South Bend, Ind. - Rick Comley's hockey team had just earned three points on the road - which usually is an acceptable outcome - but the coach wasn't happy.
"Aw, nuts!" Comley said outside of the visitors' locker room at the Joyce Center on Saturday. "We were good enough to win two down here, and we let a point get away. It was a game we could've won, should've won. But when you let the dust clear, you'd better be careful how critical you are."
The Spartans' head coach had just watched his team squander a two-goal, third-period lead against Notre Dame, and the frustration of losing a critical point in the league race was dampening his mood.
MSU willed itself to a 2-1 win over the Fighting Irish in Friday's series opener, and the Spartans were in position to pull off a third straight series sweep the next night - until things fell apart.
Leading the Irish 3-1 with less than five minutes to play, the Spartans relented for a span of 18 seconds. That was just enough time for Notre Dame to net two goals and skate off with a 3-3 tie.
MSU sophomore goaltender Matt Migliaccio couldn't be faulted for the first goal, which came on Notre Dame's eighth and final power play of the game. But the second was one the goaltender seemingly should have stopped.
Migliaccio failed to locate the rebound from center Tony Gill's original shot, and as he looked around, Irish right wing Tim Wallace flicked in a goal to tie the game.
"Obviously, I'm not happy with it," said Migliaccio, who was brilliant the rest of the weekend, making 40 saves each night. "They were just breakdowns in the defensive zone, and they got lucky bounces, and they went in. That was it. We coughed up the lead and salvaged a point."
MSU's three-point weekend wasn't a catastrophe. But in the back of the Spartans' minds, they knew they could have had more.
"We had four points in our back pocket and we just gave it away," sophomore center Jim Slater said. "Coming down to the end (of the season), you can't give that away because every point is crucial. It's a learning experience - we have to learn how to play with the lead."
The Spartans (14-9-2 overall, 10-6-1 CCHA) were in a four-way tie for fourth place coming into the weekend, but they are now in fifth. Western Michigan (13-12-1, 11-7-0) swept Alaska-Fairbanks to stay in fourth. The Spartans are one point behind the Broncos and two points behind the second-place tie between Ohio State and Michigan.
The Spartans did manage to extend their unbeaten streak to seven games (6-0-1), tied for the third-longest active streak in the nation.
On Saturday, Notre Dame (9-12-5, 7-9-2) benefited from "bad" officiating, according to Comley. Referee Brian Aaron awarded eight power plays to the Irish and four to MSU. Notre Dame started its late-game comeback by scoring while MSU freshman right wing Nenad Gajic was in the penalty box for slashing.
The Spartans also had to play portions of the weekend without two of their first-line guns. Slater, MSU's leading scorer, bruised his ribs in the first period Friday and missed the rest of the game.
He was back in the lineup Saturday but missed a penalty shot that would have put MSU up 3-1 in the second period.
Sophomore forward Mike Lalonde, who scored Friday's first goal, took a slap shot off the knee in the first period the next night. He played a few shifts after the injury, but then sat out the duration. He said afterward that he was "all right."
