Alaska Trip, BGSU This Weekend

The Spartans split on their long trip to Alaska. They lost the opener 4-1, but played fairly well, the score was not indicative of the game. They persevered through some injuries and won the second game 6-2. Palmisano got the win for Michigan State.

The Spartans will host Bowling Green this weekend in the last series of the regular season. A series sweep would be a great confidence boost heading into the CCHA playoffs.

Tough Weekend Against NMU

It was a disappointing weekend for the Spartans. We went into the Northern series thinking about a sweep to move up the conference standings and ended up getting swept. We played great on Friday night, but we ran into a hot goalie. We were better than Northern on the night and they still beat us. The next night every puck it seemed was going into the net for us as we got off to a 4-1 lead. The Wildcats scored a fluke goal off Grant's skate and that really put some pressure on us. They tied it up, we took the lead again, but were unable to hold it. Give credit to Northern for fighting back, but it could have easily gone the other way in terms of wins this weekend.

The team left for Alaska today. There was a long day of traveling and the team will be skating up there at 1 am ET to get rid of the jet lag. It will be two tough games in an Olympic size rink against a team that we have had some success already this year. We must win out our last 4 games to have any hope of getting home ice for the CCHA playoffs.

Split with OSU

Michigan State once again split the weekend with a win on Friday night and a loss Saturday. They played very hard both nights and were rewarded on Friday. Will Yanakeff has played very well in his freshman year. Also, the overall team defense has vastly improved in the second half of the season and we are starting to see Michigan State play up to their capabilities. The Spartans have been playing well as of late, but they haven't seemed to come through with a sweep. They have another chance to do it this weekend against Northern Michigan. They host the Wildcats after they had been on the road the last two weeks. The next weekend they have a tough road trip to Alaska Fairbanks.