The Miami RedHawks and Michigan State Spartans skated to a 2-2 deadlock Friday night in Oxford. The RedHawks did earn an extra point in the CCHA standings by winning the shootou,t 2-0. Miami got goals from freshman Alex Gacek and sophomore Alex Wideman, while sophomore Matt Berry and junior Jake Chelios lit the lamp for the Spartans.<\/p>\n
Miami coach Enrico Blasi called a tight game, and just the sort his players needed to come to expect.<\/p>\n
“I thought it was a good college hockey game,” Blasi said. “One of those nights for both sides where you gotta just stay with it and try to find a way. It was a good game, well-played both ways. We had our chances, they had theirs.”<\/p>\n
The RedHawks grabbed the early lead when Gacek picked up a turnover in the slot and wristed it passed Michigan State’s freshman goaltender Jake Hildebrand at 11:15. Miami then pushed the advantage to 2-0 at 5:47 in the second period as Alex Wideman backhanded the puck over Hildebrand’s shoulder.<\/p>\n
Michigan State coach Tom Anastos said the early deficit did not dissuade the team, and he knew the players knew what it would take to come back.<\/p>\n
“I’d call it patience, rather than try to force things out there just be real patient,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Spartans did not wait long to respond. At 7:38 in the second, Berry put Michigan State on the board with his seventh goal of the season, a nifty spinning shot that eluded Miami’s freshman goalkeeper Jay Williams. Then Miami took a penalty late in the period, putting Michigan State on a power play. The Spartans converted the opportunity, with a shot by junior Jake Chelios deflecting off of a Miami defender and into the back of the cage.<\/p>\n
As the game progressed, both defenses clamped down ever tighter. Though Miami held an edge in shots on goal, neither team could capitalize on any momentum. The Spartans were outshot, 21-12, after the first period, and Chelios said the grind of the action took its toll.<\/p>\n
“They were wearing us down the whole game,” he said. “We were having a hard time getting the puck deep and getting caught in our area. That eventually got to us.”<\/p>\n
Following a gritty third period, neither team had many good looks in the overtime, setting up a trip down the shootout lane. Miami won the shootout on goals from Wideman and freshman Riley Barber. It marked the second consecutive game that Wideman netted a shootout-winning goal for the RedHawks.<\/p>\n
“A shootout win in our league is two points and those are two points that could be huge at the end of the season. You never know,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Miami RedHawks and Michigan State Spartans skated to a 2-2 deadlock Friday night in Oxford. The RedHawks did earn an extra point in the CCHA standings by winning the shootou,t 2-0. Miami got goals from freshman Alex Gacek and sophomore Alex Wideman, while sophomore Matt Berry and junior Jake Chelios lit the lamp for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15999"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16001,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15999\/revisions\/16001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15999"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}