BU's split at Munn still left it Hockey East's best NPI résumé

BU went to East Lansing looking for a statement and came home with a split. I'll take it, and so should Hockey East.

A 6-2 win at Munn over the No. 3 team in the country is worth more than a 5-0 loss costs, and the math agrees: BU sits eighth in the NPI as of Monday, the highest Hockey East team on the board.

Friday was the best Hockey East road win of the fall, as far as I'm concerned. Michigan State outshot BU 35-24 and lost by four. That's what a goalie looks like when he's carrying a team. Mikhail Yegorov made 33 saves, 24 of them through two periods, while the Spartans were pushing.

"The only way I can really help my team is to stop the next shot," Yegorov said. Simple, and that's exactly how he played it.

The scoring was spread out the way good road teams spread it. Tynan Lawrence got the first on the power play, his eighth of the season.

Kamil Bednarik, Carter Amico and Caleb Malhotra followed before Michigan State got on the board. Charlie Trethewey added a power-play goal in the third, and Amico closed it with an empty-netter for his second of the night.

BU went 2-for-3 on the power play and has a power-play goal in six straight games. That unit is the reason this team can steal games in tough buildings.

"We bent a little bit, but we didn't break," Jay Pandolfo said. "It's a huge road win for us against a really good hockey team."

Saturday was the other side of the coin. Patrick Geary scored 32 seconds in, and Michigan State outshot BU 16-7 in the first period.

Ethan Belchetz, Eric Nilson and Shane Vansaghi followed, Vansaghi on a breakaway after a turnover at the BU blue line, and Cayden Lindstrom finished it. It was BU's first shutout loss to Michigan State.

Context matters on that one. Conrad Fondrk left Friday's game on his first shift, Aiden Celebrini left late Friday, and both sat Saturday along with junior defenseman Jax Wismer. A team missing three players on the second night of a road set against a top-three opponent is going to look like that sometimes.

Here's my read. Michigan State is the better team right now, and nobody in Boston should argue otherwise. But Hockey East needed someone to go into a Big Ten barn and win, and BU did it.

The Terriers were 13th in last week's USCHO poll and the Spartans were third. A road split against that gap is a good weekend, not a bad one.

The NPI is where it pays off. BU's 57.09 rating is eighth nationally in Monday's table, ahead of every other team in the league.

Vermont is 12th, Northeastern 14th, Providence 15th and Merrimack 17th. By our count, that's five Hockey East teams in the top 17, which is a deeper league than the national poll has been giving it credit for.

Kessler's call: BU stays in the NPI top 10 through Thanksgiving, and the power-play goal streak reaches eight games before it ends.