MSU hockey heads into rivalry with Michigan battling for home ice in the postseason

EAST LANSING – As always, intense feelings will be stirred up when Michigan State and Michigan meet in hockey this weekend. 

But for the first time in a few seasons there will be more on the line when the Spartans and Wolverines play Friday night in Ann Arbor and again Saturday at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. 

After gaining four points with a win and tie in last weekend's series with Wisconsin, the Spartans have pulled into a fourth place tie with the Wolverines in the Big Ten standings. And second place is within striking distance, with Notre Dame and Minnesota just one and three points ahead of both teams, respectively. 

The top four teams in the standings will open the postseason Big Ten Tournament at home, and the top two teams get first-round byes. 

"As a mindset for our guys, and we have told them since day one, is to let us (coaches) worry about the other stuff," MSU coach Danton Cole said. "They just need to show up at the rink, work hard, do the things we are talking about.

"The standings do come up occasionally. They know where they are at, and it's good this late in the season that those discussions come up."

MSU also sits in a tie for 22nd with Yale in the United State College Hockey Online pairwise rankings. While the selection committee doesn't use those rankings, specifically, they have been accurate in determining the at-large bids for the NCAA tournament. Generally, the top 16 teams in the PWR receive bids, assuming a team not in the top 16 wins its conference tournament.

KHL Line shines again

MSU's top line of Patrick Khodorenko, Taro Hirose and Mitch Lewandowski – dubbed the past two seasons as the KHL Line – continues to dazzle for the Spartans. The trio scored all six of MSU's goals last weekend against the Badgers. 

MSU is the only team to have all three players on one line among the top 15 point scorers in the country, as well as have three 30-point scorers. Hirose is pulling away atop the pack, leading the NCAA with 46 points, seven more than second-place Joseph Duszak of Mercyhurst. Khodorenko sits in sixth with 33, while Lewandowski is 15th with 31 points. 

Hirose's two-goal, two-assist weekend against Wisconsin was good enough to garner Big Ten Second Star of the Week, the fourth time this season he's earned conference accolades.

"There's definitely a lot of things going into the weekend with a lot of Big Ten points on the line," Hirose said. "It'll be a couple close games, and right now the team is going through a good stretch. We've shown that we've been playing playoff hockey the past few weeks and we're looking to do the same regardless of who we are playing against."

Hirose's 46 points are the most by a Spartan since Jim Slater's 48 in 2004-05. For comparison, last season's Hobey Baker Award winner, Adam Gaudette, had 42 points through 28 games. Hirose also has six more assists (31) than any other player through 28 games last season.

Success on the road

Michigan's Yost Arena is widely seen as one of the hardest venues in which to win in college hockey, but the Spartans have had some success there the past few years. 

MSU is 2-1-1 at Yost Arena in its past four trips – the tie coming this year when the Spartans earned an extra point with senior Brennan Sanford's shootout goal. 

"I love playing down there," MSU captain Sam Saliba said. "It's a huge challenge, always a fun atmosphere. Just the passion playing those guys, it's a little more than a hockey game. You just kind of get chills talking about it. You definitely don't want to lose to them and we've had success there."

Usually a home-and-home series, the Spartans forfeit one of their home game in the series this season for the "Duel in the D," which will be Saturday night at Little Caesars Arena. MSU and UM have already battled in Detroit once – a 2-2 tie in the third-place game of the Great Lakes Invitational in December.

In that meeting, the Wolverines were without superstar defenseman Quinn Hughes, who was away playing at the World Junior Championships but will be back on the ice this time around. Hughes was the No. 7 overall pick in the 2018 draft by the Vancouver Canucks, but he chose to return to U-M.

"They do a lot of things well, and Hughes is dangerous. You have to keep an eye on him," Cole said. "They've had guys step up and they are winning games. They have a lot of speed and they present some challenges for us."

Friday night's game starts at 7:30 p.m., with Saturday night's contest at LCA set for 7.  Friday's game can be streamed on BTN Plus, while Saturday's game will be on Fox Sports Detroit and streamed on BTN2Go.

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Contact Nathaniel Bott at nbott@lsj.com and follow him on Twitter @Nathaniel_Bott