Following a dominating 9-3 win Friday night, No. 2 Michigan State hockey was looking to sweep No. 4 Minnesota to further increase their lead at the top of the Big Ten Conference standings. The Spartans earned a hard-fought shootout win to earn the extra point and closed out a five-point weekend against Minnesota.
“(It was an) exciting weekend for our team and our university," said MSU head coach Adam Nightingale. "I thought the crowd was awesome again and brought juice. Our challenge coming in was moving past what happened the night before and getting back to our game. think it’s harder to handle success."
The Spartans came out of the gates strong Saturday night, controlling the shot battle in the first period, outshooting the Gophers 13 to 6. Junior defenseman Matt Basgall’s fifth goal of the season got the Spartans on the board first with senior defenseman David Gucciardi and senior forward Tanner Kelly earning the assists.
The Gophers evened the game up early in the second period as Jimmy Snuggerud found the back of the net. It didn’t take long for the Spartans to respond to the Gophers' counterpunch when junior forward Joey Larson scored a minute later, recording his ninth goal of the season.
The back and forth continued in the second period with Snuggerud scoring his second goal of the game midway through the second and Tanner Kelly adding a goal for the Spartans.
A holding call late in the second period on junior forward Charlie Stramel awarded the Gophers a power play. Minnesota capitalized off the opportunity knotting the score at three to end the period. Luke Mittelstadt scored the power play goal for the Gophers.
MSU has prided themselves this season of being consistent in scoring in the second period which showed tonight with two goals in the second frame.
Afterwards, Tanner Kelly mentioned the importance of not letting up during the game.
“We just want to play a full sixty minutes and that’s one thing that Coach prides our team on is playing a full sixty and not taking any shifts or any part of the game off,” said Kelly.
Coach Nightingale described how the best hockey teams play strong in the second period.
“I think (good teams) understand how to play team hockey, they understand when to catch a team tired and wear them down,” said Nightingale.
The score remained tied in the third period and during the five-minute overtime period. Daniel Russell and Issac Howard scored goals for the Spartans, who secured the shootout win.
This was MSU’s second shootout win against the Gophers this season with the other coming on the road back on Dec. 13.
With the shootout win, the Spartans increased their lead in the Big Ten to five points. While happy with their conference lead, Basgall and the Spartans said they will continue to take each game one at a time starting next week against the Buckeyes.
“We know we’re in a position to do something great this year, but we got our eyes set on Ohio State," said Basgall. "We’ll turn the page quickly (as) we’ve got eight big games coming up. (It is) great to get the points, but we’ll continue to go (forward) one step at a time."
The Spartans are the only team in the country with 20 wins this season, currently posting a 20-3-3 overall record on the season.
“This group has been really consistent, not only consistent but I think we’ve gotten better as the season has gone on," Nightingale said. "There’s still a lot of hockey left and we’ve still got to keep improving."
Next, the Spartans travel to Columbus to face No. 9 Ohio State. The first game of MSU’s road series is set for Thursday at 8 p.m. and will be televised on the Big Ten Network.
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