Yet the No. 17 Spartans gave themselves a chance to win late in the third period, with the game ending in a 3-3 tie and the No. 10 Mavericks defeating the Spartans in the ensuing shootout on Friday at Munn Ice Arena.

“I’m not discouraged about tonight,” MSU head coach Rick Comley said. “I think we got what we deserved tonight. We could have won, but we didn’t play smart enough to win.”

The tie snapped MSU’s (7-2-1 overall, 4-1-1 CCHA) four-game winning streak, but the Spartans received one point for the shootout loss, keeping them atop the CCHA standings.

The game was lost for the Spartans in the second period, as MSU played shorthanded for nine of the period’s 20 minutes, and Nebraska-Omaha scored two sharp angle goals on Palmisano that he would like to have back.

“I thought we had good pressure, but when you take so many penalties it hurts you at the end,” said sophomore forward Mike Merrifield, who recorded a goal and an assist in Friday’s tie. “When you take too many penalties, you can’t get into the flow of the game. It gives the other team momentum with the scoring chances they built off their power play.”

Merrifield gave the Spartans the 1-0 lead at the 10-minute mark of the first period when he crashed the net and redirected the puck past Nebraska-Omaha goaltender Jeremie Dupont. The referee’s went upstairs to review the goal, but deemed Merrifield was trying to stop, not kick the puck into the net, giving Merrifield his second goal of the season, and third of his career as a Spartan after being sent back down to juniors midway through last season.

“I got lucky, but sometimes you need one of those,” Merrifield said. “I guess it was all in the ref’s hands when it went upstairs. But I was confident it was going to be a goal, because I didn’t have any intentions of kicking it into the goal.”

Nebraska-Omaha forward Matt Ambroz tied the score at 1-1 at 11:53 of the first period on the power play.

The Spartans regained the lead at 1:53 of the second period thanks to freshman forward Chris Forfar, who charged the net and banged home a juicy rebound given up by Dupont.

But at 5:34 of the second period, Nebraska-Omaha’s Brent Gwidt tied the game with a sharp angle shot that hit off Palmisano’s stick and trickled into the net.

Then penalties started to take their toll on the Spartans. At 10:21 of the second period, freshman forward Dean Chelios was sent to the locker room with a five minute major for checking from behind and a game misconduct, the third game misconduct in four games for the Spartans.

And the Mavericks capitalized.

Nebraska-Omaha forward Joey Martin snuck behind the MSU defenseman and received a stretch pass which sent him in on Palmisano. Martin was barely able to get a backhand shot off, but it snuck through the legs of Palmisano and into the net to give the Mavericks the 3-2 lead.

The penalties continued for the Spartans as six of the game’s first seven penalties were whistled on MSU.

“It was a game, with all the penalties in the second, that you could have been down three or four,” Comley said.

Despite the sloppy second period, senior forward Nick Sucharski notched the game at 3-3 at 8:04 of the third period on the power play.

The game went to overtime, but junior forward Corey Tropp was whistled for a slashing penalty 21 seconds in the extra session.

But again, the Spartans were able to kill the penalty, making Nebraska-Omaha 2-for-8 on the power play on the night.

Sophomore forward Daultan Leveille had the best opportunity in overtime with 56 seconds remaining. Leveille found the puck at the top of the crease and tried to bang it past Dupont, but Dupont stopped the shot by taking away everything low.

The Spartans lost the ensuing shootout, 2-1 in four rounds, with junior forward Andrew Rowe recording the lone tally for MSU.

“Tonight would have been an unbelievable step for this season, just (for) the confidence level,” Rowe said. “But we will take it, it’s better than an absolute loss. We have to keep our heads up.”