Detroit - Rick Comley has been on the wrong side of this twice now.
Last year, his Northern Michigan Wildcats were eliminated by MSU in a CCHA Tournament semifinal. That turned out to be his final game at Northern, as he moved on to take over MSU a couple weeks later.
On Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena, the Spartans and Wildcats met for another league tournament game - this time in a quarterfinal. But Comley's luck didn't change.
His fifth-seeded former team trumped the No. 4 seed Spartans in a wild 7-5 shootout to advance to the semifinals of the CCHA Super Six.
The loss likely ends MSU's season and the careers of seven players. The Spartans (23-14-2) still harbor outside hopes of getting an at-large bid to the tournament, but Comley said he's not counting on seeing MSU's name on the screen when the tournament field is announced at 6 p.m. Sunday on ESPN.
"I thought we had the game won a couple of times," Comley said. "They looked out of the game at times, but it was hard-fought."
MSU senior left wing Brian Maloney did his part to prolong MSU's season, notching a hat trick to bring his season goal total to 19. As it turned out, however, it just wasn't enough.
"The hat trick doesn't mean anything because we didn't win," Maloney said.
Northern (21-16-2) will play No. 1 seed Ferris State in a CCHA semifinal at 4 p.m. today at the Joe. No. 3 seed Ohio State, which beat Notre Dame 3-2 on Thursday afternoon, will play No. 2 seed Michigan at 7:30 p.m. today in the other semifinal.
On Thursday, MSU sophomore goaltender Matt Migliaccio made 22 saves, while his counterpart, Northern's Craig Kowalski stopped 41 shots.
MSU and Northern entered the third period tied 3-3, setting the stage for a bizarre finish.
The Spartans took the lead at 4-3 on a goal by sophomore forward Kevin Estrada at 8:19. Northern struck back two minutes later to tie the game, and then the Wildcats took a 5-4 lead at 12:16 of the third.
Things looked bleak for the Spartans until Maloney netted his third goal on a slap shot with 6:02 to play. The goal seemed to give MSU momentum for a while, but the Spartans couldn't convert the emotional advantage into any goals.
With 3:49 left, Northern defenseman Nathan Oystrick tallied on a soft wrist shot through traffic that eluded Migliaccio's blocker.
In a strange twist of fate, MSU senior defenseman John-Michael Liles scored on his own net after mishandling a pass with 20.8 seconds left. Liles was named one of 10 finalists for the Hobey Baker Award, given annually to college hockey's outstanding player, earlier Thursday.
"It's kind of funny the bounces we got at both ends of the ice," Maloney said. "Momentum in the game of hockey can change in two shots."
The Spartans fell behind 2-0 to an opportunistic bunch of Wildcats in the first 12 minutes of the game. But MSU evened the score by the end of the first period on a pair of goals by Maloney.
Maloney's first tally was a superb individual effort, as he dug the puck out from behind the net, came out front and shoved a backhand shot past Kowalski's far side.
"It's hard to say (how I feel)," Maloney said. "Michigan State has a winning tradition and it kind of sucks for me that my senior year is the first time in a while we're not going to make the tournament."
