Spartans defeat NTDP U18 Team Friday night at Munn
Photos by Michael Caples/MiHockey
By Alyssa Girardi –
EAST LANSING — Though it won’t count in the season record or individual statistics, helping your current team to an exhibition win against your old one is sweet nonetheless.
MSU goaltender Ed Minney played the final two periods, allowing one goal on 14 shots, and forward Dylan Pavelek scored his first goal in a Spartan sweater en route to a 4-1 victory over the U.S. National Development Program’s Under-18 Team, or NTDP. Both freshmen are products of the NTDP, spending two years as members of the program located in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“It was a good experience, playing against a team that the past two years I would live and die for,” Pavelek (Marysville) said. “It was good to get out and see those other guys that I played with the past couple years, so it was a fun game.”
It was the 11th time the two teams have met for an exhibition, and the first time MSU pulled out a victory since an 8-2 rout during the 2009-10 season.
“You go into a game like this and part of the reason we play it is to support that program,” MSU head coach Tom Anastos said. “I’m a big believer in that program. I think it does a lot of good for American hockey and for American players, but it is a hard game to play.”
In Friday night’s win, MSU produced a widespread 35 shots with 11 of the 20 dressed skaters tallying at least two shots.
They got off to a slow start, skating to a scoreless first period and only forcing five shots on NTDP netminder Michael Lackey, but Anastos said he liked the way his team turned it on in the final 40 minutes.
“I thought we were more tenacious in the second and third periods,” he said. “It was nice to see the puck go in net. Anytime you get three or four goals in a game today, that’s always good to see regardless of how.”
Ryan Keller (Farmington Hills) scored MSU’s first goal, picking up the puck from a shot by Carson Gatt (Farmington Hills) that banged off the boards behind the net and wrapping it around into the corner.
Pavelek took off on a breakaway in the closing minute of the second period and Lackey made the initial save, but Pavelek found his own rebound and backhanded it in.
MSU’s final two goals were empty-netters the first scored by Joe Cox (Chelsea) and the second a backhander from the other end of the ice at the hands of Matt DeBlouw (Chesterfield).
NTDP’s Auston Matthews spoiled the shutout with 1:05 left to play.
“I talked to him in the handshake line and said ‘you just couldn’t let me have it, you had to come down and make me look bad,” Minney said. “But it was a great shot. I thought I was in perfect position, but he couldn’t have put it in a better spot.”