MUSKEGON – Jack Williams is healthy and at full strength, and now he’s ready for the goals and the victories to start coming.

Williams, a third-year Lumberjack and the team captain this season, got a late jump this fall due to knee surgery he had in July.

He was on a limited workout routine in training camp in September nd didn’t play in any exhibition games.

He finally hit the ice for the season opener in Pittsburgh in late September and has bene playing ever since, but so far he’s not particularly happy with his own production or the team’s record.

Last year Williams had a breakout season, scoring 18 goals with 20 assists.  This year he only has one goal and two assists through the first 10 games.

Meanwhile the Lumberjacks are off to a 1-6-3 start, heading into their home games on Friday and Saturday night against the Youngstown Phantoms.

The slow start for Williams can be attributed to his knee injury, which he incurred last season.

“I had two bone fragments in my right patella tendon – right under the kneecap – and the surgery was in July,” Williams said. “I was back up on skates around Sept. 1 when I arrived in Muskegon, but the regimen I was on was two weeks of going really slow, two weeks of non-contact, then two weeks of starting to push it a little bit.

“The first couple of weeks of the season I had to figure out the game again. I took a long time off, and I had to get it back.”

Williams went without a goal for the first seven games of the season, before he finally found the net on Oct. 23 in a 6-4 loss to Madison in Wisconsin.

“That one felt good,” he said. “The puck hasn’t been going in for me, and I have to work a little bit harder right now.”

Williams admits that he’s been pressing a little bit to try to pick up his scoring. He also said he’s felt snake-bit a few times, when he took shots that he was sure would go in, but were somehow stopped.

“I know a lot of guys have been going through that sort of thing,” he said. “It makes you grip your stick a little harder. But the message in the locker room right now is to just relax a little bit and do what works for you.”

Williams has also been frustrated by the team’s slow start, particularly after last season, when they finished a strong second in the USHL’s Eastern Conference and advanced to the Eastern Conference finals in the playoffs.

“We’ve got a young group here, and we knew we would struggle a little bit at the start,” he said. “But we’ve seen bits and pieces of everything we can do, and this weekend we will be going for two wins, and I think we could go on a run.

“We have a winning culture here in Muskegon, and I’ve been lucky enough to have been part of that. I have never been part of a start like this, or anything like it. It has been frustrating, but we have high standards here, and we are going to win games.”

The schedule has not been easy so for a developing team like the Lumberjacks. Besides the elite Team USA Under-18 squad, which beats everyone, the Jacks have played five teams, and four of them have great records so far – Chicago (8-2-3), Madison (8-2-1), Dubuque (6-0-4) and Sioux City (6-2-2).

While playing those teams right off the bat has been difficult, Williams believes the tough competition will pay off later in the season.

“When you look at last year, we lost to the USA 18’s early in the season, I think like 8-2, then later on we beat them four straight games,” he said. “Playing good teams at the start will help us in the long run, 1,000 percent.

“We’re not done. We have a long season still ahead of us, and I think things are going to start coming together for us real soon.”

Finally an opponent with a losing record

The Lumberjacks may get a little bit of a break this weekend because they are playing a sub-.500 opponent for the first time since the first game of the season.

The Phantoms are 4-6-1 and seem like a team that the Jacks might be able to jump-start their season against.

But there is reason for caution, because Youngstown comes in with a two-game winning streak, after beating Cedar Rapids (4-2) and first-place Chicago (5-1) last weekend.

If the Jacks can start getting some victories, they could move up in the standings quite quickly. They are currently in last place in the Eastern Conference with five points, but a cluster of teams are within easy shooting distance, including Green Bay (10 points), Youngstown (9), Cedar Rapids (8) and Team USA (7).

Guevin is league’s Defenseman of the Week

Lumberjacks defenseman Jacob Guevin, known for his playmaking abilities and assists, was named the USHL Defenseman of the Week for his performance last weekend, when he notched two assists on Friday night in a 7-4 loss to Dubuque, and another assist in Saturday night’s 4-3 overtime shootout loss to the Fighting Saints.

Guevin now has now scored a point in eight straight games.

He now has 13 points on the season (1 goal and 12 assists). He leads the Lumberjacks in points, and ranks 12^th in the league. He is the only Muskegon player to rank in the top 20 in the league scoring race.