EAST LANSING, Mich. – Massachusetts tied this one, 2-2, briefly in the second, but Michigan State scored three goals in the final 33 minutes and held on for a 5-3 win to open the 2014-2015 season.
And while only two of the eight total goals scored involved unevenly matched sides, officially, special teams factored into several of the even-strength goals as well, with the Spartans scoring shortly after killing off a five-minute major penalty in the first and Minutemen goals in both the second and third periods coming from penalty-killing momentum.
“I thought it was a good start for us,” said Michigan State coach Tom Anastos. “There were a lot of things that we liked. Trying to pull some things together to be organized enough to play. Finally, we saw some things that we’ve been working on, both offensively and defensively, and that was a good sign.
“It’s nice to see the puck go in the net. Certainly a confidence boost, both for the team and for the guys who scored.”
Senior Matt Berry led all Spartans with two goals, and several Michigan State players began the year with multiple-point games. UMass freshman Keith Burchett netted his first two collegiate goals in the contest.
“It was good for us to put some goals on the board tonight,” said Berry. “We worked really hard as a team. I think we were really anxious this year. We worked really hard this summer and we came together as a team and we were really ready to go out there and attack them. That’s what I felt like we did.”
The Spartans led, 2-0, at the end of the first on Berry’s early goal at 3:37 and sophomore J.T. Stenglein’s tally at 17:35. Stenglein’s goal came less than a minute after Michigan State killed off a five-minute major penalty to senior Brent Darnell, who was called for checking from behind and given a game misconduct.
“That was not an area we were happy with last year, so we’ve worked a lot on special teams, given the amount of time we’ve been practicing, and it was nice to go against real competition and at the same time, their power play killed us last year,” said Anastos. “Our bigger concern once we got it killed off is that we used those guys a lot.”
Burchett’s first goal at 2:14 in the second — a good second-effort attempt from the bottom of the right circle — cut the Spartans’ lead in half, and at 6:23, Massachusetts senior Zack LaRue scored on a short-handed, odd-man breakaway, taking a perfectly timed cross-crease pass from freshman Dennis Kravchenk, to tie the game.
“I thought we persevered through it and obviously scored the shorty and were able to gain a little bit of momentum off a couple of those kills, one in the second and one in the third, particularly,” said Massachusetts coach John Micheletto.
“I would’ve liked to have scored a couple more power-play goals there [in the first],” said Micheletto. “We had some opportunities and they made some saves and got a few clears. The five-minute major is always kind of difficult. It’s easier for the penalty kill to gain momentum than the power play, because you’ve got so many guys that don’t wind up seeing the ice in five minutes. I thought both teams responded pretty well coming off of them.”
After UMass tied the game, the Spartans responded with three goals from the middle of the second through the middle of the third. Sophomore Mackenzie MacEachern scored on a power play at 12:23 in the second, junior Matt DeBlouw netted his first since his freshman season at 3:05 in the third, and Berry added his second of the game four minutes later. The last two Michigan State goals beat senior Massachusetts netminder Steve Mastalerz top shelf. Burchett added his second goal of the game at 13:17.
“There were parts of the game in the third period [where] we started to get away a little bit from the things we were doing to have success,” said Anastos, “so we’ll learn from that.”
The teams meet again Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. in Munn Ice Arena. Micheletto said he’s looking for the Minutemen to have a better start in the rematch.
“I’d like to think that we wouldn’t get jumped as much as we got in the early going. I don’t know that necessarily our guys were as prepared to handle the pressure of the forecheck and the deep D pinching as they were. We obviously made a couple of adjustments and that gave us a little bit more space to make plays.”
