MSU also saw great play out of its veterans, with the all senior forward line of Dean Chelios, Lee Reimer and Greg Wolfe each scoring a goal and notching two assists on the night.

“It’s nice to get the first Big Ten win, I thought there were parts of our game that I liked and certainly (Hildebrand) was one of them,” head coach Tom Anastos said. “I thought he was tracking the puck really well, this is a team that we knew coming in would shoot from everywhere and so goalies have to be really alert. And it was nice to see that senior line score some goals.”

MSU kicked off the scoring late in the first period when senior forward Chelios slid on past the Penn State netminder with 5:22 left in first period. The goal was Chelios’ first since Feb. 25, 2012 at Notre Dame. Reimer and Wolfe had assists on the play.

“They haven’t come easy, I’ve gotten chances the last few games and usually when you get chances it’s a good sign so maybe I got rewarded for getting chances, but it was nice to get the monkey off my back,” Chelios said.

The Spartans struck again only three minutes later when Wolfe backhanded one home to give MSU a two-goal lead heading into the first intermission. Wolfe’s goal was assisted by Chelios and Reimer.

The goal was his first in seven games, snapping his longest drought of the season.

Reimer iced the win for MSU, skating into the slot and wristing a shot just inside the left post to give MSU a 3-0 lead. Wolfe and Chelios had assists on the goal.

With three points on the night, Wolfe regained the top scorer position on the Spartans now with 16 total points.

MSU was able to shut down Penn State’s power play, one of the Nittany Lions strengths heading into the game. MSU killed off all three penalties, its fourth perfect outing in the past five games.

“Our penalty kill was pretty good tonight … Your goalie needs to be your best penalty killer, on three power plays they only got three shots so we did a pretty good job,” Anastos said.

After the game Hildebrand said the win was more important to him then the shutout against his home-state team.

“It’s definitely for the team though, it’s not an individual thing,” Hildebrand said. “Coming into this year I wanted to win more and you need the team to win.”

Although Hildebrand was more excited about the first Big Ten win, he did point out it felt good beating his former teammate and Friday night’s Penn State starting goaltender Matthew Skoff.

Sophomore defenseman John Draeger missed his third straight game on Friday because of an injury unrelated to his previous lower body injury, which kept him out for the first eight games. Anastos said the injury is day-to-day and the loss of Draeger is significant to the team.

MSU will head back to the ice tomorrow looking to complete the sweep of Penn State. The game begins at 6:30 p.m. at Munn Ice Arena. Comparing to last year, Chelios said the team is farther ahead and playing better hockey than it was last year at this point.

“Just being in the stands and watching the game last year compared to this year, it felt totally different in a good way,” Chelios said. “It’s just something to build on and if we can get the finish tomorrow it will be really nice.”