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Michigan State Hockey 202?-202?

Bad Recruiter is the problem. Cannot miss on high quality players that are peaking coming out of juniors. Need to rebuild over the next 2 years and have a strong sophomore core in place in 2 years to turn things around
MSU continues to spin and spin out of control
 
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Yes, recruiting has been poor. Not sure if Exter is the reason or the scapegoat. Since Cole arrived there have been no high end recruits from juniors. The best ones lately have come from the transfer portal. The expectation when he was hired was his connections with the US program would result in an upgrade in recruiting. So far no US program player has chosen MSU, except one through the transfer portal.
 
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Great point and the portal is a bad way to fill gaps. Teams are plucking from the portal and missing players coming out of juniors who are peaking and can develop farther within the program. MSU is not getting those type of players. The smaller schools are getting stronger due to getting the players out of juniors who are clicking.
 
The biggest dry hole for MSU right now isn't the NTDP, but southern Ontario. That used to be the backbone of the roster when the Spartans were one of the powerhouse schools in college hockey. The current roster has only 3 players from there (Gucciardi, Nienhaus, and Charleson), no commits for next season, and only one in two years time. Whoever the next assistant coach is had better find a way back into the hotbed just east of lower Michigan.
 
For next year Cole has said he expects up to 10 new faces. Announced today are the additions of Gavin Best and Justin Jallen. Of the two Jallen, a one year grad student, is likely to be a second line player.

These are added to the previously announced Matt Basgall (D), Daniel Russell (LW), and Tiernan Shoudy (Cj.

Shoudy is a checking line player. Best and Russell have potential to score, but will take time to adjust to Big Ten hockey.

Expected to be added: Luca DiPasquo (G) and some additional players (most likely 1-2 year transfer portal players). They need 1-2 defensemen and at least another proven scorer.

If MSU can’t create an effective second scoring line the result will be another 7th place finish and likely coaching change.

Edit: Jallen should have 2 years of eligibility left as he only played 3 years at Brown.
 
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wsummers said:
For next year Cole has said he expects up to 10 new faces.
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wait

they're not firing him?

I mean, I'm not a fan of your team, so take this with a big fat heaping of salt, but...

What could possibly be the argument for keeping him at this point? Has the athletic department given up on the hockey program? This seems indefensible. There is no structural reason why Michigan State should not at least be in contention for the NCAA tournament in most or all seasons.

Again, just a rival fan, so take it for what it's worth, but I genuinely feel like college hockey would be better if the MSU administration took the program more seriously.
 
wsummers said:
DeRidder also opted to use his last year at North Dakota.
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A cordial "thank you" is in order.

I believe he's intended as the insurance policy to our Swedish import (Hellsten) that play sparingly this year and to put a gap year to the goalie recruit who is in the BCHL.
 
watch they will use the portal as a crutch, where at this point they should be recruiting players to come in and build with for 4 years. There are strong 20 year old's out there that are peaking and MSU will lose on them also. My opinion other than 5th year seniors, is you recruit and have players in your program year over year who are getting better well then they will not leave as your program with good coaching will offer them what they need
 
Puckstopper467 said:
watch they will use the portal as a crutch, where at this point they should be recruiting players to come in and build with for 4 years.
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There's a happy medium.

A year ago North Dakota lost 13 players to pro contracts or end of eligibility.

Coach Berry brought in 14 players: 5 portal transfers, 9 freshmen. The portal transfers were targeted. Lose both game experience goalies? Bring in portal goalie, and a freshman. Lose two centermen and nation leaders in faceoff percentage? Bring in a portal center who is a great faceoff guy and a freshman USHL center. Lose your top scorer; portal in a top scoring winger, and the freshman wingers in the recruit pipeline. Down to four defense; bring in two portal defenders and two freshmen.

The portal was used, not so much as a crutch but as a stop-gap, but the freshmen (9) were still brought in.

It must've worked; the Penrose Cup is staying in Engelstad.
 
Good point about ND and their usage of the portal to go along with a top freshman class, however MUS is not ND.
Danton will lean on the portal to just improve a little now versus getting top junior players to get better for the next 4 years to come
 
The Sicatoka said:
Why not?
UND beat MSU for titles in 1959 and 1987.
I was in the barn when MSU beat BC in 2007.

Do Tucker and Izzo have too much focus of the AD to the detriment of other programs?
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This stuff is actually discussed frequently among MSU hockey fans. Agreed that MSU CAN be as good as NoDak, and was for many years but that was long ago. MSU won that championship but some will say the cracks in the foundation started with the hiring of Comley and really started spreading a couple years after that championship.

My opinion is that Comley didn’t sink the program. Mark Hollis knocked it out through his sham of a coaching “search” that led to the hiring of Anastos. After that fell flat, he went with the easiest and most obvious choice in Cole. Cole hasn’t gotten better results than Anastos but he inherited a program that was already weakened substantially.

As for the administration, we are finally installing sorely needed and overdue facilities upgrades. We have a new AD but he does not seem to be in a hurry to conduct a coaching search for hockey. We’ll see. I hope he does his job better than Hollis.
 
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