The most difficult part of the job for men’s ice hockey coach Joe Marsh comes long before the drop of the puck to start a game.

With 30 players but only 21 able to dress for a game under NCAA rules, Marsh’s toughest task has been deciding whom to put in the lineup. His players aren’t making it easy on him. Nearly every time someone has been inserted into the lineup after not playing in the previous game, he has come through with a big night.

“It’s a nice problem to have, but it is still a problem,” says the 22-year Saint coach. “With a young group such as the one we have this year, you want to give everyone as much playing time as you can, but obviously someone is going to have to sit on a given night. Everyone is working hard in practice and deserves their shot, but when someone goes out and has a big night, you need to reward that by keeping him in the lineup as well. We talk about lineups for hours on end as a staff.”

Marsh and his assistants have done plenty of juggling through the first part of the season, using 24 different line combinations and eight different defensive pairings, as well as rotating three goaltenders. Despite having the same lineup on the ice just once in the first two months of the season, the Saints got off to a 4-0-0 start in ECAC Hockey League play and 7-4-0 overall through the end of November.

The Saint coach, a two-time winner of the Spencer Penrose Award as NCAA Division I Coach of the Year, has agonized over lineup decisions before, but he is also pretty good at picking the right one. He has coached 10 of the dozen 20-or-more-win seasons in St. Lawrence men’s hockey history and has won five of St. Lawrence’s six ECAC Hockey League championships.