Marquette - Senior defenseman Brad Fast carried the MSU hockey team to a 3-1 win over Northern Michigan at the Berry Events Center on Saturday.
Fast scored MSU’s first two goals, including the game-winner with 8.3 seconds left in the third period.
Sophomore goaltender Matt Migliaccio was solid in making 17 saves on 18 shots for MSU (2-2-0 overall, 1-1-0 CCHA) .
But Fast, the team’s captain, proved to be MSU’s hero Saturday. After leading most of the game, the Spartans were tied 1-1 with less than a minute before overtime when Fast lifted a close-range, tough-angle shot over Northern goaltender Craig Kowalski’s right shoulder to give MSU the lead.
MSU freshman left wing David Booth added an empty netter with 13.1 seconds left for his first career goal. Sophomore center Jim Slater assisted on MSU’s last two tallies.
The Spartans’ win helped ease the pain of the 10-4 shellacking they took from the 14th-ranked Wildcats (2-2-1, 1-1-0) on Friday.
The big difference between the games was that the Spartans played better fundamental hockey Saturday to earn the series split. Defensively, they blocked 14 shots and cut down on the missed assignments in their own zone.
Offensively, they were more focused and, as Fast showed, opportunistic.
After playing awfully Friday night, the Spartans looked much sharper right from the start Saturday. Migliaccio made five saves in the first period, and he was instrumental in killing back-to-back Northern power plays.
Fast, who also scored twice in Friday’s loss, notched the only goal of the opening stanza at the 18:09 mark. Fast carried the puck all the way up the right wing before firing a 30-foot wrist shot that eluded Kowalski’s glove.
Neither team scored in the tight-checking second period, but both squads had opportunities.
MSU’s best chance came while short-handed. Sophomore center Lee Falardeau dived to knock the puck out of the MSU zone, and senior center Troy Ferguson gathered it in the neutral zone. Ferguson raced through the right circle and squeezed a shot through Kowalski’s legs, but the goalie got just enough of the puck to make it stop in the crease, short of the goal line. Migliaccio smothered Northern’s best chance of the second - a point-blank one-timer by Wildcat left wing Kevin Gardner.
The Spartans nursed their 1-0 lead until Northern finally tied the game with Fast in the penalty box for hooking 7:25 into the third. The power play started with Wildcat defenseman Peter Michelutti missing a semiopen net from just right of the crease. But Michelutti atoned for the miss by swatting a loose puck past Migliaccio seconds later.
Northern went 1-for-4 on the power play, while MSU went 0-for-4. Kowalski made 17 saves for the Wildcats.
The Spartans’ next action will be against Lake Superior State on Thursday at Munn Ice Arena. It will be their regular-season home- opener.
Personnel: Freshman defenseman Evan Shaw was back in MSU’s lineup Saturday after being a healthy scratch in the two previous games. To make room for him, senior left wing Steve Clark was scratched for the first time this season.
The insertion of Shaw into Saturday’s lineup gave MSU seven defenseman one more than is normal. To balance the lineup, freshman blueliner Jared Nightingale played part of the night as the right wing on the fourth line.
Once again, sophomore left wing Brock Radunske (bruised back) did not play.
