Wolverines hold on for 5-4 OT win over Spartans in GLi third-place game

 

By @StefanKubus –

DETROIT – The Spartans nearly climbed all the way back, but the Wolverines got the job done Friday afternoon at Joe Louis Arena.

Michigan State was down 4-1 heading into the third period, forced overtime, but it was Tony Calderone (Trenton) who was the overtime hero for the Wolverines to help them take the third-place Great Lakes Invitational game, a 5-4 final. Will Lockwood (Bloomfield Hills) and Alex Kile (Troy) also lit the lamp for Michigan, while senior Zach Nagelvoort (Holland) recorded the win between the pipes. Cooper Marody (Brighton), in his second game of the season, chipped in with three helpers.

The Wolverines hope to use it as a launching pad into their second half of the season.

“I think we’re gonna leave here with some resolve and some awareness, look at this and say, ‘these are the areas we’ve got to fix,” Michigan head coach Red Berenson said. “If you’ve got a car with a flat tire and won’t admit it, you won’t get very far. We’re gonna stop and fix the flat.”

Mason Appleton, Logan Lambdin (Newport), Carson Gatt (South Lyon) and JT Stenglein found twine for the Spartans. Freshman John Lethemon (Northville) allowed four goals on 29 shots in the loss.

MSU head coach Tom Anastos said he felt his team didn’t get rewarded considering the scoring chances they generated.

“Keep looking for the next goal, we just talked about playing the right way, staying within what we wanted to try to do,” MSU head coach Tom Anastos said of his second-intermission message to his team. “I didn’t feel we were getting rewarded. We generated a lot of good quality chances all weekend, probably the two games of back-to-back hockey we had as many quality chances as we’ve had in a long time. Nothing was going in the net for us.”

In the schools’ 310th meeting, it was the Wolverines who struck first.

Calderone, a Victory Honda alum, opened the scoring at 3:57 by poking home the rebound of a Marody shot that hit the post and landed in the crease. For Marody, it was his first point of the season as he made his season debut in Thursday’s GLI opener against Michigan Tech.

Lockwood scored his seventh of the season, unassisted and perhaps none prettier, at 6:18. The USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program alum entered the Michigan State zone down the left wing, cut to the middle and unleashed a wrister that beat Lethemon on the short side.

But Lambdin, who wears No. 71, got the Spartans on the board shortly after, showing shades of another No. 71 who frequents the Joe Louis Arena ice – though Waterford native Dylan Larkin is a former Wolverine. Lambdin used his speed down the left wing and fired a wrist shot top shelf while in motion. For Lambdin, a freshman, it marked his third goal of the season.

At 9:57, the Wolverines’ Kile regained the two-goal lead for his squad, banging home a loose puck at the side of the cage.

Late in the period, the Wolverines temporarily lost defenseman and captain Nolan De Jong, as he took a hard hit in the neutral zone from MSU’s Dylan Pavelek and gingerly left the ice, but ultimately would return.

Michigan added a fourth goal late in the second period, as Kile tipped home his second of the night. The goal was reviewed to see if Kile gloved the puck into the net, but it was deemed a good goal.

Lockwood left the ice at the end of the frame, nursing what appeared to be an upper-body injury. Berenson said there was no immediate update after the game on his status going forward, but that the team would know more on Monday.

Just seven seconds into the third period, Appleton potted his team-leading eighth of the season. And at 4:32, Gatt pulled the Spartans to within one, firing a wrist shot home in the far top corner from the top of the left circle.

With just 2:10 remaining in the contest, the Spartans evened things up.

Stenglein was the recipient of a quick passing play with linemates Joe Cox and Thomas Ebbing, and he tapped the puck home from the slot to make it a 4-4 game and force overtime.

And in the extra frame, it was Calderone who potted his second of the night, chipping a puck over Nagelvoort from the crease.

“Dexter (Dancs) made a great play walking to the net, rebound squirted out,” Calderone said of the goal. “It wasn’t pretty, but I was able to put it in.”