Spartans Rally, But Fall Short in 4-3 Loss

Saturday, October 13

East Lansing, Mich.

7:30 p.m. ET

Michigan State University

Northern Michigan

Photo by: Rey Del Rio

10/13/2018 11:08:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

Box Score

EAST LANSING - The Michigan State hockey team rallied from a two-goal, third-period deficit on Saturday at Munn Ice Arena, but would up falling to Northern Michigan, 4-3. Goals by Taro Hirose and Patrick Khodorenko tied the game less than three minutes into the third period, but NMU scored what proved to be the game-winning goal on the power play just over four minutes later.

"Another hard-fought game," MSU head coach Danton Cole said. "It was similar in some ways to last night, a little different some other ways. I didn't think that we had some of the jump (we did last night) and I think a little bit you give Northern credit; they're going to come out and play a better game than they did last night.

"We found ourselves down 3-1, but I liked the way the guys battled. We challenged them a little bit between the second and third to get back to the way we're playing and we scored a couple early and I thought we played a good period."

Northern Michigan got on the board first at the 7:11 mark when Joseph Nardi received an outlet pass at center ice and skated in to the lower right circle where he put wrist shot past MSU goaltender Drew DeRidder.

Trailing 1-0 in the second period, the Spartans knotted the game on the power play at the 7:23 mark of the second courtesy of Sam Saliba.

Zach Osburn made a go-ahead pass out of the defensive zone to Logan Lambdin, who skated up the middle and into the NMU zone. Lambdin dished the puck to a waiting Saliba on the right side who fired a wrist shot past NMU goalie Atte Tolvanen.

Northern Michigan reclaimed the lead with a short-handed goal at the 9:36 mark when Adam Rockwood got ahold of a loose puck in front of the MSU net.

NMU's Denver Pierce increased the Wildcat lead to 3-1 with another special teams goal, this one on the power play with 1:59 left in the second period.

A power play to start the third period helped the Spartans get some early pressure and one second after the NMU penalty expired, a low shot from the left point by Hirose found its way through traffic and just inside the far post to make it a 3-2 game at the 1:46 mark.

The game was tied 40 seconds later on the power play as Lewandowski fed a centering pass to Khodorenko, who was waiting at the top of the crease to put the puck past Tolvanen.

Northern Michigan answered with a power-play – and eventual game-winning-goal at the 6:29 mark of the third period, as Darien Craighead put the puck over DeRidder's shoulder from the middle of the left circle.

Both teams finished the game with a pair of power-play goals with the Spartans going 2-for-5 on the man-advantage and NMU going 2-for-6.

MSU outshot the Wildcats, 29-27.

Michigan State is off next weekend and returns to action at No. 7 Cornell, Oct. 26-27.