First partisan defense of the year, on my part (but done in a hopefully caring
way).
 
TariAnne wrote:
> Since no one else has posted THN college previews, I thought I
> would.
> CCHA Preview
> Fine State of affairs
> Michigan State, Michigan, Lake State favorites for league crown
>
> 1. Michigan State Spartans  --------  WHAT??????
 
It's really quite simple.  The Spartans lost only ONE of their top scorers last
year (Kelly Harper) and returned (John may want to correct this, but I think
it's correct) three of the top six goal scorers in the CCHA from last year
(Carter, Guolla, Murray).  In addition, we return one of the top goaltenders
in college hockey (Buzak) and had one of the best recruiting classes in the
country.  We also picked up from the now-defunct Kent Golden Flashes one of
their top scorers from last year.  Where the Spartans were hurt by graduation
was mostly on defense, but that may be a bit overstated.  The key loss was
Bart Turner.  Perrault was more the enforcer on the team and an excellent
point man on the power play.  Norton didn't play as much last year as in
previous years, which gave a lot of ice time to people like the three Chrises
(Sullivan, Slater, and Smith) and Bart Vanstaalduinen, which will form the
nucleus of MSU's blueline corps this year.
 
The other top two teams in the conference were both hurt much more severely
by graduation.  Michigan lost their two top scorers and both of their goal-
tenders.  This won't be enough to drop them down more than a couple notches
at most, but it is going to take some time (IMO) for them to get into a real
rhythm (John may disagree with me on this one).  LSSU lost people like Beddoes
and much more importantly Lacher, who from mid-January on was the best goal-
tender in the country.  Sass saw some ice time for LSSU last year, but it's
a lot different when you're the #1 and are in the net 3 nights out of 4.
 
I think you're letting your hatred :-) of MSU blind you to the fact that they
are a legitimate title contender.
 
G. M. Finniss
Michigan State University
WVU '87, UTenn '92, MSU who the hell knows when?
5 days until opening faceoff against BG...