By Alyssa Girardi –
EAST LANSING — Saturday afternoon in East Lansing, Minnesota demonstrated why it’s been ranked No. 1 in the country for seven consecutive weeks.
MSU was coming off a tie and a shootout win Friday night over the Golden Gophers, but Minnesota showed up the following day and dominated the scoreboard, winning 3-2 and outshooting MSU 38-21.
“I thought we worked really hard in the second period and obviously in the third period,” captain Greg Wolfe (Canton) said. “I think guys gave it their all and emptied the tank. The difference was the first period; we need to figure out a way to be ready every night and we need to do a better job of weathering their intensity and getting the momentum earlier in the game.”
Minnesota got on the board first when Gabe Guertler won a puck in an MSU corner and threw it toward goaltender Jake Hildebrand’s crease, where Christian Isackson poked it into the lower left corner.
A tip-in from Seth Ambroz off a shot from the slot by Michael Brodzinksi doubled the Golden Gophers’ lead at 18:25 of the first period, a power-play marker. Minnesota (12-2-2, 3-0-1-0 B1G) scored its third early in the second period. Mike Reilly took a shot from the slot, and it hit off an MSU defenseman and redirected out of Hildebrand’s reach.
The Spartans (5-8-1, 0-1-0-1 B1G) broke their scoreless drought with a power-play goal by freshman Villiam Haag with about five minutes remaining in the second period, his fourth goal in three games. It also marks his fourth consecutive game with at least one point.
Senior Dean Chelios (Bloomfield Hills) won the puck along the boards, and found a rushing Haag at the far post.
“He came right off the bench, that was on a rush,” head coach Tom Anastos said. “He came right off the bench, went to the net, he’s yelling for the puck. Dean gave him a nice pass across the ice and I think he extended his reach as far as he could to bang that it. That was a real nice play.”
Though MSU trailed by two goals in the final seconds of the matchup, the team kept pushing in search of another tally. With an extra skater on the ice, sophomore Michael Ferrantino (Plymouth) found MSU’s second goal of the night with less than one second remaining on the clock.
Senior Jake Chelios (Bloomfield Hills) took a shot from the left circle, and Ferrantino got his stick on a loose puck during a scramble to poke the puck in.
“No quit; play right ‘till the final whistle,” Anastos said. “As long as there’s time on the clock, we gotta keep playing. It was nice to see. Always try to improve yourself and build on your confidence if you can, and compete hard and it was a good sign that guys attacked hard.”
Senior Lee Reimer left the MSU bench early in the first period with an upper-body injury. He didn’t return to the game, and following the game, Anastos didn’t know the severity of the injury. Without Reimer, the Spartans were forced to shuffle the lines to make up for the hole in the first line.
Despite the loss, MSU still walks away from its first-ever Big Ten series with a shootout win and one-goal loss to the top team in the nation
“Obviously, (Friday) was a huge day for us,” Wolfe said. “We battled and got the win. (Saturday), we were down early, we could’ve gave up but we battled hard. I think every single guy on our bench was giving it their all. No one quit. We stayed positive the whole time and if that game would’ve been a little longer, I think we probably could’ve had a chance at coming back.”