WORCESTER, Mass. — Outperformed in almost every category, Michigan State had one not-so-secret weapon it used to power its way through the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Spartan goalie Trey Augustine made 41 saves, with his best work coming late in the third period with his team clinging to a one-goal lead, to shut the door on Connecticut and preserve a 2-1 win in the final minutes on Thursday in the NCAA regional semifinal at the DCU Center.
“UConn was really good — I thought they were the better team,” Michigan State coach Adam Nightingale said. “That’s just the reality. (I) thought Trey was the best player on the ice by a country mile.”
Porter Martone’s power-play goal at 11:54 of the second period held up, and now Michigan State is now one win away from returning to the Frozen Four for the first time since 2007, when it won its third NCAA championship in school history.
UConn, which was the lowest at-large seed in the tournament, saw its season end at 20-13-5.
Both teams struggled to stay out of the penalty box and to score on subsequent power plays. The Spartans were slapped with 14 penalty minutes through two periods but UConn could not convert any into goals.
“It’s a funny game that way sometimes,” UConn coach Mike Cavanaugh said. “Pucks don’t go in for you. I thought we were around the net. We had second chances.”
Michigan State took the lead for good when Martone struck for his 25th goal of the season midway through the second period. Taking advantage of some sloppy puck management by the UConn defense, Martone scooped up a loose puck near the center of the Huskies’ defensive zone, dished it to Tiernan Shoudy, who drew UConn goalie Tyler Muszelik to the left side of the net. Shoudy slid it back to Martone, who then one-timed it into the open net to Muszelik’s right.
“He made it really easy on me,” Martone said of Shoudy. “He put it right in my wheelhouse. (It) was nice to see that go in and get the lead there.”
The Huskies opened the scoring at 15:27 of the first period, when Tabor Heaslip took advantage of a rebound past Augustine for a 1-0 lead. The initial shot by Joey Muldowney bounced off of Augustine’s pads and right to a charging Heaslip, who was there to blast the puck into the net past Augustine’s pad.
Michigan State answered just over three minutes later on Ryker Lee’s 15th of the season. Battling for the puck on the right point, Lee eventually wrested it from UConn’s Ryan Tattle and took it in all by himself through traffic and roofed it over Muszelik to make it 1-1 at 18:56. That’s where it stood after the first period.
“I was walking downhill and saw some space to take it to the net,” Lee said. “I thought, ‘why not?’, thankfully it went in.”
Augustine finished with 40 saves, while Muszelik had 20 — including one on a first-period penalty shot by Michigan State’s Daniel Russell.
UConn pulled Muszelik with a little more than two minutes to go in the third period, and continued its assault on the Spartan net to no avail. Augustine made a number of saves, including one on UConn’s Jake Richard who found himself alone in front of the net with the puck with less than four seconds remaining.
On Saturday, Michigan State (26-8-2) will face B1G rival Wisconsin in the regional final (4:30 p.m.).
It was the second straight 2-1 loss for UConn, which lost by the same score to Merrimack last week in the Hockey East championship game in Boston.
“Unfortunately, it’s a results-based business, and we lost,” said Tattle, a senior. “I thought we did play well but it’s hard to win an NCAA tournament game scoring one goal. But yeah, super proud of our team.”