Adam Nightingale shuffles lines, No. 4 Michigan State beats Boston College, 4-3

EAST LANSING, Mich. – After a Friday night that was full of hard lessons for the Michigan State hockey team, Saturday night was a night full of optimism that the Spartans can compete with the best teams in college hockey.

After being shutout 3-0 by No. 2-ranked Boston College on Friday night, Michigan State Head Coach Adam Nightingale made some changes in his lineup for the matchup on Saturday night. The only addition to the lineup was freshman center Mikey DeAngelo (5-11, 179, Itasca. Ill.) who centered the fourth line for the Spartans. However, all four lines were ultimately tweaked slightly from Friday night.

The top three lines all produced a goal on the night, but it was the restructured second line of Isaac Howard, Charlie Stramel and Gavin O’Connell that was the difference behind two goals by the center, Stramel.

Stramel, a Wisconsin transfer, and Howard played together last weekend when first-line center Karsen Dorwart was out with an injury. The NHL first-round draft picks weren’t together on Friday night, but Nightingale reunited them on Saturday for the second game of this early-season showdown series.

“I thoughts Strams and Ike were pretty good together up in the Soo,” Nightingale said. “They have known each other a long time. They played together on the national team.

“We try to keep some pairs together, some guys that have played together. We haven’t done a ton of changing things up but our staff felt like it was time and it seemed to work tonight.”

Howard moved down from the first line to the second line on Saturday night and replaced Shane Vansaghi who moved down to the fourth line. The left-handed Howard also switched sides going from right wing on Friday to left wing on Saturday. Howard assisted both of Stramel’s goals on the night, while Gavin O’Connell added an assist on Stramel’s first goal as well.

“Gavin is a really good hockey player too and I thought he was a lot better than he was the night before,” Nightingale said.

The Spartans’ third line, which is centered Michigan State captain Red Savage, was also productive in the victory Saturday night. After moving up Tiernan Shoudy and Tanner Kelly from the fourth line, all three finished with a +1 goal differential and they all earned a point on Savage’s goal just :30 seconds into the second period, assisted by Shoudy and Kelly. That tied the game at 2-2.

“I thought those guys were great tonight,” Nightingale said. “I think all three of them are winning hockey players and do a lot of little things that help a team win.”

Their task on Saturday wasn’t little. They were regularly out there against Boston College’s top line. The Eagles’ first line featured sophomore wingers Gabe Perreault and Ryan Leonard, who were both first round NHL draft picks in 2023 as well as junior center Oskar Jellvik who was a fifth round draft pick in the 2021 NHL draft.

Perreault and Leonard both scored a goal apiece, while Jellvik was credited with two assists on the goals. However the two goals both came at the end of the first period, just 1:10 from each other and neither came with the third line on the ice for the Spartans.

Those goals gave Boston College a 2-1 lead at the end of the first period, temporarily silencing a great start for the Spartans. But the Spartans out-scored Boston College 3-1 in the final period. Daniel Russell scored the game-winner at 7:32, from Howard and senior defenseman David Gucciardi.

WHAT IT MEANS

The victory on Saturday improved Michigan State’s record to 3-1 on the young season. It was also the Spartans’ first of the season on their home ice at Munn Ice Arena in front of a sold-out crowd. It was Michigan State’s 600th win at Munn Ice Arena, coming in the 50th year of the rink’s existence.

“That was great. You think about 600 wins in one building, I mean that’s a lot,” Nightingale said. “The teams that have played here, the fans that have come,the players that have played in this rink, the amount of big games, I thought that last minute you could hardly hear yourself think. That was awesome, and that’s what you want.”

Ultimately, Nightingale pushed enough of the right buttons on Saturday night to help his team respond against one of college hockey’s best programs in Boston College. The showing by the Spartans on Saturday proved that they can respond to some adversity and a loss on Friday night, and win against the nation’s best.

Last year, Boston College swept Michigan State. The Spartans didn’t lose again in regulation until January, and went on to win its first Big Ten Championship in school history. Boston College lost in the National Championship Game.

In learning from Friday’s loss and coming back to win on Saturday, Michigan State had to take its game to a higher level, earlier in the season, than last year.

“Their D can really skate and have good sticks and can make it hard on you, and they have some special players and a really good goalie,” Nightingale said of Boston College. “It’s a blessing to play a very good team and a well-coached team. We want to really find out about our team. You have to play a top team to really find out, especially before we get into conference.”

THE RESPONSE

Nightingale growled about Friday’s loss, saying his team tried to play “too cutesy.” He called for them to have more of a blue-collar approach on Saturday.

“We met in the morning and went over some video and those are not always comfortable meetings to be in,” Nightingale said. “But we owe it to our guys to be honest with them about areas we needed to be better at. 

“When you talk about development and the age of our guys, you are going to have failure but you can’t make the same mistakes. It can’t happen again. It’s how you respond. I thought they came to the rink with confidence and they felt if we were us, we would give ourselves a chance to be in the game. I thought we did a way better job.

“We are a team that needs to play behind teams,” he said, meaning needing to get the puck deep deep into the opponent’s zone and try to keep them there. “We’ve got to play north, we’ve got to play direct. You’ve got to recognize, too, and check your ego at the blue line, because sometimes they have a really good gap and they have guys above you and the play is to put it behind, and now you can establish the o-zone.

“I think you look at a few of the goals tonight that came off of that. It’s not always going to end up in the back of the net but we want to play repeatable, winning hockey. We’re not there yet but there was definitely some stretches when I thought we did a good job.”

And there are times when a fast, skilled team like Boston College is going to carry the play.

“We even talked about it between periods: If you have to play in the D zone for two periods, that’s real hockey and that’s okay,” Nightingale said. “Of course we all want to play in the offensive zone, but that’s a pretty good team and if you play :30 seconds in the D zone, do your job, get it behind, get it changed and get fresh troops out there.

“Friday night wasn’t good enough and we have to make sure we play like (this) every night. That doesn’t mean we will win every night, but that’s playing to our identity and I think that’s what our fans have embraced.”

WHAT’S NEXT

No. 4-ranked Michigan State will play the University of Windsor on Oct. 18 next weekend before taking a trip to Canisius during the weekend of Oct. 25-26.

Michigan State will open Big Ten play at home against Ohio State, the weekend of Nov. 8-9.

“It was a special finish to the weekend,” Nightingale said. “Obviously, we would have liked to play better on Friday but that’s our job to help our guys grow and their job to react.”