EAST LANSING, Mich. – Ohio State’s Dakota Joshua won nine of his 14 faceoffs, and the one he took at the 11-minute mark in the third period proved to be the most valuable for the Buckeyes. After taking the puck, Joshua skated to the bottom of the left circle and fired, beating Michigan State’s Ed Minney long and giving the Buckeyes their fourth goal of the night, the marker that would stand up to be the game-winner as the No. 8 Buckeyes completed a two-game sweep of Michigan State with a 5-3 win.
It was a back-and-forth game, with overlapping penalties and goals that came in batches. The Spartans scored at 7:14 in the first period, but the Buckeyes had a 2-1 lead after one on Matthew Weis’s power-play goal at 13:59 followed by Joshua’s first goal of the night 17 seconds later. In the third period, beginning with Joshua’s unassisted game-winner, the teams combined for the final three goals of the night within a span of two-and-a-half minutes.
“I thought we were resilient,” said Ohio State coach Steve Rohlik. “They scored some goals and we took some penalties, some bad penalties tonight I thought, put ourselves in the hole. We [did that when we] had an opportunity on a power play once or twice and that can’t happen, but I like the resilience of our team. I liked our attitude. The guys knew we had to go kill a penalty in the third, but it was like we weren’t going to be denied tonight. That was the attitude of our guys tonight.”
With the game tied 2-2, Ohio State’s Janik Moser took a penalty for roughing after the whistle at the end of the second period, giving the Spartans a man advantage for the first two minutes of the third. After killing that, the Buckeyes found themselves on the power play at 2:26 with Michigan State’s Carson Gatt in the box, but at 3:36, Ohio State’s Ronnie Hein negated that power play with a penalty of his own. The Buckeyes did score on the Gatt power play, but then put themselves at a disadvantage at the end of a penalty to Michigan State’s Zach Osburn less than a minute later – and two minutes after that, Joshua went to the box giving the Spartans an opportunity to get back into the game, an opportunity on which they could not capitalize.
In spite of the chaos of third period and the Spartans pressing hard, Rohlik said he never felt as though Ohio State was on its heels. “[Michigan State] played hard, they played well, they’re a good hockey team. They had good push. I liked our energy out of our team tonight, for the most part. I thought we were more consistent tonight and I think at the end of the day, you’ve got to win those type of games.”
In Friday’s 4-1 Ohio State win, the Spartans found themselves trailing 4-0 until the middle of the third period, and three of OSU’s goals were scored within the first minute of either the first or second periods. Michigan State coach Danton Cole said that he saw a definite improvement in the Spartans in this rematch and the key was “starting a little quicker.”
“You can’t get down four-nothing to these guys,” said Cole. “Just the battle level and the compete level that we need to have to be in games is kind of the barrier of entry. I think our guys did a heck of a lot better job tonight. I thought it was good the way they battled, and that’s something we can build on. We’ve just got to keep moving forward.”
Trailing 2-1 in the second period, the Spartans tied the game on Sam Saliba’s first goal of the night, a power-play marker at 4:29. John Wiitala put the Buckeyes ahead again at 4:10 in the third on the penalty to Gatt. After Joshua scored unassisted at 11:00 to make it 4-2, Freddy Gerard scored at 12:52 to give the Buckeyes a 5-2 lead, and Saliba’s second goal at 13:28 brought the final score to 5-3.
The win was the sixth in a row for the Buckeyes (14-4-4, 7-4-1-0 B1G), who travel to Penn State Jan. 12-13. For the Spartans (8-13-1, 2-9-1-1 B1G), the loss was the third in a row, but Cole said that there was a lot of positive to take out of this contest.
“We had three and we had lots of other chances that I thought that were pretty good. We were around the net. We thought at one point we could’ve been up four-two instead of down four-two. We played a much better game tonight, but Ohio State’s a good hockey team. For us right now, everything has to be right and we have to get a couple of breaks. There are a couple of areas where we’re going to get better.”
Michigan State faces Wisconsin on the road next weekend.
