Seven straight wins. Tops in the Big Ten. If seeing a national contender is desired, Munn Ice Arena has been the place to be, as No. 4 Michigan State completed its sweep over Notre Dame with a 4-3 victory on Saturday night.
“Obviously, it’s super challenging to sweep in college hockey and a ton of respect for Notre Dame, you knew they were gonna push,” said MSU head coach Adam Nightingale.
It wasn’t the eight-goal outburst MSU had Friday, but at least four goals this year has been the winning threshold. Across the Spartans’ seven-game win streak, they’ve scored at least that many six times, including in five consecutive games. Michigan State entered with the top scoring offense in the Big Ten and seventh-best nationally and it came through again.
For the most part, the Spartans looked like a highly-regarded squad playing against a team that entered Saturday on a four-game losing streak. The one-score difference is a bit deceiving — Notre Dame was never in a great position to take this one.
“You never want to put yourself in a position where you get done with the game and you feel like you beat yourself,” Nightingale said. “I felt like we took some penalties there, and I thought we had total control of the game and (Notre Dame) kind of flipped it and we kind of had to hang on there.”
Overall, Michigan State won this hockey game because it won the key moments.
The first such moment was when freshman Shane Vansaghi found his way through the Notre Dame defense for the game’s opening goal. MSU’s freshman forward has begun to make a name for himself, as he has now scored twice in three games.
“It definitely feels pretty good when you do something like that,” Vansaghi said. “It’s also about me personally, (but it’s) more about getting my team up early in the game.”
In something that became a bit of a trend, the Irish refused to go away. Notre Dame equalized on the power play with just 21.5 seconds to go in the initial period.
The other trend was that MSU found a way to respond. Immediately after the Irish tied things up, Matt Basgall made it 2-1 Spartans with just 0.6 seconds to go.
“It was a good response, because (Notre Dame) had just scored,” Nightingale said. “We won the faceoff, came down, we had about — I think it was six seconds left there. Those are big moments in the game if you can capitalize. You can’t bank on that happening very often, but (Basgall) did a heck of a job playing with poise. There wasn’t a ton of time when he got the puck, but he picked his head up and obviously saw a hole and put one in the back of the net.”
It didn’t take long in the second period for MSU to extend its lead. Gavin O’Connell filled it up just 1:14 in to give the Spartans some crucial insurance. It marked two goals for MSU in 1:14.6 of game time and three goals for either side in just 1:35.5.
Notre Dame narrowed it to 3-2 after a deflection from Ian Murphy, but MSU was still ready to respond quickly. Just over five minutes later, Daniel Russell snuck one home after finding space in the high slot with 1:58 to go in the second period in what became the game-winning goal.
“I worked a ton on my shot (this offseason),” Russell said. “I think that was my biggest shortcoming in the past, so I’ve been working on that all summer and I think it’s been paying off a little bit.”
Early on in a quiet third period, the Munnsters (MSU’s student section) sang “Happy Birthday” to Russell, as Saturday marked 23 years for him.
Later on, the Irish launched a valiant comeback attempt, netting their third goal with 1:30 to go after pulling the goalie, but it ended up being too late, as Notre Dame could only get past Trey Augustine so many times. The sophomore ended his night with 28 saves on 31 shots seen.
“We want our players to be winning hockey players, and Trey’s a winning hockey player, and he’s a winning goalie and when it really comes down to crunch time and winning time, he seems to find another level,” Nightingale said.
MSU killed the rest of the time and moved to 9-1 on the year and 4-0 in Big Ten play. Next for the Spartans is an exhibition in Plymouth against the US National Team Development Program before returning back to Munn for a series with Lindenwood on Nov. 29 and Dec. 1.
