In the 56th Annual Great Lakes Invitational in December 2022, the Michigan State Spartans hockey program arrived to Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids as a team on the rise, off to a quick start under first-year head coach Adam Nightingale. The Spartans were the favorites to advance to the championship game for a juicy matchup with Western Michigan, and that was going to present a great chance to help their Pairwise rankings for the NCAA Tournament.

Instead of this great coronation of an arrival to old ways, the Spartans came out and were blitzed early by the Ferris State Bulldogs, going down 3-0 in the first period, with two goals surrendered in the last 90 seconds of the period. The Spartans responded in the second period, but it was too little too late, as the Bulldogs held off the Spartans for a 4-2 win in 2022, and the Spartans continued a bad weekend by losing in overtime the next day to Michigan Tech.

At the end of that season, the GLI was seen as where the Spartans missed the NCAA Tournament, as the loss to Bulldogs and Huskies were two losses to non-tournament teams. Fast forward one calendar year, and under Nightingale for a second season, the Spartans came in even more the darling of East Lansing, a top-10 program, the No. 1 team in the Big Ten and carrying the banner for Spartan athletics in what has been a disappointing calendar so far for football and basketball.

Once again, this time in the 2023 version of the event, the Spartans drew Ferris State in the GLI semi-finals, and this time would face them without two forwards, a defensemen and a starting goaltender lost to the IIHF U20 World Junior Championships. There was some unease throughout the fan base in the weeks heading into the tournament that the Spartans would struggle once again, due to the roster depletion.

However, in 2023, the Spartans left no doubt that talent still was much more in their favor as they dispatched of the Bulldogs by a final score of 4-1 at Van Andel Arena on Thursday night. Michigan State had a total of 81 shot attempts to the Bulldogs' 53, goaltender Luca Di Pasquo was calm in his second career start, controlling rebounds, and was only beat on one shot from a dangerous area, and the secondary scoring of Jeremy Davidson led the way as the senior scored two goals in the victory.

At no point did the game feel in the balance or like one that Ferris State could take away from the Spartans. Davidson staked the Green and White to a lead 7:38 into the game on a one time slap shot and the Spartans controlled the flow of the game the rest of the way to manage the game out. The top line, missing Isaac Howard to the U20s, was still lethal with Tanner Kelly, slotting up from the fourth line to Howards spot, scoring the second goal, and Karsen Dorwart scoring the third goal crashing the net for an easy rebound goal coming off a face-off win.

Davidson scored a highlight reel goal to put the Spartans up 4-0, and despite one goal surrendered to Ferris State defensemen Travis Shoudy, there was no concern on the Spartans stifling the game away in the third period, which they in fact did, leading to a berth in the GLI championship versus the Michigan Tech Huskies.

The Great Lakes Invitational host Michigan Tech Huskies used a third period comeback to advance to the GLI Championship game, beating the Alaska Nanooks 3-2 (overtime).

The Huskies were down 2-0 with 10 minutes remaining in the contest and saw Ryland Mosley score his 10th and 11th goals of the season to tie the game, before Logan Pietila scored the game-winning goal in three-on-three overtime. The Huskies, who were expected to compete for the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) title this season, had a disappointing first half of the year as they have struggled to score consistently, on their way to a .500 record at the break.

The Huskies added a talented forward at the semester break in Austen Swankler, who left the Bowling Green program amid theft allegations from the equipment staff, and Swankler making accusations of hazing within the Falcons' program. Swankler enrolled at Michigan Tech in the fall semester, but was not cleared by the university and he wasn't added to the roster until the past week. He instantly made an impact with an assist last night on each of Mosley's goals, and will be an offensive punch after scoring 19 goals with the Falcons last season.

The Pietila family of Brighton/Howell are like the Miller family is to MSU hockey, and while Logan scored the game-winning goal last night, his twin brother Blake Pietila has 17 starts this season and backstopped the Huskies to their win over Alaska. Blake Pietila has seen his goals against average go to the highest in his four years as the team in front of him has been less dependable, but goals will still be hard to come by for the Spartans.

Look for the Spartans to want to capitalize on special teams when they can keep heavy consistent pressure on a defense that has not shown they can handle higher-talented teams (the only power conference opponent the Huskies have faced, Wisconsin, scored nine goals in two games).

As was the case against the Bulldogs, the Spartans should be considered significant favorites in this matchup.

Time: 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, Dec. 29

Location: Van Andel Arena Grand Rapids, Michigan

TV/Streaming: WILX TV 10 in Lansing, TV6 (Free!) for streaming

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