It's safe to say that you can throw away the record books whenever these two teams play, and in this one, the rule books seemed to be thrown away as well as Michigan State ended the game with 31 penalty minutes compared to Michigan's 12.
It started off rather slow as both teams seemed to be finding their legs. The Spartans were first to break the ice about halfway through the first period on one of the prettiest powerplay zone entries that you might see all season and Karsen Dorwart was able to rip one past Michigan goaltender Cameron Korpi.
Shortly after taking the lead, the Spartans began the march to the penalty box. It all started on a Daniel Russell hit in the defensive zone. The hit was originally not called, and the teams would play on until about a minute later when freshman defenseman Vladislav Lukashevich would take an interference penalty.
Michigan head coach Brandon Naurato then decided to challenge the Russell hit, which was deemed a major penalty. Russell was forced to leave the ice for the remainder of the game.
Michigan State was unable to kill off the 5-on-3 and the score was tied up 1-1. The Spartans did however kill off the rest of the major penalty to Russell to keep the score tied up heading into the second period.
MSU head coach Adam Nightingale talked about his team's penalty kill tonight and how they played as a whole.
"Obviously a tough one for sure, we got ourselves in penalty trouble for sure to start." Nightingale said. "I thought we did a heck of a job on the kill. We put a team with that much talent on the powerplay and only gave up three shots on five kills."
Michigan State dominated the majority of the second period, outshooting the Wolverines 20-7. The Spartans were unable to find the back of the net mainly due to the fantastic net-minding from Korpi.
As Jeremy Dewar highlight in the preview, found here, Michigan has not had a true starter all year and have been bouncing between goalies. Korpi has taken the opportunity and ran with it.
The third period remained a steady march to the penalty box for both teams along with both teams trading good opportunities to take the lead. The game remained 1-1 late into the third period until Michigan would score the game winning goal with just 56.7 seconds remaining.
Joey Larson talked about the message to the team from the locker room after the game.
"Obviously to stay out of the box is the biggest thing, they're really talented so we can't take that many penalties." Larson said. "We need to get in front of the goalies' eyes and get to the front of the net, and I think good things happen when you get to the front of the net."
The Spartans will try to do just that as they head into game two of the weekend series as these teams meet again in a hardware game in Detroit at Little Caesars Arena. The annual "Dual in the D" between these two teams will take place tonight at 8 p.m. EST on Big Ten Network.
Details/How to Watch
Time: 8:00 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, Feb 8.
Location: Little Caesars Arena in Detroit
Streaming/Television: Big Ten Network
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