SpartanMag.com - MSU goalie Palmisano stops 31 shots in 3-0 win

November 5, 2009

Ricardo Cooney
SpartanMag.com Staff

EAST LANSING - Rick Comley didn't think his team played very well on Thursday night in their series opener against Nebraska-Omaha.

But if winning 3-0 over the No. 10 team in the country is not playing well or 'in the system' that Comley and the coaches mapped out before the season, than the rest of the teams in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association are going to be in trouble once the Spartans hit their stride.

"I didn't think it was as good a game system-wise as it was on Saturday (when MSU beat Western Michigan last week, 5-3),'' Comley said. "We defended well after breaking down up ice but we had to defend too much on the rush.

"I want to see us really play our system. That the absolutely key. It's not one player or one line, it's the system. They can't break down because one little breakdown and it disrupts everything else. The reason we're better offensively is because we're better defensively, and we're better defensively because of the system we're playing. Tonight, we escaped some breakdowns.''

In what looked like a dominant performance at times over the Mavericks, the No. 17 Spartans got power play goals from freshman Derek Grant and junior Corey Tropp, and another even-strength goal on a pretty passing play from its fourth line of freshman consisting of Dean Chelios, Anthony Hayes and Kevin Walrod. Hayes netted the tally, his second of the season.

"That's one thing we do so much better (than last season), is move the puck,'' Comley said. "We need the power play in order to be good and tonight, that was the difference in the game. If you attack well, and you move the puck well, you make people defend and that's creates some penalties.''

Known as the 'Grape Line' because of the color of the jerseys they wear in practice, not only did Hayes, Chelios and Walrod combine to score the goal that gave MSU a 2-0 lead in the second period, but throughout the night, their ability to keep the puck deep in the Mavericks zone for extended amounts of time, left UNO both frustrated and without significant chances in the MSU end.

"They've done a nice job for us, which is important,'' Comley said. "You don't want to always be (your top guys). Corey Tropp obviously is playing very well right now but other people are chipping in goals, and that's what you want.

"I don't know that for sure (if they were MSU's best line Thursday night) but I though they played well. They gave us good minutes, they controlled the puck, I put them out there for one power ply and they did a nice job. I thought we had a couple other people not play very well in certain areas and I thought they picked up the slack.''

Although Comley was not totally pleased by his team's overall play in front of a small but passionate crowd of 3,903, he did acknowledge that his team did well in recovering defensively after getting out of system to deny Nebraska-Omaha quality scoring chances.

It was that defense and Drew Palmisano's performance in net - a 31-save effort earned the sophomore goalie that earned him his first career shutout and first star honors - that gave MSU its seventh win of the season.

In contrast, the now first place in the CCHA Spartans (7-2-0, 4-1-0 CCHA), who started last season on Oct. 10th with a win over UMass-Amherst, did not earn win No. 7 last season until Jan. 16th, when they beat Miami 4-1 on the road.

Palmisano's performance was accented early in the second period when with MSU on a power play, UNO's Dan Swanson picked off a bad Spartan pass up at the blueline and raced the other way for a breakaway chance against Palmisano, who was playing before his old United States Hockey League coach Mike Hastings, who is now an associate head coach for the Mavericks.

"I always want to do good against an old coach,'' Palmisano said with a smile. "Just show him that he did the right move by playing me back then and just stick it to him a little bit.''

As Swanson worked his way in for a goal that would have tied the score at 1, Palmisano calmly waited him out and easily stopped the Mavericks senior winger before he could make a move for a better shot attempt.

And as they have proven already through one month of play, this team is bigger, stronger, faster and more talented than last year's group by a longshot.

When players like junior wingers Andrew Rowe and Dustin Gazley are looking individually dominant on MSU's penalty killing unit, which left UNO 0-for-4 with the man advantage, while the Spartans went 2-for-4 on their man advantage situations, it might be time to start acknowledging that something special is starting to brew with this team.

"(Rowe) played really well,'' Comley said. "He and Gazley both I thought played very well.''

The Spartans will close out the series at 7:05 p.m. Saturday and while there is an air of excitement building about this team's future potential, its eighth-year head coach is refusing to heap too much praise upon what he calls a ''work in progress.''

"We have a long way to go, but I think they buy in,'' Comley said of his team's surprising early fortunes. "This team has potential. We just have to let it evolve and see where it goes.

"The system is much better than any player we have in that lockerroom and that's what they have to believe in. We just have to keep working, keep plugging away.''

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