Michigan State claims first place in CCHA with a 3-0 shutout win over Nebraska-Omaha

PaulM · 11-06-2009, 10:52 AM

Michigan State was able to ride sophmore goalie Drew Palmisano's strong performance to a 3-0 win over the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks Thursday night. With this victory Michigan State, now 7-2-0, moved into sole possession of first place in the CCHA. The Mavericks, who came into this game sporting a top 10 ranking, struggled to maintain consistent pressure on the Spartans and were shut out for the first time on the season by the Spartans.

Michigan State was able to take the lead on a early power play goal by Freshman Derek Grant. Grant scored by putting in a rebound from a Jeff Petry shot from the right circle. This power play goal was Grant's fifth on the season and fourth on the power play.

The second goal of the game was an even strength goal by Michigan State, scored by freshman Anthony Hayes. This goal was setup by some nice passing between Hayes and his fellow freshman Kevin Walrod and Dean Chelois. This line, affectionately called the "Grape Line" because of the color of the jerseys they wear in practice, was one of the strongest lines on the ice for either team tonight. Coach Comely said that this line was "excellent" and he was impressed with "their ability to control the puck and make good plays at their goal".

Michigan States third goal of the evening was a power play goal scored in the second period by junior wing Corey Tropp. Corey was able to score a beautiful goal with a top shelf wrist shot after deeking out the Mavericks defense at the blue line. About the goal Corey commented that he "I was fortunate to actually put it where I want it." This was Tropp's eighth goal on the season, and with the assist he picked up on Grants goal gives him 15 points on the season.

As for the play of Palmisano tonight, he was very solid in goal making 31 saves to record his first shutout on this young season. While Palmisano gave a lot of credit to his defense for block shots and clearing pucks, it was obvious that Drew was seeing the puck extremely well tonight. Possibly the best save of the night that Drew made came early in the 2nd period when Palmisano was able to stop a short-handed breakaway opportunity by senoir winger Dan Swason. Besides wondering why there was a breakaway on a power play Drew said, "I just kinda of stayed with him and he decided to shoot early. Luckily enough I just got my blocker on it and it went in my glove right away."

Michigan State will conclude their season series with the Mavericks of Nebraska-Omaha Friday night. The puck drops at 7:05pm Friday night for this important CCHA game.

BigPeabody · 11-06-2009, 11:01 AM

Time for some hockey love. Great post.
This is going to be a great winter around here.
Dano and the defense let us down, but the real Spartan sports season is now upon us.

o4k13k · 11-06-2009, 11:07 AM

Fire Comley

Signed,

tRCMB

NAWMAN1 · 11-06-2009, 11:10 AM

Great start by the Hockey team! Very excited to go to a couple of their game shis season!

monty4msu · 11-06-2009, 11:42 AM

Great start, but remember its how you finish.

RPMadMSU · 11-06-2009, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by monty4msu

Great start, but remember its how you finish.

You can't "finish" unless you "start."

monty4msu · 11-06-2009, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RPMadMSU

You can't "finish" unless you "start."

Serious question; do wins in november mean as much as wins in march? For example in MSU football, for years we would start great, maybe 4-0 or 4-1, but then finish like crap. So, is a win early as valuable as a win late?

PRStoetzer · 11-06-2009, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by monty4msu

Serious question; do wins in november mean as much as wins in march? For example in MSU football, for years we would start great, maybe 4-0 or 4-1, but then finish like crap. So, is a win early as valuable as a win late?

Certainly for the PairWise rankings, you need as many wins as you can get to be ranked highly.

ScriptState · 11-06-2009, 11:48 AM

Just bought 2 tickets to the Michigan game next weekend, don't let me down boys.

I was very tempted to get tickets to the Minnestoa and Wisconsin games, but I figured I'll be too busy outlining by that point. Should be a fun series

Spartacus81 · 11-06-2009, 11:48 AM

Good start. But that first place is a BIT misleading. MSU has played 5 games while other teams have only played 2.

RPMadMSU · 11-06-2009, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by monty4msu

Serious question; do wins in november mean as much as wins in march? For example in MSU football, for years we would start great, maybe 4-0 or 4-1, but then finish like crap. So, is a win early as valuable as a win late?

Yes.

Because you can't "finish like crap" if you don't start first.

Is it really finishing like crap if you start like crap in the first place and vice versa?

(Also, as the poster above mentioned, in the PWR rankings, all wins, especially against TUC's are important...I'd like to see if a PWR would be possible in Football and Basketball because I really think it's the most fair ranking system....however Football may not play enough games for it to be relevant, and Basketball may have too many teams to be possible....but no one has tried.)

Spartyon2001 · 11-06-2009, 12:15 PM

FIRE COMLEY

PaulM · 11-06-2009, 12:36 PM

Overall, I think this is a very promising start to the season. This is a young Michigan State team that is a work in progress. Coach Comely is fairly happy with the way that the team has "bought in" to the new system. However he is still waiting for them to execute the system correctly for an entire game. There were several major breakdowns last night that lead to quality scoring chances for UNO.