Anastos said the team still has many areas of focus heading forward, but he saw certain aspects he liked in the Spartans’ showing.

“I thought our defensive play was better organized,” he said, citing the opening series on an Olympic-sized sheet against Minnesota. “Of course, we had less ice to cover than we did the week before. Also our transition from offense to defense, I thought we did a better job. I thought our defensemen handled the rush in a more comfortable manner than the week before. I think there’s lots of areas that we have to continue to work on to improve.”

MSU is walking away from the weekend with a comeback 3-2 win Friday night and a 3-3 tie Saturday night.

In both games, the Spartans were trailing 2-0 heading into the third period, and in both instances were able to put away three goals in the final 20 minutes of regulation.

Despite playing from behind a majority of the time this season, senior forward Chris Forfar doesn’t believe MSU got off to slow starts against Niagara. He said he thinks the trouble lies in getting shots on net and following up on second efforts.

“I was really happy with how we competed throughout all three periods each night,” Forfar said. “It’s kind of unfortunate we started off in the hole for two periods. It’d be really nice if we could learn how to score in the first two, not just the third. We battled back each night. We competed really hard, but it was nice to see some resilience from a younger team.”

Combined, MSU had a total of 11 penalties — five Friday night and six Saturday night.

In the tail-end game, MSU sophomore forward Matt Berry and freshman defenseman Rhett Holland each received a five-minute major and a game misconduct — Berry for facemasking and Holland for contact to the head.

Anastos said he understands that penalties come from aggression — after all, hockey is an aggressive game. He said what does bother him is disciplinary penalties ­— penalties that come with reckless behavior.

Moving forward from Niagara to Lake Superior State this weekend, Anastos mostly is pleased with the character traits his team exemplified by coming back from losing periods, and senior forward Anthony Hayes agrees with him.

“I think the biggest thing that we can take away from the weekend is the poise and the composure that we had,” Hayes said. “Obviously, we dug ourselves into a pretty big hole both nights; that’s not something we want to make a habit or get used to. Regardless, we stuck with the plan. We didn’t alter anything we were doing in terms of systems.”