The MSU hockey team was good, bad and then good again Friday night at Munn Ice Arena.

In the end, it added up to a 7-4 win over Northern Michigan.

With the victory, MSU stayed in fourth place in the CCHA. The Spartans are three points behind third-place Ohio State, which lost to Alaska-Fairbanks on Friday.

MSU scored on two of its three power plays, and tacked on a pair of empty-net goals late in the game to seal the win.

An announced crowd of 6,627 made Friday's game the 299th consecutive regular-season sellout at Munn. The teams meet again at 7:05 p.m. Saturday, in a game that is already sold out.

On Friday, sophomore center Lee Falardeau scored 28 seconds into the third period to break a 3-3 tie and give MSU (18-11-2 overall, 14-8-1 CCHA) a lead it wouldn't relinquish.

Falardeau found the puck amid a crowd of players and managed to sneak a quick shot under Wildcat goaltender Craig Kowalski's right arm for his first goal since Nov. 29.

"I knew on this guy, we had to get it upstairs on him," Falardeau said. "It's definitely been a while since I scored. It's finally good to put one in the net."

Freshman defenseman Corey Potter increased MSU's lead to 5-3 on his fourth goal of the season with 7:33 remaining.

After Northern left wing Mike Stutzel tallied to cut it to 5-4 with 1:31 left in the third, freshman left wing David Booth and sophomore center Jim Slater both potted empty-net goals for the victorious Spartans.

When all was said and done, Potter had earned his second straight game-winning goal.

MSU sophomore goaltender Matt Migliaccio stopped 27 shots Friday. Kowalski made 29 saves for Northern (15-14-2, 11-11-1).

The Spartans were by far the better team in Friday's first period, scoring three times and taking a 3-1 lead into intermission.

Senior defenseman John-Michael Liles tallied first, on a power play 1:30 into the game. Liles executed a perfect give-and-go with Slater, leaving him in position to bat the puck into a mostly open net when he received Slater's pass in front of the net.

The Wildcats tied it on a rebound goal by right wing Bryce Cockburn at 11:48, but then Slater put MSU up 2-1 with a power-play goal of his own 66 seconds later.

Kowalski stopped senior defenseman Brad Fast's slap shot from the point, but he cleared the rebound right to Slater at the right of the crease. From there, Slater snapped a shot into the far-side for his fourth goal in as many games.

"Offensively, I thought we were clicking real well," Slater said. "But they were a good team and they have two lines that are really dominant out there. It's going to be a tough test tomorrow."

The Spartans grabbed a 3-1 lead at 16:24 after sophomore forward Brock Radunske appeared to be taking the puck around the net on the backhand side of his stick. However, at the last second, he switched to his forehand and centered the puck to senior left wing Brian Maloney.

All Maloney had to do was tip the puck over Kowalski's left shoulder for his 11th goal of the year.

The Spartans thoroughly out-skated Northern for the first 25 minutes of the game, but they became more sluggish as the second period wore on. By the end of the stanza, Northern had tied it at 3-3.

At 9:46, Migliaccio lost track of another rebound, and Wildcat center Alan Swanson swooped down to knock the loose puck into the net.

Swanson struck again with 59.9 seconds to go in the second, as he skated across the slot and redirected defenseman Nathan Oystrick's pass past Migliaccio for his seventh goal of the year.

MSU had a few good chances early in the middle frame, but Northern dominated the latter half and carried momentum into the second intermission.

"If we lose this game tonight, our postseason chances our probably over," MSU head coach Rick Comley said afterward. "We started OK, but then we went really flat.

"I was really worried after the first period in the locker room. Coming off the Michigan series, and the emotion of that, and then getting kind of an easy lead in the first period, we just came out flat in the second."

Falardeau's goal regained control for MSU early in the third. Migliaccio also made a couple of key stops to preserve the lead in the final frame.

The Wildcats were 0-for-2 on the power play Friday.

Personnel: After a one-game absence, junior forward Tim Hearon returned to MSU's lineup Friday. He replaced freshman right wing Chad Hontvet.

Comley, who jumbled his forward lines for last Saturday's game against U-M, returned them to their previous form Friday.