Michigan State to take on archrival Michigan in Big Ten Tournament championship game

Michigan State will take the ice at Munn on Saturday with a chance to win the Big Ten Tournament championship. The one team standing in its way? Archrival Michigan.

The No. 1-seeded Spartans defeated No. 7 seed Ohio State in a thrilling 2-1 semifinal contest last weekend to earn a spot in the Big Ten Tournament championship game.

No. 4 seed Michigan took a longer road to the championship game. It started two weeks ago, when the Wolverines beat No. 5 seed Notre Dame twice – 5-4 and 4-3 – in a best-of-three series. Michigan then traveled to Minnestota to take on the No. 3-seeded Golden Gophers in the semifinal round. The Wolverines beat Minnesota, 2-1, in a single-elimination game.

Just three weeks removed from clinching the Big Ten regular season championship, Michigan State head coach Adam Nightingale is looking forward to the challenge that Michigan will present.

“We earned an opportunity to play another home game and I’m looking forward to having Michigan in here on Saturday,” Nightingale said. “It’ll be a great environment and it’s obviously a special rivalry. I’m looking forward to the weekend.” 

The Spartans have enjoyed their most successful season in over a decade, and Michigan State fans have responded by selling out Munn Ice Arena on a consistent basis. But Michigan State still has a few goals to check off on its season bucket list. One of them is beating Michigan at Munn Ice Arena.

Michigan State won three of its four games against Michigan this season, including two at Yost Ice Arena in Ann Arbor, Mich., and one at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. In the one game played between the rivals at Munn this season, the Wolverines skated to a 7-1 thrashing of Michigan State. The Spartans and Wolverines drew a total of 168 penalty minutes in that game.

Michigan State will look to play a cleaner game against its rivals this time around.

“I think discipline is really important and obviously we want to play the game physically, but you have to respect your opponent’s talent and ability to score,” said Nightingale. “Taking penalties all night is not a good recipe.”

“I think you’ve seen it with how we played after that game, that we’ve done a better job as a group controlling our emotion,” Nightingale continued. “It’s an emotional game but we’re not a very good hockey team if we lose control of our emotions and I think we showed that in that game.”

Michigan State has enjoyed a near-perfect stretch since that loss to Michigan. The Spartans are now looking to become just the third team in the 11-year history of Big Ten hockey to win the regular season and tournament championships in the same season.

Nightingale acknowledged that the Spartans’ home loss to Michigan may have acted as a needed wake-up call for them to get to where they are today.

“Sometimes you have to have something bad happen and go through some adversity,” Nightingale said. “You can talk about it and talk about it, but until it hits you between the eyes, you don’t know how you’ll respond.”

Michigan State will look to add to its renaissance season in front of another sold-out crowd at Munn Ice Arena. Ticket prices have soared to upwards of $800 on the secondary ticket market. It became clear this season that Michigan State fans have long awaited for a revival of their hockey program following the uber-successful Ron Mason days.

On Saturday, Michigan State will have have a chance to add to its historic turnaround in front of a packed home crowd.

“Ron laid the foundation of this program,” Nightingale said. “You look at what he did in the years he was here – not producing NHL players, winning games and winning national championships – but really making this a hockey town. I believe this is a hockey town and seeing the rink fill up, all of that goes back to Ron.”