MSU dismantled RPI 6-1 in the championship game of the 45th Annual Great Lakes Invitational at Joe Louis Arena to win the MacInnes Cup. The tournament victory was the 12th for the Spartans and their first since 2006.

But MSU didn’t just win the tournament – it completely pummeled both teams that crossed their path, with Wednesday’s lopsided win coupled with a 10-1 routing of Michigan Tech in the tournament semifinals Tuesday.

“Winning means everything,” MSU head coach Rick Comley said. “Losing sucks the air right out of you. This is a big tournament for Michigan State. It’s one of the things that you target and it means so much to the three permanent schools that are in this tournament. You don’t ever want to downplay what that means to your community.”

The 14-goal differential in the tournament ties Michigan’s record set in 1994, a shocking result for a team that scored only 62 goals through 37 games last season.

“I didn’t expect to score 16 goals, but we will take whatever we can,” sophomore goaltender Drew Palmisano said. “It was probably six or seven games worth of goals for us last year all piled into this weekend for us.”

For their efforts, four Spartans were named to the All-Tournament Team – sophomore forward Brett Perlini was named the tournament MVP (3 goals, 2 assists) in only his third and fourth games of the season. He was joined by junior forward Dustin Gazley (2 goals, 2 assists), junior defenseman Jeff Petry (2 points, plus-6) and Palmisano (2 goals allowed, 47 saves).

With the two victories, the Spartans (14-6-2 overall, 9-3-2-0 CCHA) lead the nation in wins at the end of the 2009 calendar year.

Last season, the Spartans recorded only 10 wins. But with both walloping GLI victories, the Spartans are hoping to slowly put the horrid memories of last season to rest.

“Our goal at the beginning of the year was to put last year behind us and look forward,” Petry said. “Our goal coming back from Christmas was, just that Christmas was over and we wanted to work hard to continue the way we were playing before break to ultimately get to the top.”

RPI earned a spot in the championship gam after narrowly defeating U-M 4-3 on Tuesday. But MSU proved to be too much for the Engineers to handle, as head coach Seth Appert said the Spartans were “probably the best combination of a team we’ve played this year.”

“They were outstanding both nights,” Appert said. “Not only in their play but you could tell they have confidence going right now. You feel like you’re controlling the play, and I’m sure (Michigan) Tech felt like that last night, in the first period especially, and all of sudden they get a scoring chance and it goes post-in, or goes under the crossbar. Offensively, they seem to have a lot of confidence and comfort right now. Certainly, they’re playing with a lot of synergy.”

And for RPI, the game got away early in the first period.

With a crowd of 13,814 college hockey fans at Joe Louis Arena – mostly donning the Green and White – the Spartans came out of the gates buzzing.

By 14:28 of the opening frame, freshman forward Chris Forfar and Gazley already had tallied goals for the Spartans, again chasing the opposing goaltender in the first period for the second straight game.

The Spartans went into the first intermission leading 2-0, a good sign for a team that hasn’t lost when leading after the first period (7-0-0).

Freshman forward Dean Chelios added another goal for the Spartans at 3:15 of the second period, but RPI got one back at 11:51 of the middle frame, making the score 3-1.

Only 17 seconds later, RPI charged up the ice and hit the crossbar – a pivotal play which kept MSU’s lead at two goals.

Then, at 19:28 of the second period, Petry crashed the net and capitalized on a rebound, extending the Spartans lead to 4-1.

RPI had a chance to get back into the game early in the third period. The Engineers had almost a full two minutes of a 5-on-3 advantage, but came up empty handed, recording only one shot.

“They never quit and they were competing hard,” Petry said. “There were times when we broke down in our zone and they were taking advantage of it and really putting pressure on us. They were working hard and we had to weather the storm.”

The Spartans were able to turn the tide back in its favor after killing the long penalties. Perlini tacked on a goal at 10:21 of the third period, and junior forward Andrew Rowe closed out the scoring for MSU at 15:58 to lock up the title and bring the hardware back to East Lansing.

“It’s a very good feeling,” Palmisano said of the tournament victory. “We set out at the beginning of the year to win the four championships and this was the first one on our schedule. It feels really good to accomplish what we set out to do.”

MSU’s banner now hangs from the rafters at Joe Louis Arena and the team photograph taken with the trophy will be on display at Munn Ice Arena – feats many people couldn’t have imagined entering this season.

“Winning breeds winning,” Comley said. “Our building back home, we hang championship victories. I think every player that puts that jersey on wants to be on our wall somewhere. Everyday you get to reinforce now that if they play our style and believe in it and put the system before the player, good things can happen.”