Couch: MSU's hockey program and its fans have been waiting for next weekend for a long time. Longer than you might think.
EAST LANSING – For the first time in a long time, Michigan State hockey’s senior night didn’t feel like the end of anything, even if it was three weeks later than last year’s celebration. There’s so much of this season still left. All the big stuff.
Like next weekend in Madison, Wisconsin, when the Spartans play the Badgers for the Big Ten championship, with MSU leading Wisconsin by two points entering the two-game series. Or after that, in the Big Ten tournament, when the Spartans host at least one game at Munn, the same arena MSU’s six seniors said goodbye to on Saturday night. Or after that, in the NCAA tournament, which the Spartans will play in this season for the first time in a dozen years.
The Frozen Four is an actual goal this year. That’s not until April. Same weekend as The Masters golf tournament. Two weeks after Easter. Three weeks after the start of spring. Senior night? Psh. It’s only a culmination of careers for hockey programs that don’t have much else to look forward to — like at MSU for most of the last decade-plus.
“It’s actually a lot different,” said senior Nico Muller, who went through the senior night festivities a year ago before deciding to return for a fifth season. “The last four years, it was always like we kind of knew that it was going to be our last home game. This year, we know for a fact that we already get a home game again.
“Senior night is great to celebrate and step back, reflect a little bit, but I hope like there's more to come and we can celebrate some huge wins.”
Saturday’s 5-2 victory over Ohio State wasn’t a small win. It set up the Spartans for next weekend. They now need just one victory in two games at Wisconsin (Friday and Saturday night) to win an outright Big Ten championship and to get the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten tournament, which comes with a first-round bye. MSU would get the top seed even if they finish tied with the Badgers after next weekend, by virtue of having more head-to-head points against Wisconsin this season. MSU beat the Badgers twice in November in East Lansing.
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This is the beginning of MSU playing for things under second-year coach Adam Nightingale. Not that they haven’t been playing with stakes all season — they also played for a title in the Great Lakes Invitational in December — but this is different.
Only once since Ron Mason was coaching the Spartans have they entered the final weekend of the regular season playing for a conference championship. Believe it or not, they did so in 2014-15 under Tom Anastos, leading Minnesota and Michigan by a single point heading into their series against the Wolverines. MSU split with Michigan, while the Gophers beat Penn State twice to win the title and grab the top seed. The Spartans’ season ended two weeks later when they lost to Michigan in the Big Ten tournament semifinals. That was a much weaker Big Ten. MSU, despite finishing second in the then-six-team league, wasn’t in the top 30 in the Pairwise rankings, which largely determine the 16-team NCAA tournament field. Michigan wasn’t in the top 20. Only Minnesota, 10th in the Pairwise, made the NCAA tournament from the Big Ten.
This season, MSU is on the verge of winning a Big Ten that has four teams in the top 15 and its last-place team, Ohio State, is 26th, five spots better than second-place MSU nine years ago.
You’ve got to be legitimately good to be where the Spartans are today — ranked No. 5 in the Pairwise, about to play Wisconsin, ranked No. 4.
“I'm really excited about it,” Nightingale said. “ … I absolutely would have loved to have the chance to do it at home and play at home in front of our fans, but an opportunity to go into a hostile environment and try to win a championship, the guys have earned that. You look at the Big Ten schedule, we play 22 games and we're the last two standing in the regular season. And I just think for our program, in general, (it’s) a big-time opportunity to take a step.”
And do something that hasn’t been done in 23 years, since before Nightingale was even a player at MSU, back when sophomore Ryan Miller was in net. MSU won the CCHA by 10 points that season. The Spartans had won three of the previous four CCHA titles then, having been to 16 NCAA tournaments over the previous 18 years. No one could have imagined then that MSU wouldn’t win another conference title until Miller had retired from two decades in professional hockey, or eight years after Mason passed away at age 76, with the three MSU coaches that followed him all having been fired.
MSU’s program and fan base have been waiting for next weekend — and the weekends after that — for a long, long while.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU hockey's Big Ten-title showdown at Wisconsin is a long time coming
