By Steve Gunn
LocalSportsJournal.com
MUSKEGON – Collin Adams is scoring goals, just like the Muskegon Lumberjacks figured he would.
Now if the Jacks could just get a few more players to do the same thing.
Adams, a first-year left wing from Brighton, was one of the lone bright spots in the Lumberjacks’ 7-3 loss to the Chicago Steel on Saturday at L.C. Walker Arena.
Collin Adams
He scored a pair of goals and now leads the team with three on the season.
Adams started demonstrating his offensive abilities in 2012-13, when he collected 24 goals and 10 assists in 22 games for the Little Caesars Bantam Major AAA squad.
Last season, with the Honeybaked Under 16 team, he notched 26 goals and nine assists in 25 games.
He figured it was only a matter of time before he found his scoring touch for the Lumberjacks.
“It’s just a big adjustment to a new league,” said Adams, 17, who played three games with the Jacks last season as a temporary call up. “You’re playing bigger and stronger guys and it takes a while to get used to that.”
Unfortunately few others on the Lumberjacks have been scoring recently. They only have six goals in the last three games, which were all home losses. They had two goals in regulation in their season opener in Waterloo, bringing their total to just eight goals in four games.
That comes out to an average of two goals per game, which is tied with Des Moines for the second lowest average in the league. Bloomington is averaging slightly less than two goals per game.
The Lumberjacks have been outscored 19-8. Besides Adams, nobody on the team has more than one goal,
Despite the slow start, Adams says there is a lot of offensive skill on the team, and the goals will start to come soon.
“We have a very skilled and offensively gifted group,” said Adams, who added that the team has been tinkering with different line combinations this week in practice. “It’s just that we have so many young guys who are getting used to the league. Once we start clicking, we could be a very dangerous team.
“We obviously know that losing those three games was tough, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. We just have to keep working hard every day and get better and hopefully we can win a game in Youngstown this weekend.”
Schedule about to get busier
Muskegon is now 1-3, good for two points and last place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference standings. The Jacks are three points behind eighth-place Green Bay.
Cedar Rapids leads the Eastern Conference with 11 points while Lincoln leads the Western Conference with 12 points.
One problem has been the Lumberjacks’ schedule. They’ve only played four games so far this season, while every other team in the league has played between 6-8 games.
But that will change in the coming week, when the schedule gets a lot busier.
It will start Saturday night when the Jacks visit the Youngstown Phantoms at 7 p.m.
They will have three home games next week – on Wednesday against Chicago at 10:30 a.m., and on Friday and Saturday against Green Bay at 7:15 p.m. each night.
Not the worst start they’ve had
This year’s 1-3 start is the worst for the Lumberjacks since 2011-12, when they were 1-5 before getting their second victory of the season. The team finished 17-35-8.
The current three-game home losing streak is the first since 2013, when the Jacks lost to Green Bay on Nov. 29 and 30 and Indiana on Dec. 6.
Ward gets a one-game suspension
Muskegon forward Keegan Ward has been suspended for one game for a spearing penalty incurred Saturday against Chicago. He will miss Saturday’s game in Youngstown and be eligible to return for Wednesday’s game against Chicago.
