UNH did it to No. 2 Michigan State again, and I was wrong
New Hampshire outshot the Spartans 34-14 in a 1-0 home-opener win, and Michael Simpson has two straight shutouts going into Saturday.
I picked Michigan State to sweep in Durham. One night in, I owe New Hampshire an apology, because the Wildcats beat the No. 2 Spartans 1-0 on Friday, and it wasn't a goalie stealing one. UNH was the better team for 60 minutes.
That's twice in two seasons UNH has taken a game off a Michigan State team ranked second in the country. Last October it was 4-3 in East Lansing. This one, in the Whittemore Center home opener in front of 5,784, was more convincing.
The game
New Hampshire outshot Michigan State 34-14 and blocked 12 more Spartan shots. That's the Ferda number, and it's not close: a team ranked 20th in the NPI coming into the weekend held the No. 3 NPI team to 14 shots.
The only goal came on the power play. Michigan State took a cross-checking penalty at 7:13 of the third, and freshman Émile Guité scored nine minutes into the period, from Ryan Johnson and Nick Ring. It's Guité's second career winner, and Ring now has a point in five straight games.
Michael Simpson needed only 14 saves, but the last one mattered: his glove stop with 2:04 left sealed his second straight shutout.
Joshua Ravensbergen is the reason it stayed scoreless for 49 minutes. The Michigan State freshman made a season-high 33 saves, 25 of them in the first two periods.
What it means
Adam Nightingale didn't dress it up. "We didn't do enough to win a hockey game tonight," he said.
He's right, and it's the part that should worry the Spartans. Fourteen shots in 60 minutes means they spent the night on the outside, and UNH was happy to keep them there.
For UNH, this is the résumé game. A win over a top-three NPI opponent is worth more in March than a month of wins over the bottom of Hockey East. The Wildcats are 3-1-1 and haven't allowed a goal in two games.
All-time, UNH now leads this series 9-8. That's a strange sentence to write about a Hockey East program and a Big Ten power, and it keeps getting truer.
Rivalry file: These two have met in back-to-back Octobers, and UNH has won the first game both times. The second game is where Michigan State answered last year, with a 2-0 win.
Tonight: Game two is at 7 p.m. at the Whittemore Center.
Kessler's call: I'm not making the same mistake twice. UNH gets at least a point tonight and scores more than once doing it.
