Michigan Men’s Hockey team will take on rival Michigan State in the weekend clash of the Dual of the D in Detroit. This year Michigan State has had the upper hand on the Wolverines as they won the game in East Lansing 4-3 and tied Michigan in Ann Arbor 1-1 however MSU received the extra point with the overtime goal. In the Great Lakes Invitational in Detroit, the fight-filled game ended up tied 1-1 as bad blood spilled in a penalty-filled game.
Friday’s game played at the Red Berenson Rink Yost Ice Arena will be no pushover for either team as both have 24 points and are tied for fourth in the Big Ten with 6 games left so points cannot be wasted. The winner of the series will be able to decide if they can host the first round game in the tournament for the Big Ten and MSU is coached by second-year leader Danton Cole and like Michigan, the Spartans have a high scoring line of Junior Taro Hirose, Sophomore Mitchell Lewandowski, Junior and Patrick Khodorenko.
Hirose leads MSU with 46 points and the other two forwards have 33 and 31 respectfully and in goal it is split with Freshman Drew De Ridder and Junior John Lethmon. Michigan will be looking to avoid the turnover battle as to not give the high scoring Spartans any easy goals. The Wolverines will give the Spartan goalies plenty of shots to look at as Michigan is second in the country in shots taken on goal with 1,004 17 shots behind Penn State and averaging 37 shots a game.
Junior Will Lockwood will look to start a new scoring streak after being shut down in Minnesota over the past weekend and Junior Jake Slaker has picked up the scoring with Josh Norris done for the year along with Michael Pastujov who had three goals last weekend against Minnesota. The defensive pair of Quinn Hughes and Joseph Cecconi are also leading the defense and producing goals for Michigan. Michigan will be looking for steady goaltending and with the game at Yost Friday the Wolverines hold a 74-44- 5 record against MSU and a record of 115-65-7 in games played in Detroit over the 90 years plus.
With the points being so tight to get look for the teams to be on the best behavior as to not let each other get the upper hand.