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Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

Pirateasaur said:
I’d say we stole that point. We were on our heels much of the game. Although we really poured it on in the last 5 minutes of regulation and the first OT which took some of the sting off the shot disparity. 54 shots for Wisko but they did throw a fair amount of junk at DeRidder.
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'k so the strategy is: dudes got to just pretend it's overtime all the time. Same as last Saturday, rinse, repeat. Play like that (score though).

- - - - - -

So I got an itch to check the Pairwise rankings, and the Spartans are #24, ahead of all but OSU and Notre Dame among the B10's.
 
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Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

Maybe it’s just bitter over losing the shootout, but I don’t see the point in making that sudden death. I’m guessing their point is we’ve already sat through two OT periods, but are another two rounds really that strenuous for the players?
 
Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

Yost and LCA this weekend. 1-0-2 in three games against UM, though we've been outshot by a large margin in each contest. Not sure what to expect out of this series. We appear to be on the upswing and UM has been wildly inconsistent the entire year.

It's a shame only one of the five games in this year will be on TV. As TV coverage expands it seems the rivalry gets less air time every year.
 
Spartanforlife4 said:
Yost and LCA this weekend. 1-0-2 in three games against UM, though we've been outshot by a large margin in each contest. Not sure what to expect out of this series. We appear to be on the upswing and UM has been wildly inconsistent the entire year.

It's a shame only one of the five games in this year will be on TV. As TV coverage expands it seems the rivalry gets less air time every year.
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Michigan takes a lot of shots and we often give up a lot of shots. I expect UM to put 35+ up both nights.

However, our defense and goaltending has improved lately. 4 GA in the last 3 games. Also, shots don’t tell the whole story. I think we’ve been forcing teams to take quite a few low percentage shots. Looks good on that part of the stat sheet but does not always translate to goals.
 
Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

Spartanforlife4 said:
Yost and LCA this weekend. 1-0-2 in three games against UM, though we've been outshot by a large margin in each contest. Not sure what to expect out of this series. We appear to be on the upswing and UM has been wildly inconsistent the entire year.

It's a shame only one of the five games in this year will be on TV. As TV coverage expands it seems the rivalry gets less air time every year.
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I can't remember a more important UM series since the 2009-10 CCHA tournament best-of-3 at Munn - given where things are in the standings and on the calendar, and how relevant the Spartans are currently. If MSU wins one of these games in regulation or overtime, they're ahead via the 2nd tiebreaker.
 
Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

Well, we’re going to have to do better than that.

Need the win tonight to keep hosting a playoff series within reach.
 
Pirateasaur said:
Ho boy, I was afraid it would be Afanasyev.

Nevertheless, disappointing. But we just have very little roster room opening up at D(also forward) so maybe he decided to go somewhere with more playing time daylight.
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Latest expectation is he goes to Windsor for a year then NHL....Cole doesn’t expect him to go the college route.
 
Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

wsummers said:
Latest expectation is he goes to Windsor for a year then NHL....Cole doesn’t expect him to go the college route.
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That's hugely disappointing about Afanasyev if true, but honestly not entirely unexpected. The fact that Cole hasn't named at least some of his incoming class is a huge red flag to me. It suggests he's known this development for awhile and is still working on improving the team's F recruits in particular.
 
FLHockeyMom said:
That's hugely disappointing about Afanasyev if true, but honestly not entirely unexpected. The fact that Cole hasn't named at least some of his incoming class is a huge red flag to me. It suggests he's known this development for awhile and is still working on improving the team's F recruits in particular.
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It probably doesn’t mean anything but I did see a video where his USHL team interviewed him in recent weeks and he said he intends to major in Sports Management or something at MSU. Could just be going through the motions until things are final but they didn’t have to ask him about MSU.
 
Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

As for last night, I thought there was a lot to be pleased with. The KHL line was actually neutralized a fair amount but other lines really stepped up(particularly saliba’s) and we got scoring from some names that do not often appear on the stat sheet. Save for their 3rd goal, Lethemon was great.

The 2nd period did get pretty squirrelly. We turned the puck over a ton and I felt the 4 goal lead was in jeapardy but we really buttoned it up in the 3rd.

I’m just gonna skip last weekend.
 
Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

wsummers said:
Latest expectation is he goes to Windsor for a year then NHL....Cole doesn’t expect him to go the college route.
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If Cole's talking about a guy who hasn't signed an LOI then it's definitely a done deal the recruit is gone.

Trying to decide if anything more should be read into Rosburg's joining the 3 seniors on the ice after the alma mater. Yes, I'm aware they arrived on campus together four years ago.

Odds are good MSU ends up in 7th place after it's all done, although it doesn't feel like a 2017-18 7th place. May well end up that way again in 2019-20. One mitigating cause for optimism though is some freshmen have really figured it out of late. Will just have to see what happens with decisions made by one or 2 of our juniors. Seniors and sophomores will be carrying much of the load next season. Then it's 2020-21 and an extremely promising freshman class lined up - all Danton's guys save for Nodler.
 
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owslachief said:
If Cole's talking about a guy who hasn't signed an LOI then it's definitely a done deal the recruit is gone.

Trying to decide if anything more should be read into Rosburg's joining the 3 seniors on the ice after the alma mater. Yes, I'm aware they arrived on campus together four years ago.

Odds are good MSU ends up in 7th place after it's all done, although it doesn't feel like a 2017-18 7th place. May well end up that way again in 2019-20. One mitigating cause for optimism though is some freshmen have really figured it out of late. Will just have to see what happens with decisions made by one or 2 of our juniors. Seniors and sophomores will be carrying much of the load next season. Then it's 2020-21 and an extremely promising freshman class lined up - all Danton's guys save for Nodler.
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Most people seem to assume Nodler is a 2020 guy but i’m not sure. If he came in next fall he’d be about the same age that Afanasyev would be and where the Krygier twins were. He’s at a point per game pace in the USHL and is nearly 200 pounds. Seems college ready to me but i’ve Never seen him in person.
 
Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

Add Matt Basgall to the 2021 class. He a dman who is now with Omaha. At 5’9 180, not big, but since he’s still a high school sophomore he may not be done growing.
 
Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

wsummers said:
Add Matt Basgall to the 2021 class. He a dman who is now with Omaha. At 5’9 180, not big, but since he’s still a high school sophomore he may not be done growing.
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Hopefully. Height isn't everything, but it'd be nice if we could start making 6ft+ the average rather than a special get. Cole did a good job with that this past year's class.
 
Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

With ND/Minn still to play this may be moot, but I believe we're already out of home-ice contention with the results so far. Only three points the last two weekends didn't help, and neither has OSU losing their last three to teams we really needed them to beat.

Best we can get is 33 which would at best tie us with Minnesota and Michigan if they lose out.

We lose out on the regulation/OT win tiebreaker with Minnesota, and lose the season series tiebreaker with Michigan.

For either of the above to even come into affect, it would mean ND has also secured home-ice, so there's the three first round hosts.

Looking back, not too many games we gave away to wish for more points. With better puck luck we probably could've taken 7/12 against ND instead of 1/12, and the lone point came in a game we gave up the tying goal with three minutes left, so you could almost look at that and say we could have 8 more points. Other than that, would've been nice to pick up points last Saturday, but we did well at winning/tying the close games this year.
 
Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

I may be early, but it may be time for my annual profanity-laced tirade. Bleeping-blippity bleep bleep bleepin' blip.
 
Re: Spartan Hockey 2018-2019 - Preparing for Glory

wsummers said:
Save your energy for the playoffs...let us sweep you this weekend...
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Always up for suggestions although the ones from the student section at Yost last weekend were rather inappropriate!
Ran into a young man wearing a MSU hoodie at the grocery here last night and we had a very nice impromptu discussion about both our programs.
 
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