Michigan State Penalty Kill and Power Play Units Show Signs of Improvement in Season-Opening Victory
Faith Krogulecki, DrivewithJack.com Hockey Reporter
EAST LANSING – There was no better way to celebrate the Michigan State Spartans’ 40 years at Munn Ice Arena than with a season-opening victory against the Massachusetts Minutemen Friday night.
“I think we were really anxious this year,” MSU senior right winger Matt Berry said. “We’ve been working really hard this summer. We came together as a team, and we were just really ready to go out there and attack [UMass] and I felt like we did.”
The Spartans came out aggressive in the season-opener against the Minutemen, holding a large amount of possession in the UMass zone in the first period.
The first goal of the season for Michigan State was credited to Berry off an assist from captain Michael Ferrantino from the left side of the ice.
“We try to get pucks to the net,” Berry said. “I score most of my goals pretty close to the net, so it helps having [my teammates] out there that work down low to find ways to get chances.”
At 11:52 in the first period, senior right winger Brent Darnell was called for checking-from-behind and given a game misconduct and was ejected from the game. The Spartans successfully killed the Minutemens’ five-minute power play.
“We knew we had to kill it,” sophomore left winger Mackenzie MacEachern said. “That five-minute major was a big kill. It’s my first year killing and I got a great mentor like Tino; He’s kind of showed me the ropes.”
Successfully killing off penalties was an area in which the Spartans wanted to improve on this season.
“That was a good kill for us because that was not an area we were happy with last year,” MSU head coach Tom Anastos said. “We’ve worked a lot on special teams, given the amount of time we’ve been practicing. It was nice to go against real competition and their power play killed us last year.”
The Spartans took a two-goal lead over the Minutemen in the first period with less than three minutes left on a JT Stenglein goal only to have UMass tie it up early in the second.
Within eight minutes of the start of the second period, MSU goaltender Jake Hildebrand was attacked with several shots resulting in two goals from UMass and a 2-2 game with 13:34 remaining in the second.
“There was no panic on our bench, we obviously knew that we had to find our game again and get back to what made us successful in the first period, so it was good, our guys responded well and I thought we picked it up after that,” Ferrantino said.
The starting offensive line for Michigan State consisted of left winger MacEachern, center Ferrantino and right winger Berry which produced three of the five goals along with four assists Friday night.
Scoring on the power play opportunities was a constant struggle last season for MSU. With 166 opportunities, the Spartans only scored 22 goals. With 7:37 remaining in the second, MacEachern capitalized on a five-minute power play and scored to take the Spartans up 3-2.
“I think the big thing is we all communicate when we get off the ice,” MacEachern said. “We talk about what we could have done, what we could have done better, where were you and all of that.”
Michigan State sealed the game with two more goals in the third by center Matt DeBlouw and Berry.
Last season, the Spartans averaged 2.19 goals per game and finished the night with a 5-3 victory over UMass.
“We’ve got to be locked in for 60 minutes,” Ferrantino said. “It’s a long game, but it’s on us to stay focused and stay in it.”
