Gavin Lindstrom is heading back to Michigan State with a clearer picture of what it takes to get his game where he wants it.
That wasn’t always easy to see over the last year. Lindstrom’s first college season came after a long stretch of limited hockey, and the return to full-time action brought plenty of growing pains.
He played 31 games for the Spartans, but the production didn’t match the expectations that come with being the fourth overall pick. Working mostly in second- and third-line roles and on the No. 2 power play, he finished with three goals and 10 points.
The bigger win was simply being back. After being limited to 43 games across the regular season, playoffs and Memorial Cup over the previous two years, Lindstrom had dealt with a back injury during the 2023-24 season before the draft. That led to surgery late in 2024, and he spent almost the entire year rehabbing in Columbus.
Lindstrom said the jump to college hockey was tougher than he expected.
“I think the adjustment was tough,” Lindstrom says now. “I think I thought it was going to be a lot simpler for myself going in, but college hockey is great.
It’s a lot of top players, and it’s fast, it’s quick. Everyone is big and strong, fast, so I think just yeah, just keep doing what I’m doing.
“I know what type of player I am. It’s still going to take time to get back to it, but I think I’m on a good trajectory to get there.
The biggest thing I take away from it is just to keep working at it and take it day by day. You can’t really rush things, so a lot of times I found myself trying to rush things and get to where I wanted to be as soon as possible and I think that’s what messed me up the most on the mental side of it.”
He also said the back is in a much better place now, and the mobility is starting to come with it. That mattered last season, when there were moments he wanted to make a play but his body wasn’t quite ready to cooperate.
“I think I learned a lot,” Lindstrom said of the past year. “I don’t even know where to start, just about my body and how I need to handle my frustrations and emotions and things like that because I would want to do something but my body wouldn’t want to do it but my head was thinking about it, you know what I mean? Just getting back into things, taking that year off, for anyone, it’s tough to get back into it.
“You’re still like hesitant going and doing whatever, and just building that confidence in the body back and knowing that you’re gonna be OK, and once you have that confidence everything kind of loosens up. Your shoulders kind of drop and you’re feeling good and everything takes off from there.
I’m even still working on that today. It’s definitely gotten a lot better since the start of last season.
I’m feeling more mobile and confident in my ability and my body.”
While he was rehabbing in Columbus, Lindstrom also had a chance to learn what life looks like from the other side of the locker room, picking up habits from Blue Jackets players who have already made it to the highest level. Strahl saw that work up close all season.
“He’s so dialed,” Strahl said. “He’s always in the gym before we warm up with the team, always the last guy out of the gym, just doing different stuff to get everything in order.
If you come in at night, he would be doing different stuff to try to get back, so it’s really cool. He’s very professional in that.”
Lindstrom’s return to East Lansing also gives him a chance to follow a path he saw from another Spartan. Charlie Stramel, a first-round pick in the 2023 draft, bounced back from injury and difficult college seasons to become one of the top scorers in NCAA hockey last year, finishing with 19 goals and 44 points in 37 games.
Lindstrom said he has talked with Stramel about what it took to get back to being a steady point producer, and that example is one he can lean on. He also has support from Jackson Smith, another CBJ first-rounder, who played against him four times this past season at Penn State and came away impressed.
“You watch him play, I mean, he’s 6-3, 6-4, and he’s just built like a man already,” Smith said. “He’s hard to defend because he’s so strong, has a lot of speed, too.
So I can’t wait to see what he does this year. Of course, hopefully not against us - hopefully I can slow him down there, but I think he’s got a ton of potential.
That’s why he went fourth overall. He’s going to be a heck of a player.”
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