It was a winning weekend on both sides of the Canadian-American border for the No. 1 Michigan State Spartans hockey team this past weekend.

First up, the Spartans team outlasted Wisconsin with a 3-2 overtime victory outside at the Frozen Confines event at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois Saturday night. The next night, sophomore Trey Augustine and Team USA won their second straight gold medal at the U-20 World Junior Championships in Ottawa, Ontario.

Before this coaching regime took over 2.5 years ago, the Spartans won an average of 11.7 games per season over the previous decade, and hadn't had a player on Team USA since Justin Abdelkader in 2007. It has been such a fast and meteoric rise for the MSU hockey program, fans may still be pinching themselves.

Folks, I'm here to tell you - MSU hockey may be trending towards heights it previously has never seen. The talent on campus and the results - while also playing a much tougher schedule than under previous league structures - show the Spartans heading towards what could be a golden era in East Lansing.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though, as now is not the time for big picture discussions; we must recap what just happened this past weekend before looking ahead to the Spartans next opponent, Penn State, later this week.

This game played out differently than all previous matchups this season for the Spartans and Badgers, while ending in an all too familiar tight final score. For the first time this season it was the Spartans taking the lead against the Badgers by scoring first, when freshman defenseman Vladislav Lukashevich put home a wrist shot from the right point past the glove hand of Badgers goalie Tommy Scarfone. It was the first goal of Lukashevich's college career and staked the Spartans to a 1-0 lead after the first period.

Daniel Russell scored his first goal since the Lindenwood series at the end of November to push the Spartans lead to 2-0, slamming home a rebound from an Austin Oravetz point shot. Oravetz is playing to keep himself in the lineup this upcoming weekend with the return of Maxim Strbak from Team Slovakia at the WJC.

Wisconsin quickly answered with two goals in four minutes in the middle of the second period, and applied pressure the rest of the period to put the Spartans on their heels.

The game remained tied until Isaac Howard, a player who was with Augustine last season at the WJC, put MSU up 3-2. Howard has risen to meet his high expectations this season after being a first round NHL draft pick in 2022, having scored in five straight games for Michigan State.

Howard now has 13 goals on the season (second nationally behind Wisconin's Quinn Finley with 16). If Howard can avoid fading post-WJC like last season, the Spartans will be one of the toughest outs in the entire country.

Wisconsin, one of the best faceoff teams in all of college hockey, was dangerous all night on offensive zone faceoffs with designed plays. They had utilized a play leading to their first goal, and they did it again when Ryland Mosley scored with just 48 seconds remaining in regulation to tie things up.

In a preview of what Spartans fans were in for the following night at the WJC Gold Medal game, the Spartans and Badgers played a 3x3 overtime session full of careful possession, trading opportunities. Luca Di Pasquo, who went 4-0 as starting goaltender while Augustine was away, made the saves he needed to make and it was Daniel Russell scoring his second goal of the game with just over one second remaining to lift the Spartans to victory.

Russell made an excellent play along the boards to get around a Wisconsin defender, and while driving the net, he tried to send a pass to Howard. A Badger defensemen dropped to the ice to block the pass and Russell smartly stopped on the puck instead of drifting behind the net, allowing him to gather the puck again and send a backhander past a sprawling Scarfone who was wiped out by his own player.

I haven't recovered enough from the USA game Sunday to gather my thoughts into a cogent recap, so instead I want to take a bit of space here to talk about how truly legendary Trey Augustine is.

The World Junior Championship is my absolute favorite hockey event each season. For someone who works with young hockey players - scouting their growth - seeing best on best at the U-20 is amazing. It is all the creativity and skill of hockey combined with the chaos that can happen when you bring together nervous teenagers.

The Spartans have had just seven players total who participated in this tournament while they were at Michigan State. Augustine is one of just two Spartans to play in multiple tournaments, joining Kalamazoo's own Adam Hall; Augustine had now bypassed him hvaing participated in three tournaments now.

Augustine was just 17 years old when he first appeared at the WJC in 2022, won gold in 2023 as a still young starter, played with the USA senior team at the Senior World Championships in the summer of 2024, and now is the first American to ever repeat as gold medal starting goaltender (this is the first time the team has ever repeated).

Augustine leaves this tournament with a 12-2 record, all time leader of wins for a USA goaltender, and a .913 save percentage. Spartan fans would do well to soak up every game they have down the stretch here (without overlooking how good Di Pasquo is as well) as it is looking more and more likely this will be Trey Augustine's last ride in East Lansing.

Not only did he shine at the national level, Augustine comes home to a team still ranked No. 1 in the country and tied for first in the Big Ten. He and his teammates still have a lot of championship games to play.

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