Tonight at 9pm EST the Michigan State Spartans will take the ice against number 2 ranked Wisconsin in game one of a two game match in Madison. The Spartans are looking for revenge after being swept by the Badgers earlier this season at Munn in two one goal losses. For the Spartans to keep the B1G Title in their sights they need to leave Wisconsin with a sweep. It would also likely move them up in the National Polls, which they have not been ranked lower than 4 in all season. Friday’s game is at 8pm and both games are on BTN which will allow for optimal Spartan eyes on this one.
Wisconsin hasn’t faced a B1G opponent since early December when they faced the Irish. The Badgers will likely have Daniel Hauser in net as he’s started 16 of their 20 games this season. Two of the four he did not start was against the Spartans earlier this year. The Spartans will look to have more success against him in net. Scoring wasn’t really the issue in the previous matchup, however. MSU was very sloppy in transitions and left opportunities for Wisconsin to take advantage of odd man advantages against Augustine. Game one saw the Spartans give up 4 goals in one period and that is not typical for Spartan play. Wisconsin controlled the pacing, took advantages on penalties and had MSU playing a game completely unlike their style.
MSU will need to jump out early. They have far more success this season when they get out to early leads and control the pacing. The Stramel, Russell, Martone line has had a lot of success and if they get hot in a game you usually see that line producing multiple points. They will need to stay out of the box too as Wisconsin’s Christian Fitzgerald has 7 power play goals this season ranking him 4th nationally. MSU has spent a lot of time in the box and the Wisconsin match earlier this season was one of their worst and they paid for it. MSU does have a solid PK but it is not a tightrope you want to continually walk on.
Wisconsin’s Gavin Morrissey will also need to be contained. He is outstanding in face offs and it will be interesting to see final tallies with him against Stramel. OSU was fairly dominant last week in face offs that were not against Stramel. Morrissey is a good vision skater and does an excellent job of distributing to the open skater or leading and creating scoring opportunities. MSU needs to get their sticks in the passing lanes and be aggressively disruptive which may lead to some advantages for them headed the other way. I would also like to see the Spartans take advantage of their speed and conditioning in this one. This goes along with the pacing mentioned earlier, but if MSU gets down the ice quick and plays to that speed they will have the ability to wear down Badger defensemen and eventually break out opportunities.
This is a big matchup for MSU. Wisconsin is always a tough one, but this weekend feels like it could be the start of the momentum needed to make things happen. It was about this time last year that Western and PSU started to catch fire and we know how they ended their season last year.
Now it’s your turn TOC, all game discussion is right here and we’ll have a recap after the 2 game bout. What do you think? Spartan sweep, split or swept? Let me know your thoughts and Go Green!
