Cole, Spartans ready for 2019-2020 season (with Green and White Game photos)

By @MichaelCaples –

EAST LANSING – He is two and a half years into his new job, and Danton Cole likes what he sees, both literally and figuratively.

As construction progresses on the much-needed addition to Munn Ice Arena, Cole said there is an excitement around the Michigan State hockey program as they head into his third year behind the bench of his alma mater.

“You know what, we’re excited where we’re at,” Cole said Wednesday afternoon during the team’s media day and Green and White game. “All the things we talked about since I stood here two and a half years ago in terms of the type of players we wanted to identify to come and play here, the type of players who had signed National Letters of Intent and have come here, working on the attendance and making Munn a really hard place to play, and then we always talk about the expansion of Munn and getting that to where we want it as a building tied everything together. And on all fronts we’re very excited. Everybody’s done a great job. I think the direction where we’re headed is the right direction, and I think we’re doing it the right way. And we’re going to be a better hockey team again this year. I can’t wait to get started.”

The Munn construction added some wrinkles into the start-of-season schedule, as the traditional Green and White Game had to be made a students-only event Wednesday afternoon because of the limited amount of fire exits available near the construction area on the south side of the rink. Those would have been addressed in time for a Saturday exhibition contest against an unnamed Canadian university team who cancelled on the Spartans, so now MSU’s official tune-up game will be against Western Ontario on Monday at 7 p.m.

The more-important wrinkles, of course, have to do with the Spartans’ roster and how they will perform in 2019-2020. The most glaring absence is that of Taro Hirose, who passed on his senior season to sign with the Detroit Red Wings (and subsequently make the opening night roster for the NHL club this fall). The first player tasked with replacing him on the famed ‘KHL’ line with Patrick Khodorenko and Mitchell Lewandowski is freshman Nicolas Mueller, a Swiss native who was a surprise commit to the Spartans during the spring.

“Yeah, we’ve tried a few guys,” Cole said. “Nicolas Muller has done a really nice job for us. Nicolas played the last three years in Sweden. His team won a championship there. He was the captain of that team. The last two years he was on Switzerland’s U20 team, and he was one of the leading scorers on their team. He’s played with some high-end guys. Nico Hischier from New Jersey, who was one of the top picks in the NHL, played on the line with him and did well. So he’s able to make plays at a high pace; good hockey IQ, and he’s fit in real well with those two so far.”

The Spartans need to show growth in all areas of the game, but Cole highlighted his blue line unit when asked where MSU needs growth to move up the Big Ten standings.

“Yeah, as an ornery coach, there are a lot of areas,” Cole said. “We want to be better in everything. I think that one area that’ll I want to say as a group I want to say our defensemen is the one area. And by saying that’s the one area, that’ll allow me to talk to a few different areas. We had three freshmen playing most last year on the backhand, plus a freshmen goalie on half our nights, and that’s hard to do in college hockey, let alone the Big Ten. The Krygiers (Cole and Christian) had great summers. Dennis (Cesana) had a great summer. They’ve looked really, really good, and I think that’ll help us keep some more pucks out of the net.
“The other thing is I’ve always been a big believer that when I went from — I was in Tampa and I got traded to New Jersey, and we would get out of our zone in Tampa, and we never had odd-man rushes. It was just hard to get it out of our zone and it was hard to get it in the other team’s zone, and we just had to kind of grind and grind and grind. Got to New Jersey and that collection of defensemen was outstanding. There’s at least two Hall of Famers on it, and there might be a couple others. But just the difference in terms of getting passes, coming through the neutral zone, having them join the rush, I think offensively we’re going to be better because our defensemen are better at moving the puck. And transitionally you just can’t do it if you don’t have the guys back.
“Now, at times we did it very well last year. And you can see our first two series, Northern the first night we were awesome. The second night we looked like freshmen, and we weren’t quite so good in the transition. Same thing with Ferris. So I hope there’s a little more consistency there.
“The point I was trying to get to was it makes it so much easier for the forwards and you just get more opportunities when the D are clean and moving things. So I think that’s one area as a whole that will look a lot better this year.”

Up front, the Spartans will have three freshmen competing for time in the top-six, as Michigan natives Josh Nodler (Oak Park) and Jagger Joshua (Dearborn) arrive on campus.

“Both Detroit kids – I’ve known both of them actually for quite a while, being in the hockey scene down there for a long time,” Cole said. “Josh (Nodler) is a true freshman, had a great year in the USHL last year. He’s a true center. He can make plays. He’ll get lots of time on probably the second power play. He might bump up at times to first one. But really sees the ice well, serious, hard working. He’s just a very, very good hockey player, and he’s going to go to baptism by fire here early on. He’s going to have to play and figure it out and ramp up enough before the Big Ten comes to handle the center position. But I’ve had him with Sammy Saliba quite a bit, and that’s been good. He’s been able to learn from him, and it’s like having another coach on the line. So he’s doing a great job, and he’ll contribute greatly.
“Jagger Joshua has been outstanding. Some guys come back and they’ve really improved and they’re a surprise. I knew Jagger was going to be a good player. He’s smart, he’s big; he’s got really good instincts and does a lot of things on the ice, a lot of intangibles that I wasn’t sure when he was going to be in good player form. Still, I can’t say 100 percent. But he’s been ahead of where we thought he would be. And right now I’ve got him playing on the line with Nodler and Saliba, and we’ll kind of see how that looks, two freshmen in that high sliding in the lineup, we’ll see how it goes, but we’ve been real happy with all of them. And we obviously had some offense we had to replace with Taro leaving, and I think those three guys will put a big dent in it.”

Between the pipes, senior John Lethemon and sophomore Drew DeRidder will continue competing for crease time.

“Yeah. I think it’ll be a battle again this year,” Cole said. “They were kind of back and forth with it last year. And that’s not a bad thing in college hockey. It’s like the NFL where they say if you have two No. 1 quarterbacks, you don’t have a No. 1. So I think they’ll battle back and forth, and if one guy grabs not the ball but the puck and runs with it, that’s fine with us. But that competition within those two was really good. Statistically they were fairly close in a lot of ways. I think at the end John had some more wins at the end, and he got the shirts in the playoffs and played very well, and you hope that they continue to drive each other.
“We’ve had success with (the two-goalie system) here, in the early years with Bob Essensa and Norm Foster. They did it for four years right down to the Final Four; Norm played the semifinals and Bob would play the finals. So you can do that and then you can also ride one guy. But I do think there’s some value in that, especially with Drew being young last year, having the senior there, or the junior, to bump back to was beneficial for us. So we’ll see how that plays out. The players determine that.”

The Spartans were selected to finish No. 7 in the Big Ten this season in the preseason coaches’ poll, but Cole still likes the progress he sees program-wide. A senior class of nine players have the opportunity to set the course for future groups at Michigan State.

I think two things, and everything — I think culture is — culture beats strategy all the time. And I think that where we’ve got things right now, I think is in a pretty good spot, and I think our depth behind that is also a lot better than it was. And those are two real important things for college hockey.
“So, you know, the recruiting, I think Coach Exter has done a great job. I think the pipeline and the guys we have coming are just really good hockey players. We’re excited about that. We’re excited about the guys that filled in. But I think the way our guys, like I said, the way they move on the ice, the way they move off the ice is real important. I think them understanding what we are and what it takes to be a good hockey team is vitally important, and they’re setting the groundwork for a lot of good things to come, and I hope some of that is included in this year.”