The Spartans are entering the one-game series with in-state and former CCHA foe Ferris State after exciting and solid play against Minnesota. The Spartans tied the Golden Gophers 2-2 on Friday and picked up an additional point with a shootout victory in the inaugural Big Ten game for MSU. The Golden Gophers won Saturday’s matchup, 3-2, after scoring the first three goals and MSU playing catch-up for most of the night.

While MSU didn’t officially win either of the games against Minnesota, head coach Tom Anastos was pleased with the weekend series and the team’s ability to compete with the top ranked Gophers and noting visible improvements in the “little parts of the game,” he said during his Tuesday press conference.

“Knowing what it takes to compete against one of the elite teams this season, that will give us some perspective for our young group,” Anastos said. “We have to come off of that, learning what it takes to not only play hard for a full 60 minutes or 65, but also improve our ability to execute effiencility and effectively for that full time as well.”

Anastos added that the freshmen have played a big role in the Spartans offense thus far. Five MSU freshmen have combined for 17 of 35 goals on the season, equaling 48 percent of the Spartans’ offense.

Leading the freshmen in points is forward Mackenzie MacEachern, who has six goals and three assists. Freshman forward Villiam Haag also has been a force offensively, finding the back of the net twice and earning one assist in the two game series against Minnesota.

Another area of the game that saw improvement this past weekend was play between the pipes from sophomore goaltender Jake Hildebrand, who was recognized Tuesday as of the Big Ten Three Stars of the Week. Hildebrand, who is the first Spartan to ever win the weekly award, was named the 2nd star of the Big Ten.

Hildebrand finished the weekend with 79 saves, including a season-high 44 saves on Friday night. Hildebrand also came up big in the shootout on Friday, stuffing all three Gopher attempts.

“Jake was outstanding, I thought it was his best two games of the season,” Anastos said. “He looked very confident (and) I think he’s got his game back to what we saw last year. I thought he was struggling a little bit up until that time and we knew coming into the season for us to have a chance to have success we have to have really strong goaltending and he gave that to us both games.”

Anastos also said Hildebrand played a huge role in the penalty kill’s success, making plenty of saves when the Gophers had the man advantage.