Close Blanks PSU Again; Wisconsin, ASU Get Sweeps
CHN Staff Report
For the first time in 14 years, Michigan State has won three straight games against rival Michigan.
That’s even more impressive if you remember how their four regular-season games this season started — a 7-1 Michigan win in East Lansing, followed by jumping out to a 4-1 lead the next night. Since then, the Spartans completely turned things around. They rallied in that latter game, scored four third-period goals Friday night at Yost in a 5-1 win (two empty netters), and followed it up by grinding out the 3-2 win in Detroit on Saturday.
The “Duel In The ‘D'” game, now played annually in Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena, has largely supplanted the Great Lakes Invitational as the big regular-season matchup between these two teams. Not that they were guaranteed to meet in the GLI each year, but practically speaking, it usually happened.
But it was dominated by Michigan — six in a row, in fact — until now.
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“We’re excited about it, and we aren’t trying to get ahead of ourselves and we still have a lot of work to do,” Michigan State coach Adam Nightingale told the Lansing State Journal. “What I’m most excited about is our alumni, we have a proud alumni group and I want to make sure they walk into a rink and they’re proud to be a Spartan. We’re super thankful for them and we’re heading in the right direction and it’s exciting but we have to focus on one game at a time.”
An announced crowd of 18,410 was on hand, a record for the game, which is fitting now that both teams are contenders at the same time, finally.
Michigan’s Dylan Duke had the tying goal on his stick in the last minute, in the crease on his backhand, and mostly fanned on it as he was getting hounded by the MSU defense.
It was 1-1 in the second period before Tiernan Shoudy banged in a goal to give Michigan State the lead back. That got to 3-1 a few minutes later. The Wolverines were buzzing late in the second period, but couldn’t score, thanks in large part to MSU goalie Trey Augustine. Then, as the second period…
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