After splitting the weekend at home against Penn State and earning just one of six possible points, Michigan State now faces a crucial road trip to Notre Dame for the final weekend of the regular season.

A road sweep against Notre Dame, combined with a split between Penn State and Minnesota, would propel the Spartans back to first place and secure back-to-back Big Ten regular season titles. But MSU also needs some help from Penn State.

Blue-collar hockey has defined MSU’s third season under head coach Adam Nightingale. The setback against Penn State presents an opportunity for the Spartans to rebound and rediscover their winning form. Nightingale has emphasized the team’s offensive firepower but stresses the importance of every player buying in.

“We’ve had some meetings where, yes the score board said that we won, but our standard is higher than the score board,” Nightingale said. “We’re not a good enough team where we can’t not have everyone’s best, we need everyone’s best every single night for us to have a chance to win hockey games. You can’t dig yourself a hole and think you can get out of it.”

Going down early in game two of the Penn State series with their opponents coming in flying on all cylinders with two goals on their first two shots was what dug MSU into a hole that it was forced to dig itself out of. But the mantra of the locker room leaders has been to not give up early and never go down as quickly as they did. Having two goals in the third period of senior night and playing what Nightingale said was some of the best hockey he’s seen all season is momentum that needs to be carried into their last series.

“We can’t give up, going down 2-0 early, it stings but you can’t give up,” sophomore defenseman Patrick Geary said. “Nightingale talks a lot about grinding down teams and waiting for the opportunity to come and that’s kind of what we did. If we wouldn’t have dug our hole in the beginning we would've been fine.”

After a weekend that didn’t seem to go their way, the Spartans took lessons from their final home series, especially when it comes to quickly approaching one-and-done situations. After the first weekend of the Big Ten tournament where it is a best two-of-three situation, the remainder of the run becomes one-and-out, including the NCAA Frozen Four tournament where every game could be a team’s last.

“We’re at the point of the year where everyone is playing their best hockey, so getting down early is never going to help us, it’s always going to be tough, regardless of the team we’re playing,” junior defenseman Matt Basgall said. 

While MSU is fighting for a title, Notre Dame has plenty on the line, too. Saturday marks Notre Dame’s senior night and the retirement of legendary head coach Jeff Jackson — a transformative figure in college and professional hockey.

“Coach Jackson, one of the legends, not just of college hockey, all of hockey,” Nightingale said. “You look at what he did at Lake Superior and really building that program into a national power, he was the first coach at the U.S. National team, at the time when he took over and did that it was kind of taboo, you look at what that’s done for USA hockey, coaching in the NHL.”

While Notre Dame had success in past years, this one has been a tough go-around. With a 4-17-1 conference record, Notre Dame sits at the bottom of the conference and will earn the No. 7 seed in the Big Ten tournament. But the wins that the team had have been dominant. Last weekend ND hit the road to play at the Kohl Center, a tough arena to enter, and took down the Badgers on night two with a 6-1 victory. 

MSU controls its own fate — needing a road sweep and help from Penn State to reclaim first place. MSU will travel to South Bend for a two-game series against Notre Dame on Friday, Feb. 28, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, March 1, at 6 p.m.