Spartans look to stay hot in final regular season home games
The Buckeyes of Ohio State come to Munn this weekend in the final home stand of the regular season. Friday night is an 8:30pm puck drop and Saturday is at 8pm. Both games are available on BTN. MSU sits atop the rankings in both polls and in the conference. Winning all remaining games will set MSU up nicely for tournament seedings. With Minnesota beating Michigan the three-peat conference champs bragging rights can be claimed this weekend with a six point sweep. The January 10 2-1 loss to OSU at the time looked like a loss that could hurt the three-peat chances. MSU has played very well down the stretch and has had a little help from some friends.
The Buckeyes get most of their offense from Davis Burnside, Felix Caron and Jake Karabela. They all are tied with 25 points to lead the team. Burnside is a senior but Caron is a sophomore and Karabela is a freshmen, showing that OSU has some quality youth that will only get better. Junior forward Max Montes leads the team in goals at 12. The Bucks gave up 16 goals last weekend in two games against Penn State. Goaltending has been shared this season between Kristoffer Eberly and Sam Hillebrandt. Eberly will likely get the start but they have clearly been giving the freshmen Hillebrandt time as both have over 700 minutes in goal this season.
The Spartans have continued their consistency in putting up wins when the top line of Stramel, Russell and Martone get points along with Romani and Lee. They also have had continued points from players outside those five. West, O’Connell, Männistö, Strbak, and Basgall have all been contributing making this team very tough to prepare for. Penalties have continued to plague this team as they are number two in the country in penalty minutes. This has also led to a slight dip in the PK performance. As the games head into tournaments the Spartans will need to improve upon staying at full strength. While the penalty kill has dipped the power play has gotten hot and is now ranked number 9.
The difference in the Spartans play recently has been their ability to stick to playing their game. Get out to the early lead, keep attacking, work harder and smarter and wear down the opponents. You have ben able to tell the last couple of weeks how tired the opponents have looked late in the third and especially late in the second games. Conditioning has always been a strength of Nightingale teams and late in a long season it will pay dividends.
This is also a very special weekend for the Spartan Seniors. Travis Shoudy, Tiernan Shoudy, Matt Basgall, Charlie Stramel, Daniel Russell and Dolan Gilbert will be honored over the weekend, specifically on Saturday. Basgall, Russell and Tiernan Shoudy are all four year Spartans that have played in every game of the Nightingale era. There is some big talent on the way out and the work those three specifically have put in to help turn this program around is something we will all remember. It is why winning it all, three-peating conference and tournament champions could make this one very special season for these seniors.
I like MSU’s chances this weekend and am looking for the sweeping clinch. What do you think TOC Nation? Anyone headed to Munn? I will be there Saturday night to cheer on the seniors and using this thread for live fan discussion so join me and let’s talk some Spartan hockey. Let’s GET IT DONE! Go Green!
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