Shutting down the league's best line ain't easy.

Shutting down the league's best line ain't easy.
by wearendhockey (2019-03-10 15:53:30)

The KHL Line (Patrick Khodorenko, Taro Hirose and Mitchell Lewandowski) combined for 49 goals and 121 points this season. They had scored at least 1 point in 13 of Michigan State's previous 14 games, at least 1 goal in 11 of MSU's previous 14 games and multiple goals in 8 of them. Over the course of the season, that line was kept entirely off the board just 4 times in 34 games. They were not held scoreless in consecutive games during the regular season and when they were held scoreless for a game, they generally responded with at least 2 points the next game.

Notre Dame blanked them totally for 2 straight nights. In desperate games. Not bad.

Sort of off topic: what happened to MSU?

When I first started following hockey during the Ron Mason era, they were a perennial powerhouse. They've really fallen on hard times as a program since 2007.

Tom Anastos was a major dud as head coach.

I think that's basically the entire story. They had some ups and downs under Comley, but as you obliquely referenced, they won the title for him in '07.

It's almost as if hiring a conference commissioner

to be a head coach was a colossally dumb idea. I think I posted as much on this board when he was hired and I was not alone.

Yep - on top of the fact ...

that he was involved in demolishing the existing conference setup.

Impressive. I didn't know much about MSU. *

And with Nardella out the whole series?? *