michigan State finished the 2009-10 CCHA season in second place. MSU's improvement of eight spots in the league standings from the previous season tied the all-time best jump from one year to another in conference history (Ferris State was ninth in the 2002-03 season, then captured the league title a season later.) Michigan State finished in a tie for 10th in 2008-09, but was the 11th seed in the playoffs due to losing the tiebreaker. A year ago, Michigan State was picked eighth and ninth in the pre-season polls by the media and coaches, respectively. Michigan State was the CCHA team in 2009-10 which finished the most spots ahead of its preseason projection.

homebodies
Michigan State will play six straight home games in the month of October. MSU welcomes Maine, Alaska,and Alabama-Huntsville to Munn Ice Arena in that span.

they like our d
Sophomore captain Torey Krug was named to the CCHA Preseason All-Conference Team. Krug received the third-most votes of any blueliner in the conference, garnering three first-place votes and 30 points. Junior goaltender Drew Palmisano was an honorable mention selection, garnering 14 points and one first-place vote.

non-conference
Rick Comley owns a 38-28-5 record in games against non-conference teams since coming to Michigan State prior to the 2002-03 season. (This includes regular-season, tournament, and NCAA Tournament games) Only once has a Comley team been sub-.500 in games against non-conference foes in a season (2003-04), and is 21-14-4 over the last four years (2005-09.) Michigan State was 5-3 against non-conference competition in 2009-10, going 1-1 against Hockey East, 3-0 against ECAC Hockey, and 1-2 against the WCHA.

m.a.s.h. unit
In 2008-09, Michigan State had a total 14 players miss time with 16 injuries, totaling 221 practices missed and 108 games lost. In 2009-10, a total of four players missed just 34 games, which included recent graduate Jay Sprague missing the first 24 games of the season with injury.

consistency
Michigan State scored four goals or more only 12 times in its 38 games last season. The Spartans averaged 3.03 goals per game, third in the CCHA. Only once last season, however, did MSU score four goals or more and lose - that happened in MSU's tilt against Michigan at Joe Louis Arena (Jan. 30) when the Spartans fell to their archrival, 5-4.

three is a magic number
Three seemed to be the magic number when related to wins and losses for the Spartans in 2009-10. MSU was 16-4-3 when scoring three goals or more in a game. When allowing three goals or less, the Spartans were 15-4-5.

first & last words
Michigan State scored in the first or final minute of a period 12 times, compared to just four times for their opponents (excluding empty-net goals). In the first or final two minutes of a period, MSU scored 21 goals (excluding empty-netters), while allowing just 13.

jump the gun
The Spartans scored a goal in the first two minutes of a period 13 times last season.

critical to get it going first
Michigan State was 15-3- 4 when scoring the first goal, and 4-10-2 when allowing the opponent to do so last season.

win `em close
27 of MSU's 38 games a year ago were settled by two goals or less, and 12 were one-goal affairs. Of the eight that were two-goal margins or more, four involved an empty-net goal. MSU was 8-4-0 in one-goal games.

you miss 100% of the shots you don't take
Michigan State was outshot in 25 of its 38 games, but on the season was outshot only by a 1099-1051 margin, a total of 48 shots over 38 games. MSU averaged 27.7 shots per game, and allowed an average of 28.9. In 2008-09, the Spartans averaged 23.97 shots per game, which ranked last of 58 teams nationally.

scoring drought ... corrected
The Spartans averaged just 1.63 goals per game in 2008-09, not only the lowest average in Division I hockey, but also a program low for scoring output in a season. Last year, MSU has averaged 3.03 goals over 38 games (and allowed an average of 2.36).

deadlocks
MSU had six ties last season, and four were home games. MSU went 11-5-4 at home, and 6-6-2 on the road. The Spartans were 2-2-0 in neutral-site games.

home sweet (conference) home
In conference games in 2009-10, MSU lost just once at Munn Arena - on Jan. 23 to Ohio State (4-2). A last-minute wraparound goal (and an empty-netter in the waning seconds) was the difference in that contest.

strong second halves
During the Rick Comley era, the Spartans have traditionally been a second-half team. The first three months (October, November, December) of his eight seasons in East Lansing, the Spartans have been a combined 81-71-17 (52.9%), then compiled a 87-45-17 mark in the second half (64.1%). With MSU's a 14-6-2 first-semester record last year it surpassed the 2007-08 squad for most wins under Comley in the opening semester. That team had the then-best first-half record (12-5-2, 68.4%), and were 13-7-3 in the 2008 portion of the schedule (63%). Last year appears to be a juxtaposition of seasons past in the Comley regime - MSU jumpd out to a 14-6-2 first-half ledger (.681), and its second-semester record was 5-7-4 (.438).

more consistency
Michigan State, along with Alaska and CCHA regular-season champion Miami, were the only teams to take points out of each of their conference weekends in 2009-10. MSU was also one of two teams to trip Miami in conference play - Nebraska-Omaha was the only other team to give Miami a conference loss.

free hockey
Michigan State played nine overtimes with an official record of 2-1-6. In the six ties, MSU lost the shootout four times (to UNO, Notre Dame (Nov. 19), LSSU, and Bowling Green (Feb. 27); MSU first got a shootout win on Jan. 16 against the Irish, then a 2-1 shootout win at Alaska, its first road shootout of the season.

with honors
Three Spartans were among the 12 players honored as All-CCHA selections. All three MSU skaters earned Second-Team honors: junior forward Corey Tropp, junior defenseman Jeff Petry, and sophomore netminder Drew Palmisano. It is the first All-Conference honor for each of the student-athletes. It is the most All-Conference selections to the first or second team in a single year for MSU since the 2002-03 campaign, when John-Michael Liles, Brad Fast, and Jim Slater comprised half of the First Team. MSU had two selections after the 2007-08 season: Jeff Lerg (First Team) and Tim Kennedy (Second Team); an additional three were Honorable Mention picks (Justin Abdelkader, Michael Ratchuk, and Daniel Vukovic).

top rookies
Torey Krug was named to the CCHA All-Rookie Team last season, and was a finalist for CCHA Rookie of the Year honors. Krug ranked eighth among all conference freshmen and first among first-year blueliners in scoring (3-13-16). Classmate Derek Grant was an Honorable Mention selection among first-year players.

smart kids
Drew Palmisano was named as Michigan State's CCHA Scholar-Athlete. One player from each team is selected, from which the CCHA Scholar Athlete of the Year is chosen. Palmisano is a finance major. Two players - defensemen Tim Buttery and Brock Shelgren - were named Big Ten Conference Distinguished Scholars. The pair, along with Palmisano, Trevor Nill, Dustin Gazley, and Matt Crandell, were Academic All-Big Ten picks.

hot hand
Drew Palmisano finished 14th nationally in save percentage (.917), and was 18th in GAA (2.44).

early impact
Michigan State freshmen won three of the five CCHA Rookie of the Month awards in the 2009-10 season. Derek Grant was the Rookie of the Month for October, while Torey Krug earned the honor in both December and January. Krug is only the second freshman in league history to record back-to-back Rookie of the Month honors - Miami's Carter Camper was the first in December and January during the 2007-08 season, the first year the award was given by the conference.

goalie u
Since the 1980-81 season, all but one Spartan starting goaltender has earned all-league honors (the Spartans have competed in both the Western Collegiate Hockey Association or Central Collegiate Hockey Association during this stretch). The list reads like a who's who in Spartan hockey - Ron Scott, Bob Essensa, Norm Foster, Jason Muzzatti, Mike Gilmore, Mike Buzak, Chad Alban, Joe Blackburn, Ryan Miller, Dominic Vicari and Jeff Lerg. Scott, Alban, Blackburn, Miller and Lerg were All-Americans. The only starting goalie who didn't make an all-star team or win an award during this stretch was Matt Migliaccio in 2002-03. Drew Palmisano kept the streak alive with his Second Team All-CCHA honor in 2009-10.

you go to the box, two minutes by yourself, and you feel shame
Torey Krug was MSU's most-penalized player last season. At 5-9, he is MSU's smallest-stature defenseman - but was whistled for 27 penalties for 65 minutes.

waiting for the call
Only one sophomore - winger Kevin Walrod - has yet to score a goal.

block party
Torey Krug (71) owned the team lead in blocked shots, followed by Jeff Petry (56), Brock Shelgren (35) and Matt Crandell (33).

for comparison sake
Derek Grant had 29 points on the season, (11g, 18a) and was the team's top-scoring freshman, the most since Tim Crowder had 17 goals and 13 assists for 30 points in the 2005-06 season. In the Comley era, only one freshman had more points than Crowder: David Booth had a 17-19-36 line in 2002-03. Grant finished currently tied for third on the list of Comley freshmen behind Booth and Crowder, tied with defenseman AJ Thelen, who had 11-18-29 in 2003-04.

clutch
When the Spartans needed a big goal, MSU looked no further than its top line - namely, junior Corey Tropp and freshman Derek Grant . They were on the ice for 10 of MSU's 19 game-winning goals last season, the highest number on the team. Tropp scored five game-winners and assisted on three others (once the primary helper, twice the secondary assist). Grant, on the other hand, had two game-winners, had the primary assist on two, and the secondary assist on two others.