It took Michigan State just 1:37 to blow open a tie game with Nebraska-Omaha Friday night in a CCHA matchup at Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing.<\/p>\n
Brock Radunske, Kevin Estrada and Mike LaLonde scored within 1:37 of one another in the third period to break a 2-2 deadlock and lift the Spartans to a 5-2 win over the Mavericks, extending MSU’s win steak to four straight.<\/p>\n
Radunske scored the go-ahead goal with 16:57 left. Brian Maloney slipped a pass by two Omaha defenders as he skated behind the net, finding Radunske wide open in front of goalie Dan Ellis. Radunske fired a one-timer past Ellis, beginning the three-goal barrage.<\/p>\n
“That was really big,” said Radunske, who also had an assist on the Spartans’ first goal. “We didn’t want to take a tie score deep into the third period and that goal gave the whole team confidence. We finished the game off well after that.”<\/p>\n
MSU (12-9-1, 8-6-0) scored five unanswered goals after the Mavericks (8-12-3, 6-10-1) scored twice within the first eight minutes. Micah Sanford and Aaron Smith scored six minutes apart to give Omaha a 2-0 lead with 12:05 left in the first period.<\/p>\n
“We wanted to come out and get a lead,” said Mavericks coach Mike Kemp, whose team is 1-5-1 in its last seven games. “You feel good with a two-goal lead.”<\/p>\n
The lead didn’t last long, however, as the Spartans responded with consecutive power-play goals within 2:01 of each other from Maloney and Brad Fast to tie the score at 2-2 with just over six minutes left in the period.<\/p>\n
“It was the Michigan State power play that changed the game. They came out and zipped the puck, they got their two opportunities, went two-for-two in the first period. Now, all of a sudden, you’re playing from behind because of a couple of great power-play goals,” said Kemp.<\/p>\n
Following a scoreless second period, MSU came out determined to keep its winning streak alive. The Spartans not only scored three goals on offense, but their penalty-kill stoned UNO on five power-play opportunities. The Mavericks went 0-for-7 in the game, while MSU was 2-for-5.<\/p>\n
Michigan State sophomore goalie Matt Migliaccio was a big reason for the win. He finished with 27 saves, including eight on power plays.<\/p>\n
“Goaltending has been the difference for us the last several games,” said MSU coach Rick Comley, whose team is now 4-1-0 in second half of the season. “We have a very young team and our experience and confidence are rising with each game.”<\/p>\n
The Spartans and Mavericks finish their series Saturday in East Lansing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It took Michigan State just 1:37 to blow open a tie game with Nebraska-Omaha Friday night in a CCHA matchup at Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing. Brock Radunske, Kevin Estrada and Mike LaLonde scored within 1:37 of one another in the third period to break a 2-2 deadlock and lift the Spartans to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3983"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}