Neil's Notebook: Spartans Begin Homestand Thursday

Oct. 21, 2015

BY Neil Koepke
MSUSpartans.com staff writer

EAST LANSING -- Finally, Michigan State gets to play a hockey game at home.

After three weeks of practices and four road games, the Spartans make their Munn Arena debut on Thursday and Friday against Lake Superior State, a team they've already defeated once this year.

"It'll be great. It's good to be home and we'll be ready to play,'' senior defenseman John Draeger said. "We feed off the emotions and excitement of the fans and the band.''

The Spartans (1-2-1) and Lakers (1-3), old CCHA rivals, meet in a non-conference series at 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday.

The two teams faced each other two weeks ago in the Ice Breaker Tournament in Portland, Maine, with MSU coming away with a 4-1 victory.

Michigan State is coming off two losses at Denver, 4-2, 3-0, while Lake Superior State last weekend split with Northern Michigan, losing 5-2 on the road and winning 4-0 at home.

Four Spartans freshmen -- forwards Mason Appleton, Brennan Sanford and Cody Milan and defenseman Zach Osburn â€" are eager to play their first regular-season game at Munn Arena.

"I can't wait to play in front of the home crowd, with the band and student section. It'll definitely be one to remember,'' said Appleton, who's from Green Bay, Wis. "We'll be excited and ready to have a great weekend, and hopefully win a couple of games.''

Now that the Spartans are home after back-to-back trips to Maine and Colorado, they'll be hanging out at Munn Arena quite often over the next six weeks. MSU will play eight of its next nine games in front of the home fans.

After facing the Lakers, MSU is off Halloween weekend and then plays host to New Hampshire, Nov. 6-7. The Spartans play at Boston College on Nov. 13, and then four consecutive home games â€" vs. Michigan Tech, Nov. 20-21, and against North Dakota, Nov. 27 and 29.

"It's an important stretch, not only to position ourselves for the NCAA Tournament, but also for the start of the Big Ten season,'' MSU coach Tom Anastos said. "Each game, we'll continue to try to get better like every team does, and right now we're just trying to get healthy.''

INJURY UPDATE: Senior forwards Mike Ferrantino (upper body) and Ryan Keller (lower body) missed last weekend's series at Denver, and the Spartans suffered another injury when senior forward Matt DeBlouw suffered a lower body injury in Saturday's game. DeBlouw is expected to be sidelined four to six weeks.

Meanwhile, Keller skated on his own on Monday and Tuesday and could play this weekend but he's still listed as questionable. If he remains out and continues to rehab next week, he'll likely return to face New Hampshire, Nov. 7-8.

Ferrantino made the trip to Denver but it was decided to keep him out of the lineup. He's also listed as questionable for the weekend, but he said "I'm going to do everything I possibly can to get (in the lineup) on Thursday.''

As a senior, this is Ferrantino's last home opener so there's plenty of motivation to play. Ferrantino had never missed a game in his MSU career, playing in 115 consecutive games, and sitting out was an experience he'd rather not repeat.

"It definitely was something new. I don't want to get used to it,'' he said. "It was a different experience for sure. It was really cool being on the bench, a lot better than being in the stands

"I could cheer on the guys and be part of the team in the locker room. I picked up some things from a different perspective, but apparently I'm not the best coach.''

Villiam Haag, a junior forward who sat out the first two games of the season with a middle body injury, returned to the lineup last weekend, despite not having any contact in practice before the weekend. He'll face the Lakers this weekend.

DENVER REVIEW: Anastos and the players were very impressed by highly ranked Denver, calling the No. 6 Pioneers a definite NCAA title contender.

"That's a really good team. They're very skilled, they work hard and they play a very good puck possession game,'' Anastos said. "On Friday, we put ourselves in a position to win (with a 2-1 lead in the third period) but we made some costly mistakes and that cost us the game.

"On Saturday, the game wasn't as close as the score. They really dominated. That's a tough place to play. The attitude (issue) was real. That was a challenge. We competed hard and tried to play over being shorthanded. We can't question how hard we competed.''

The big concern for MSU was not being able to keep the puck away from the Pioneers and have better possession time itself.

"We weren't able to shut down possession time in our defensive zone and we weren't able to generate much possession time in the offensive zone,'' Anastos said. "It put a lot of stress on our defense and our overall defensive play. I give Denver a lot of credit.''

The Pioneers outshot the Spartans 36-27 in the first game and 41-16 in the second contest.

"Denver is one of the top possession teams in the nation,'' freshman forward Mason Appleton said. "They have a lot of skill.''

Said junior defenseman John Draeger: "They play a good systematic game, they're hard on the puck, and they compete hard and have good skill. We had a chance to win the first game but we let it slip away. We have to be better in that area.''

SCOUTING THE LAKERS: What did the Spartans learn about LSSU from their 4-1 win over the Lakers on Oct. 10?

"They're a big team and they like to bang bodies and try to beat you up a little,'' MSU captain Mike Ferrantino said. "We have to use our speed to get around them and make plays.

"I thought their power play was pretty good and they had some quality chances. Their goaltending was solid and they didn't allow us to get to the house (slot) very easily. We'll have to work hard for our scoring chances.''

The Lakers are an inexperienced team with 10 freshmen and eight sophomore in the lineup. But they're also an older team with only five players 20-years-old or younger.

LSSU opened its season with a 5-2 loss to North Dakota in the Ice Breaker Tournament opener. But early in the game, the Lakers went up 2-0 and also had a goal disallowed before UND battled back to win.

Last week, Lake Superior lost at Northern Michigan, 6-3, but rebounded for a 4-0 home-opening win over the Wildcats to earn a split of the WCHA series. Freshman Nick Kossoff (19, 6-1, 183, West Des Moines, Iowa) became the first goaltender in school history to record a shutout in his college debut.

The Lakers are coached by former Spartan Damon Whitten, who took over the program in the spring of 2014 after assistant coaching stops at Wayne State, Alaska Anchorage and Michigan Tech. He also served a volunteer coach and director of operations at MSU.

"They'll come in here with some confidence after winning last Saturday against Northern, and playing Michigan State is an important game on their schedule,'' Anastos said of the Lakers. "When we won against them, I didn't think it was a 4-1 game. They were in contention until late in the game. They're getting better as a team.

"This will be a challenge for our team. We have to overcome the adversity we're dealing with. I think our guys will be in the right frame of mind.''

Freshman Mason Appleton said the Lakers "are a team that likes to bunch things up in the defensive zone, blocks a lot of shots and likes to play the body. We have to make quick plays in the offensive zone and keep moving our feet.''

Five of LSSU's top six scorers are freshmen. Rookie GageTorrel, who has played in three of four games, has one goal and three assists for four points. Mitch Hults, also a freshman, has three goals in four games.

Sophomore goalie Gordon Defiel played in LSSU's first three games, and made 27 saves in the loss to the Spartans. He gave up two goals to Mackenzie MacEachern and one each to Ferrantino and JT Stenglein.

"They're a big team and they like to be physical,'' senior defenseman John Draeger said. "They like to get the puck in deep, forecheck hard and keep it simple. We have to move the puck well and do a good job in our defensive zone.''

The last time Lake Superior State played at Munn Arena was in the second half of the 2011-12 season. MSU won 4-2 and the teams tied 2-2 on Jan. 20 and 21, respectively, in 2012. The Spartans will play a series in Sault Ste. Marie in the near future.

PENALTY KILLING SOLID: Michigan State ranks tied for 9th in the nation in penalty killing (94 percent), allowing only one power-play goal in 19 opportunities. The eight teams ahead of the MSU haven't given up a power-play goal.

The Spartans' penalty killers skated off nine Denver power plays last weekend as the Pioneers went 0-for-4 on Friday and 0-for-3 on Saturday.

MSU has killed 18 straight opponents' power plays since giving up a power-play goal against Maine just 3:10 into the first period in its first game. Maine went 1-for-5 on the power play, while LSSU was 0-for-7 against the Spartans.

MOVING ON UP: Senior goaltender Jake Hildebrand is 24 saves away from surpassing volunteer coach Jason Muzzatti and moving into third place on MSU's career save list. Hildebrand made 70 saves against Denver and boosted his career total to 2,905 saves to move past Mike Buzak (2,836) and Ron Scott (2,884) and into fourth place.

Jeff Lerg is the Spartans' career save leader with 3,996 in 146 games, also a career goaltending record.

IN THE BIG TEN: No. 11 Michigan (2-0) plays a pair of non-conference games against Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) teams â€" at No. 18 Union (2-0-2) on Friday and at Rensselaer (1-3) on Saturday. The Wolverines opened their season last weekend at home with a sweep of Mercyhurst, 6-4 and 3-2.

In other Friday-Saturday games, Ohio State (0-4) plays at No. 3 Providence (2-0-1), No. 19 Minnesota (0-3) plays host to Northeastern (1-2), Penn State (2-1) is home against American International (0-3) and Wisconsin (0-2-2) travels to Big Rapids to face Ferris State (2-2).