The Spartans entered their final regular-season game with one goal: play to their standard and get better. They were met by a hungry opponent that forced them into a close contest.
After clinching the Big Ten regular-season title the night before in a 7-1 win, No. 2 Michigan State hockey tied Minnesota 3-3 before falling in a shootout.
“I thought [Minnesota was] a lot better,” MSU coach Adam Nightingale said. “We got better as the game went on, I didn't mind our start. There's a couple big (penalty) kills there, late, not easy to do. Overall, I thought we gave ourselves a chance to win. Tough game. We can talk about being mentally tough and playing through it and I thought we did a good job of that, but the reality was a lot of emotion yesterday and trying to reset. I thought the guys did a good job.”
Minnesota forward Javon Moore scored the shootout-winning goal as the Gophers’ second shooter. Senior forward Daniel Russell was the only Spartan to convert in the shootout.
Minnesota outshot MSU just 35-34 in regulation and neither side scored on the power play, although the Spartans had three chances and the Gophers had two. Two of the Spartans’ goals came on rebounds, highlighting the gritty net-front attack the team has emphasized this season.
Freshman goaltender Melvin Strahl played all 65 minutes, finishing with a career-high 32 saves in his third appearance of the season.
“[Strahl] did a good job. It’s not easy, he hasn’t played in a long time,” Nightingale said. “He's a good goalie that happens to be behind a great goalie. He definitely gave us a chance. Got some good experience there in overtime and the shootout as well.”
MSU finished the regular season 16-6-2 in the Big Ten (25-7-2 overall) with 51 points.
The Spartans secured a bye in the first week of the Big Ten tournament after clinching the regular-season title in the series opener. They are the No. 1 seed and will host the lowest remaining seed in the tournament on March 14.
“If you asked our guys, they’d want to play,” Nightingale said. “We practice a lot. We probably have over 100 practices. So our guys want to play. So if we hadn't won and we had to play Wednesday, we would have been excited about playing.”
