The nation’s top-ranked hockey team visited East Lansing on Sunday afternoon and didn’t win.
But neither did the Spartans.
Instead, 6,871 fans at Munn Ice Arena were treated to a back-and-forth 4-4 tie between No. 4 MSU and No. 1 Minnesota in the conclusion of this year’s College Hockey Showcase.
MSU topped Wisconsin 2-1 on Friday night in the front end of the Showcase.
Sunday the Spartans (9-2-2 overall, 7-2-1 CCHA) and Golden Gophers (12-0-1) both relied on balanced scoring and occasionally solid goaltending, while fighting through almost every special teams situation imaginable.
Referee Brian Aaron called 26 penalties and other no-calls drew choruses of boos from the unusually boisterous crowd.
MSU head coach Ron Mason said the tie was fitting for “two great teams,” but was irked by the officiating. Particularly, Mason was miffed that no penalty was called when senior defenseman Andrew Hutchinson was hauled down trying to carry the puck out from behind the net late in the third period.
The resulting turnover started Minnesota’s game-tying possession.
“To me, that’s such an easy call,” Mason said. “It’s unbelievable that you could ever let that call not to be called. Obviously, he didn’t see what I saw, but it cost us a goal.”
The sequence led to Gopher right wing Barry Tallackson’s tally with 2:11 left in regulation. Tallackson took a pass from Gopher center John Pohl in the high slot and wristed a shot through traffic.
MSU junior goaltender Ryan Miller said he was surprised Pohl passed to Tallackson instead of shooting.
“I thought Pohl was going to go on his own because that was how I thought the play shaped up,” said Miller, who made 34 saves. “He ended up with some help really high, and I just tried to cover as much net as I could.
“Sometimes I out-think the play.”
Tallackson’s even-strength goal was an aberration, however, as most of Sunday’s goals came on special teams. MSU finished 3-for-8 on the power play and Minnesota, which entered the game with a torrid .386 success rate, went 2-for-6.
“Technically, (the special teams situations) should have favored Minnesota,” Mason said. “But we came up with power play goals and we held them off when they were up by two men and that was probably the critical part of the hockey game.
“Even though we were better than they were at it, I’d rather play 5-on-5.”
The Spartans struck first Sunday on a power play goal by freshman center Jim Slater, who also scored in Friday’s win over Wisconsin and has five goals this season.
But Gopher right wing Brett MacKinnon finished off a 2-on-1 rush 25 seconds after Slater’s goal and left wing Grant Potulny scored on a power play with 14.6 seconds to play, giving Minnesota a 2-1 lead at the first intermission.
Left wing Erik Wendell notched Minnesota’s second man-advantage goal at 5:07 of the second, but MSU senior left wing Joe Goodenow cut Minnesota’s lead back to one with his career-high fifth goal of the season - a power play tally at 7:38 of the second.
The Spartans stormed to the lead early in the third period, as senior right wing Adam Hall knocked in a rebound on a 5-on-3 advantage to tie the game and junior left wing Brian Maloney scored six minutes later to put MSU up 4-3.
MSU held the lead for a little more than 10 minutes, but couldn’t keep Minnesota’s high-powered offense at bay long enough. The Gophers entered the weekend averaging an NCAA-best 6.27 goals per game and their four-goal output tied their lowest production of the season.
“Any time you come out with a tie against the No. 1 team, you feel good,” Slater said. “I mean, we’d like to have a win, but it was back and forth real fast and special teams played a real big factor in it.”
Sunday’s game closed the Spartans’ seven-game homestand with a 6-0-1 mark. The stand was the Spartans’ longest since 1986, but they now leave Munn for a series at Alaska-Fairbanks on Friday and Saturday.
James Jahnke can be reached at jahnkeja@msu.edu.
