Raise your hand if you knew at the start of the season that Minnesota and Michigan State would be battling early for the top spot in Big Ten conference hockey.
Come on, now. Don’t lie.
This weekend, the “original six” of the Big Ten take the ice – everyone but Notre Dame – in three great conference series, but the hottest ticket is a team in Michigan that doesn’t play in Ann Arbor.
And don’t think for a second that the visiting head coach doesn’t know what his team is facing.
“We go to Michigan State, who quietly may be one of the better teams in the country right now,” said Bob Motzko, speaking to Golden Gophers long-time play-by-play announcer Wally Shaver this week in “Gopher Hockey Weekly with Bob Motzko.”
Motzko said that the Spartans’ “camaraderie and how they’re playing as a team” will make guarantee that the Gophers will have their hands full.
“We’ve got to make sure that they’ve got their hands full, too,” said Motzko.
After eight conference games, the teams in the top three spots in the Big Ten standings are Minnesota, Michigan State and Penn State, each spot separated by a single point.
While the Gophers were picked in the B1G preseason coaches’ poll to finish at the top of the conference, Michigan State was tabbed for last place. Motzko told Shaver that there are several things contributing to the Spartans’ early success, starting with first-year head coach Adam Nightingale.
“You get a new coaching staff that comes in,” said Motzko. “They’ve got two freshmen that are leading scorers right now.”
Motzko mentioned the renovation of Munn Ice Arena and how that injects excitement into the program, plus the addition of grad student transfer Dylan St. Cyr – the first Big Ten star of the week after posting his second shutout of the season and whose .934 overall save percentage is fourth-best in D-I hockey. Motzko also praised Michigan State’s corps of solid veteran players.
Motzko said the Spartans “may be one of the better teams in the country right now” and called them a “feel-good hockey team.” He said, “They’re playing as a team. We’ve got to go in there and play darn good hockey and get dialed back in.”
Last weekend, the Golden Gophers split a pair of road games against Arizona State, winning 3-2 Friday and losing 6-5 in overtime Saturday, so the dialing back in that Motzko mentioned is more than just returning to Big Ten play. Motzko said that the team was distracted a bit by the peripherals of the trip, like the entire team and their families spending Thanksgiving Day at the home of forward Matthew Knies’ family in Phoenix.
“It turned out to be a vacation with two hockey games, and we kind of had a little vacation mode in us,” said Motzko, who added that the team wasn’t dwelling on it. “I don’t know if you can avoid it.”
While the Gophers were in Arizona, the Spartans traveled to Oxford, Ohio, where they swept former CCHA rival Miami, a team that Adam Nightingale characterized as having “just had a good weekend splitting on the road with North Dakota.”
In his weekly press conference, Nightingale said that Michigan State continues to benefit from scoring that is spread out across the team.
Said Nightingale, “Guys contribute at different times.”
Six different Spartans scored Michigan State’s nine goals, including freshman Karsen Dorwart, who registered his first collegiate hat trick in the 4-0 Saturday win, earning him the third Big Ten star of the week. Sophomore Jeremy Davidson had two goals in Friday’s 5-3 win and the first assist on Miroslav Mucha’s game-winner.
Nightingale said that coaching this season is fun because the entire Spartan squad is dedicated. The contributions of the younger players also holds a lot of promise for the program’s future.
“What I really like about the group is that there’s zero entitlement,” said Nightingale. “They know they go out and earn it, and they practice that way, they play that way, and that’s something that’s important to our program and important to our university, that you earn things.”
In the week leading up to the Miami series, Michigan State senior Jagger Joshua released a statement on Twitter about having been on the receiving end of racist comments made by Ohio State forward Kamil Sadlocha during MSU’s Nov. 11 road game against OSU and Joshua’s disappointment in the Big Ten’s handling of the incident.
After Joshua released his statement, Michigan State and Ohio State each released statements, followed by a Twitter statement by OSU athletic director Gene Smith in which Smith apologized to Joshua on behalf of Ohio State.
Unrelated to what had transpired, Joshua was a healthy scratch for the Friday game against Miami, and Nightingale was frank about it.
“Super proud of Jagger,” said Nightingale. “Obviously, he had a lot going on that week, but before any of that, we’ve talked about playing smart and playing with discipline, and there’s been multiple times when he’s taken penalties. I’ve had conversations with him, so it got to the point where it needed to take away ice time.”
Nightingale said he talked to Joshua about the need for the coach himself to follow up with what he says to the team, that telling the team that he needs to follow through when he tells the team that they’re going to play with discipline and accountability.
Nightingale said that Joshua was “great” and told Nightingale that he appreciated the coach “being honest” with him about it.
“I thought he really responded well on Saturday at Miami,” said Nightingale. “I think there were a couple of incidents that had we not sat him, he might have took a penalty. Because he still needs to play physical, that’s a huge part of his game, he needs to bring that edge, but we also can’t put the team in a position where we’re killing off five-minute power plays.”
Heading into the weekend against the Gophers, Nightingale said that the Spartans are preparing the same way they do against every opponent.
“Every weekend we play, we want to take a step regardless of who we’re playing,” said Nightingale. “I really do think that throughout the season, each weekend we’ve gotten better. That will be the focus going into this weekend.”
Like Motzko, Nightingale knows what his team is facing in this series.
“They’ve got a lot of depth, a lot of speed, a lot of skill throughout their lineup,” said Nightingale. “They play a brand of hockey that’s really taxing. You’ve got to be really good away from the puck.”
Michigan State is winless against Minnesota in their last nine meetings dating back to Dec. 3, 2020. The Gophers outscored the Spartans 35-14 in that span. MSU’s last win over Minnesota was a 4-2 win in Minneapolis Feb. 8, 2020. The Gophers are 18-3-0 against the Spartans dating back to the 2017-18 season.
“This will be a really good test for our group,” said Nightingale, “and we’re excited for it.”
