Four of the last five meetings between the No. 11 Wolverines and No. 5 Spartans have gone into overtime and resulted in ties.
If today's CCHA semifinal matchup at Joe Louis Arena is anything reminiscent of the recent past, the two rivals could play into the early hours of Saturday morning to decide who advances to the conference championship game to play for the Mason Cup.
"They're a really quality team," MSU head coach Rick Comley said. "Their skill's elite. Their talent is if not the best offensively in the league, certainly right there.
"Their attack speed is just second to none."
MSU holds a 1-0-3 record in regular-season play against Michigan this season and will have to equal the win over the Wolverines on Jan. 17 if the Spartans have any hopes of capturing its first playoff title since 2001.
"The pressure is on us right now," sophomore forward Bryan Lerg said. "We'd hate to lose a game like this especially after not being beaten by them all year."
The other two teams rounding out the remaining field in the tournament are No. 16 Northern Michigan and No. 2 Miami (Ohio), who will play the afternoon semifinal game. Each have been swept by the Spartans in series this season.
But in the so-called second season of hockey, Comley knows the past is just that.
"We're going to a tournament this weekend where any of the four teams could win it," he said. "Now certainly, there's different styles down there but legitimately, it's the top four teams in the league and the matchups should be really good."
Junior defenseman Ethan Graham likes the fact that MSU has beaten every team it could potentially meet this weekend, but said that belief in the team comes from how well the Spartans have played lately.
"Our confidence just goes to our own play, it doesn't go to who we're playing," Graham said. "We got to look at ourselves and make sure we do our job before we look at who we're playing.
"We're making efficient passes, we're playing good 'D' zone, the power play started to get going again last weekend — so we're doing a lot of the little things right."
Despite being projected to be a No. 1 seed in the national tournament next weekend, the Spartans aren't looking past the immediate task that lies ahead.
"Our goal right now is to win CCHA playoffs," Lerg said. "We're not looking at the NCAA Tournament right now — we don't need to be looking at that.
"If we just keep rolling and play our game, the rest will just take care of itself."
Although the Spartans have accomplished a lot in the second half of the regular season, the team as a whole remains unsatisfied — as of now.
"We haven't really accomplished anything yet," senior forward David Booth said. "It's great to be ranked pretty high in the rankings but that doesn't mean anything. It's nothing if you don't win a championship."
The Spartans and Wolverines will face off at 8 p.m. Friday. The winner will meet either Miami or Northern Michigan in the championship game Saturday at 7 p.m. The loser will play in the CCHA third-place consolation game Saturday afternoon.
All games other than the third-place contest can be seen on Fox Sports Net.
