Solely looking at its record, MSU hockey (7-10-1, 1-2-1-1 Big Ten) had a promising stretch of games over the holiday break. In four games played, the Spartans came back to campus boasting a 3-1 record over that stretch.
It is the one loss, however, that might stick with MSU the most moving forward, for better or worse. Following an offensive outburst in a 6-4 win over Clarkson on Dec. 14, MSU entered the Great Lakes Invitational looking to bring home its 13th GLI title.
Meeting for the third time of the season, MSU dispatched Ferris State in the first game by a score of 2-0 behind junior goaltender Jake Hildebrand’s 31-save shutout. Hildebrand, who was solid throughout the tournament stopping 57-of-60 shots on goal, earned his first shutout of the season and fifth as a Spartan.
The win set up a meeting between the Spartans and Wolverines in the 50th annual GLI title game. The shorthanded UM jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the game, and the Spartans could only cut the deficit in half, losing 2-1.
“I thought our conditioning was very strong,” head coach Tom Anastos said after playing in two games in less than 24 hours. “As the game went on, we got even stronger. We had nervous energy at the beginning of the game which I thought negatively impacted us.”
Even after MSU settled down and started to play their game, UM still made the Spartans work for every opportunity they got. Junior goaltender Steve Racine was solid in the tournament. Racine stopped 31-of-32 shots against the Spartans and 71-of-73 in the tournament, earning him Tournament MVP honors.
Also earning honors for the tournament was Spartan sophomore defenseman Rhett Holland, who was named to the All-Tournament team after registering his first goal at MSU to go along with an assist in MSU’s two games.
“I didn’t even know it was an award until after (the game),” Holland said after the loss to UM. “It’s nice to win but, I’m still sick to my stomach that we’re sitting right here.”
Many of the Spartans felt a similar sentiment following the loss to one of their biggest rivals in one of college hockey’s biggest regular season tournaments.
“There’s a lot you can take out of it,” junior captain Michael Ferrantino said. “Obviously, to come up short stings and I think that feeling is going to burn with us for a little bit.”
While a win would have helped launch the Spartans’ second half of the season, MSU still needs to learn from its experience moving forward.
“You have to learn lessons. You learn lessons from success and you learn lessons from failure,” Anastos said. “We had a chance to win a little hardware (the MacInnes Trophy) and we didn’t do enough to get that done.
“It’s all our conference schedule now, so there’s lots to play for. We know that we can compete with all the teams we’re playing with. We’re going to be in tough environments, but we’ve played that in our nonconference schedule and now we’ve played in the tournament format. From an experience perspective, we’ve gained lots, including this experience here. We just left a little bit on the table that we didn’t want to leave.”
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