Just following his coach’s orders
Not once has he complained about the situation he was asked to adjust into.
He made the best of it and, well, here he is with a better combined record than the two guys he replaced.
He is Josh Groves, the Utah State hockey club’s netminder through the past 10 and one-half games.
A 20-year-old freshman who came to USU to be a forward/defenseman, Groves was asked after the Christmas Break by Head Coach Jerry Crossley to fill in for the Aggies’ other two goaltenders, freshmen Dustin Van Dyke and Dustin Merrill, because their grades were too low for eligibility to play in the spring semester. Crossley said he chose Groves because it was the position he had played all through high school.
And while Groves’ performance certainly has not been spectacular (allowing 4.5 goals per game), the Aggie offense more than made up for it, winning the first six games he started, USU’s longest winning streak of the season.
However, the past five games have had a different script. Two weeks ago the Aggies endured the most brutal road trip of the season, losing to Wyoming, Colorado and Colorado State. Injuries hit USU like a Lennox Lewis fist to the chin.
Even more important, Groves came down with an upset stomach after the 8-0 loss to Colorado and said he “tossed it a couple times.”
More recently, the Aggies had two flat performances at home last week, dropping a game to Colorado and tying Wyoming.
Even though the collapse on the previous road trip cost USU a chance at qualifying for the American Collegiate Hockey Association National Tournament, Crossley said it isn’t fair to throw all blame at Groves.
“I just can’t fault him,” Crossley said. “He’s stepped in and taken on that role this year. Yeah, sometimes you think, ‘gosh, you should have gotten that one,’ or ‘that’s maybe a weak goal.’
“But by dang, you know what? I can’t fault that kid. He’s stepped in and filled a job we needed, and more power to him.”
Groves’ road to becoming a goalie started in Taylorsville where he was born and raised. In fifth grade a classmate introduced him to hockey “and it all just went from there.”
It’s not that he wanted to play goalie, but when he and other kids would play, everybody would take turns crouching between the pipes. It just so happened Groves’ ability to deflect pucks was better than anybody else, so he was stuck there.
After high school, Groves wanted a change of pace from the sedentary life of playing in the net. So he played juniors last year with the Salt Lake Maple Leafs, starting out as a forward before being changed to a defenseman. And because the Aggies needed more man power on the defensive side, Crossley put him there last October.
“It’s a whole different game [not playing goalie],” Groves said. “Being in goal is important because you’re the key player right there in the net, but sometimes you want to explode and get out there and skate.
“That’s what I wanted to do for a while is just get out and skate and try my thing at defense.”
Already in his young career Groves has been part of what Crossley said was one of the three most exciting games USU has ever competed in — a Jan. 17 8-7 overtime victory at the Ogden Ice Sheet over long-time rival Weber State.
The seven goals Groves let slip by him showed his performance was a little shaky, but when Robert Hashimoto punched in the game-winner 24 seconds into overtime, the eruption from USU fans as well as himself racing down to the other end of the ice to jump in on the celebration pile-up was unlike anything he could have imagined.
But then there are those moments like the Colorado road trip and last week’s inconsistent games against Colorado and Wyoming.
In the Colorado game, the Buffaloes put in three goals in 41 seconds, putting away any chance of a USU victory.
The next night against Wyoming, Groves admitted he was somewhere else while everybody else was playing a hockey game. After giving up his fourth goal of the game midway into the second period, he pulled himself.
“I kind of woke up not really ready to play hockey,” he said. “When I got to the rink, I didn’t really feel ready. I went out there and tried, [but] I just didn’t have my head in the game and wanted to get [backup goalie Mike Burgraff] in.”
Groves said he is now using this semester to get ready for next season, in which he hopes to be USU’s goaltender for good and lead the team to Nationals — while also looking at a chance here and there to cover the rest of the ice.
“Hopefully if Van Dyke gets some games, coach will let me play some D when I’m not sitting up in the net,” Groves said with a smirk, raising his voice in mid-sentence to make sure Crossley, who was standing behind him, could hear.
So, how do his teammates view his come-to-the-rescue performance?
“Josh … we can’t say enough about what he’s doing,” said center Ben Froehle. “It’s amazing. He’s got to be our MVP for this year after what he’s done. Playing like that his last semester, you can’t expect any more from him. He’s just awesome.
“He’s by far the best athlete on our team, and it shows. Nobody else on our team could go out there and do what he’s done.”
Senior center Nick Thiros added, “We couldn’t have asked for a better job.”
Groves’ response?
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of great athletes on the team. I came in and did what coach wanted me to do and just tried playing in goal.
“I just kind of do what I’m told.”
–samhis@cc.usu.edu