The Big Ten regular-season title is Michigan State’s to lose.
What’s also true is that the Big Ten is Wisconsin’s to win.
With three weeks remaining until conference playoffs, the Spartans remain at the top of the standings with 46 points after sweeping Michigan last weekend. The Badgers paced Michigan State with a sweep of their own over Notre Dame, staying five points behind the Spartans in second place.
This weekend, Wisconsin has the chance to overtake Michigan State when the Badgers travel to Ohio State and the Spartans enjoy a bye week. Wisconsin has six remaining B1G games to Michigan State’s two.
Both teams have stumbled a little in recent weeks, which has made things even more interesting at the top of the standings. Wisconsin went 1-2-1-1 in the four games immediately preceding last weekend’s home series against Notre Dame. The Spartans split each of their three B1G series leading up to the sweep of Michigan.
Things are so tight at the top of the standings that Michigan State is guaranteed to win the regular-season title – and the first-round conference playoff bye – only if the Spartans win out their season. Wisconsin needs to win five of their six remaining games to take first place.
How can it get tenser than that? Michigan State finishes its season on the road against Wisconsin.
Before that point, the Badgers play both last-place Ohio State and sixth-place Penn State on the road, and Mike Hastings is taking absolutely nothing for granted. Hastings said that his team’s in no danger of letting down after playing Notre Dame.
“In this league, you have to be past that by now,” said Hastings. “If you don’t play well, you’re going to get beat and depending on how you play, you could get embarrassed. I don’t care who you’re playing in our league. You have to go out and earn your points.”
Wisconsin brings the best defense in the country into Columbus this weekend, allowing just 1.87 goals per game. The Badgers have allowed two or fewer goals in their last four contests, including limiting Minnesota – a team that averages 3.50 goals per game – to three goals total in a series two weeks ago. In that series against the Golden Gophers, the Badgers were held to two themselves, earning them two of six points for their efforts.
Numbers, said Hasting, can be deceiving. Take those nation-topping defensive numbers, for example.
“Depending on what weekend, what day you’re talking about, I think those numbers have been accomplished in different ways,” said Hastings. “At times, unfortunately, we’ve left Kyle on an island, where he’s had to be better than good, where’s he’s needed to be special. So he’s maybe made some mistakes disappear through his play.”
Kyle is, of course, Kyle McClellan, the goalie with the third-best goals-against average (1.89) nationally and nation-leading save percentage (.932).
Hastings said that earlier in the season, forwards were doing a good job of getting back and jumping into defensive play – “playing connected, defending in groups of five, not giving up a tremendous amount of outnumbered rushes” – but that at other times, both the blue line and McClellan have had to do some heavy lifting.
“Then there’s been different times when our defensive corps has gone out and had to wear a lot of rubber, have had to block a lot of shots, had to make some defensive plays under duress,” said Hastings.
“When we’re at our best, it’s when we give Kyle the opportunity to see it and stop one and be done, and the only way that we do that is when our defensive corps are doing what they should do, our forwards are coming back and being connected with their defensive corps so that we’re getting out of our zone and not spending extended amounts of time there.”
After trailing Notre Dame 2-0 at the end of the first period Friday night, the Badgers scored two in the second and two in the third in the 4-2 win. David Silye’s second goal of the game at 1:18 in the third was the game winner. Wisconsin didn’t trail again in the series following that go-ahead goal.
To hold onto their five-point lead over Wisconsin, the Spartans beat Michigan 5-1 on the road and then 3-2 in Little Caesar’s Arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings, in the annual Duel in the D game, which drew a record crowd of 18,410.
The win was the 20th of the season for Michigan State. The last time the Spartans won 20 games was in 2007-08, which is also the last time that Michigan State won the national championship.
The sweep also gives Michigan State a 3-1-0 record against Michigan for the season, the first time that’s happened since 2009-10. The Wolverines have, in a weird way, played a significant role in Michigan State’s development this season. After Saturday’s win, Adam Nightingale referenced Michigan State’s first series of the season against Michigan (Jan. 19-20), a split, to make two related points.
“If you look at our season, we’re not perfect,” said Nightingale. “We still have a lot to work on, but looking back at moments, we went out in October and lost two games to Boston College. We didn’t lose again until we lost to Michigan 7-1 at home in regulation.”
Nightingale was talking about a stretch of 14 games following 6-4 and 5-1 losses to Boston College Oct. 26-27 during which the Spartans went 10-1-3, the only in overtime against Minnesota Nov. 26.
That 14-game span without a regulation loss ended with a 7-1 loss to Michigan Jan. 19. The Spartans won 7-5 on the road the following night, a game they were losing by three goals midway through the second period.
“Going through that and then losing 7-1 and being down 4-1 is painful,” said Nightingale, “but if you take the right approach, I think it’s a big-time opportunity for growth and I think our team grew through that.”
Nightingale said that the Spartans have “an even keel approach” and stressed the importance of taking a breath after a big win. “We’re still trying to lay the foundation of what we want this to look like. I think having poise, if you want to be an elite team, that’s a key characteristic.”
As the Spartans sit this one out, the Badgers will play a series that no doubt will feel like playoff hockey three weeks before the end of the season.
“Any time you go on the road in the Big Ten, you have to earn it,” said Hastings, adding that in that regard, the Buckeyes “are not going to be any different” than any other B1G opponent Wisconsin faces.
“They know that the playoffs are coming,” said Hastings. “We know that the playoffs are coming. We’re both trying to hone our group to be as good as we can be once that puck drops in the second season, so for us, it’s just about staying on our dailies. Our group has done a good job of that.”
