MSU hockey (7-9-1, 1-2-1-1 Big Ten) got its second half of the season off to a good start Sunday night. In the semifinals of the 50th anniversary of the Great Lakes Invitational, MSU took care of Ferris State at Joe Louis Arena skating to a 2-0 victory.
Senior forward Brent Darnell opened the game’s scoring early in the second period, scoring his fourth of the season, and that’s all the Spartans would need. Sophomore forward Thomas Ebbing added a late insurance goal on an empty net to give him two goals on the season and goals in consecutive games.
Junior goaltender Jake Hildebrand was strong all night for MSU, stopping all 31 shots he faced en route to his first shutout of the season. Hildebrand was quick to direct praise to his defenders as MSU blocked 20 shots on the night, many coming on the Bulldogs’ four power plays.
“It takes so much pressure off of me,” Hildebrand said. “When they do things like that for me, I want to do everything I can to keep the puck out of the net for them.”
Even with all of the blocked shots, Hildebrand was still forced to make several big, timely saves. Head coach Tom Anastos could tell early on that he was going to get a solid performance from his goaltender.
“When he’s on, you can see him tracking the puck,” Anastos said. “Tonight, even on dangerous scoring chances when he made stops, they weren’t of the spectacular nature.”
Having faced each other twice earlier in the season at Munn Ice Arena, the Bulldogs and Spartans wasted no time showing the fans at The Joe the physical side of hockey.
Sophomore defenseman Rhett Holland laid a crunching hit along the boards just 1:30 into the game that earned him two minutes in the penalty box. Two more sets of coincidental roughing penalties were called before the end of the first period, one of which was to the eventual goal scorer Darnell.
Darnell scored the game’s first goal just 3:35 into the second period. After taking a pass from Holland, Darnell executed a flawless toe drag at the top of the slot and fired a wrist shot the deflected off Ferris State goaltender CJ Motte and into the back of the net.
“He made a good move,” Motte said. “ [Darnell] did make a nice toe drag and kind of used our defenseman as a screen.”
The score would remain 1-0 for the remainder of the second period and most of the third, thanks to great performances from both goaltenders. Junior defenseman Travis Walsh took two penalties within the first ten minutes of the third period, but MSU’s penalty kill stood strong and when they didn’t, Hildebrand was there to make the save.
MSU will face Michigan at 7 p.m. on Monday to determine the champion of this year’s GLI. Playing in the historic tournament against one of MSU’s most storied rivals is almost too good to be true for some of the Spartans.
“It’s why you come to Michigan State,” senior captain Michael Ferrantino said. “To play in the GLI, playing Michigan and you get them both. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
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