MUSKEGON – Coaches have to keep saying positive things when their teams are going through bad spells.
If they give up, so do the players, and the season can end up on the scrap pile.
So Muskegon Lumberjacks Coach Mike Hamilton kept a stiff upper lip through the first dozen games of the season, when his team got off to a very slow start, winning only two games. He kept insisting that the Jacks had the talent to be successful, and things would get better with time.
Now that his positive forecast is actually coming true, Hamilton admits there were moments, here and there, when he started to wonder if he had the right mix of players to get the season back on track.
He points to the weekend of Nov. 5-6, when the Jacks beat Youngstown in overtime, but lost the next night, bringing their season record to a dismal 2-8-2.
[1]“The Youngstown weekend was the one where I was kind of questioning things a little bit,” Hamilton said. “We won in overtime in the first game, then we lost the second one, and I started to worry and wonder a little bit if I had been wrong.”
Hamilton also said he noted some clouds of doubt among the players a week earlier, when they went to Dubuque and lost two games.
“There was a lot of looking around and wondering ‘What’s going on,’ and ‘Who’s next (to leave)?’” Hamilton said.
The doubt is now completely gone, because the Jacks have suddenly sprung to life and look like one of the better teams in the USHL.
They’ve won four games in a row and nine out of their last 10, and the whole league has taken notice.
At the end of October, Muskegon was 1-7-2 and in dead last in the Eastern Conference. Now the Jacks are suddenly 10-8-3 and in fourth place, just three points behind Dubuque and Madison, who are tied for second.
The Jacks just completed their best weekend of the season so far, winning three straight games at home over the Cedar Rapids Roughriders on Friday (4-2), Saturday (5-2) and Sunday (3-0).
The weekend series brought a whole new challenge for the Jacks, because Cedar Rapids is an unusually physical team for the USHL and has by far the most penalty minutes of any team in the Eastern Conference.
[2]For teams like the Roughriders , the goal is to use the extra physical style of play to throw more skilled teams like Muskegon out of their rhythm and cause them to misfire.
That strategy was particularly evident on Saturday night, when the two teams combined to commit 30 penalties and received 156 penalty minutes. Most of the penalties were called during the chaotic second period, when there were numerous fights on the ice, including three at the same time at one point, and the Jacks lost three players to game misconducts – Noah Ellis, Owen Mehlenbacher and Ethan Whitcomb.
But somehow the Jacks remained focused on the scoreboard, and managed to break a 1-1 tie with four third-period goals and win 5-2. Forward Phil Tresca was the big hero, tallying a very rare natural hat trick in the third period with three straight goals.
Tresca also scored two goals on Friday night and finished with an amazing five-goal weekend.
“This weekend was a big test,” Hamilton said. “We were getting pushed around a little bit, and the guys had to stand up for themselves and their teammates. We don’t have many pure fighters, but when it came time they stepped up and stood their ground.
“For us to go through that and still figure out how to win was great. We did it with three power play goals. That’s how you win in those situations. You have to score on the power play opportunities.”
Lumberjacks Captain Jack Williams said the team knew Cedar Rapids’ style and were ready for anything.
“We’re ready for whatever teams throw at us,” he said. “We’re a young team that’s been hungry to learn and win, and now we’re starting to come to life. The talent in this room is pretty special. It was tough in the beginning, but now it’s exciting.”
Necessary adjustments
Turning the season around required some adjustments for the Lumberjacks.
The biggest came early in the season when goalie Jan Skorpik, who shared net duties last season and was expected to be the No. 1 goalie this season, was suddenly released and Russian Platon Zadorozhnyy was brought to town to take his place.
Another skilled Russian goalie, Alexander Kuleshov, was also brought in to add depth, and rookie Cameron Korpi has been solid in limited action.
On Nov. 13, not long after Zadorozhnyy’s arrival, the Jacks went to Chicago and beat the first-place Steel 5-4. That was the beginning of a four-game road winning streak, and they’ve only lost one game since then.
“Getting that win in Chicago was a big one,” Hamilton said. “You could just feel the confidence come back. We had just beaten the best team in the league, and we had a goalie who was pretty damned good.”
Hamilton admits that Skorpik was not given a very long rope this season, but better goaltending seemed like an obvious need, and the team acted quickly to get it.
“Our general manager and team president were on top of that situation,” Hamilton said. “Do I think that Jan (Skorpik) would have turned it around? Yes. But we had to do something to regain our confidence and turn the tide.
“It was about having goalies who could control the play, who would make the big stops when they had to and control rebounds. It was a major upgrade.”
[3]The Lumberjacks also altered their playing style a bit, according to Hamilton.
Instead of always trying to score the quick goal, the Jacks started relying on their significant depth, the coach said. They realized they have more skilled players than most other teams in the league, and have the ability to outplay most opponents over full 60-minute games.
“At the start of the year we tried to be a little too offensive, like our teams in the past, constantly trying to score off the rush,” Hamilton said. “Our identity now is just being solid in the offensive zone and running four lines to grind other teams down. I think we are second in the league in scoring in 5-on-5 hockey. We’re running our full depth.”
By trusting their depth and being patient, the Jacks have finally started getting some consistent scoring, and lately it’s been coming in big bunches.
In their first 13 games they scored a total of 36 goals, for a paltry average of 2.7 per game. In their last nine games they’ve scored 48, for an average of 5.3 goals per game.
Leading the scoring surge has been forward Joey Larson, who leads the team with 15 goals, followed by Quinn Hutson (11 goals), Tresca (10 goals) and Ben Strinden (9 goals). Larson is ninth overall in the league scoring race with 25 points (11 goals and 14 assists) while defenseman Jacob Guevin is 19th with 22 points (2 goals, 20 assists).
“We’re pretty balanced right now,” Hamilton said. “We’ve got a lot of the guys scoring. Our young guys have really started to step up and score some pretty big goals. Everybody has figured out their roles.
[4]“We had to change the style that we were playing and had to find our identify. With the bad start we had, we also had an opportunity to learn a lot about ourselves and be better for what we went through.”
The Lumberjacks have five more games before their short Christmas break, starting Friday at home against Team USA and Saturday in Chicago. After Friday, they won’t play at home again until Dec. 31 in a New Year’s Eve game against Youngstown.
“Everybody is pretty high right now, but we’re trying to stay level-headed,” Williams said. “Everybody has confidence. A lot of guys have stepped up for us.
“I think it has all started in practice. We have good, hard practices and the compete level has been up. It’s been a lot of fun.”