Spartans' NCAA hockey tourney chances still good

EAST LANSING

-- For the next six days, the

Michigan

State

hockey team will feel terrible, dealing with the disappointment and pain of not making it to the CCHA Championships in

Detroit

.

Sunday's 3-2 overtime defeat against Northern Michigan at Munn Arena and 2-1 loss in the best-of-three series left the Spartans -- especially five seniors and maybe a couple of juniors -- shocked, miserable and shaking their heads over the last game at Munn Arena this season.

Thinking about hockey and what might have been will be tough this week, but come next Sunday, the Spartans' spirits will be back up, as well as their motivation, when it's officially announced that they're in the NCAA Tournament and there's a game to play late next week.

I don't think the Spartans, now 24-11-5, are a flat-out lock to make the 16-team tournament field. But unless there's two or three major upsets in the four conference tournaments this weekend, or some crazy things happen to change a lot of comparisons in the PairWise Rankings (PWR), I think MSU will get into the tournament.

Michigan

State

players should have a conference call this week with their counterparts from Clarkson of the ECACHL and

Minnesota

State

and

Wisconsin

of the WCHA. These teams also got knocked out of their tournaments but so they'll be practicing and waiting for this Sunday NCAA Hockey Selection Show (11:30 a.m., ESPN2).

When all the games finished on Sunday, MSU was tied with Clarkson for No. 9 in the PWR, each with 16 comparison wins. Before the games, the Spartans were tied for 10th.

The 16-team NCAA field is made up of six conference playoff champions and 10 at-large teams. Two are already in -- Niagara won the College Hockey

America

playoff title and Air Force earned a bid by winning the Atlantic Hockey title.

Based on the PWR, these teams will be seeded No. 15 and 16, respectively. The No. 14 seed will likely be the winner of the ECACHL title --

Princeton

, Harvard, Cornell or Colgate, while Clarkson should still be high enough in the PWR to make the field.

That means MSU,

Minnesota

State

, Clarkson and

Wisconsin

and even Notre Dame have to be ranked No. 13 or better in the PWR. At the moment,

Minnesota

State

and

Wisconsin

are tied for No. 13 with 11 comparisons.

Minnesota

State

holds the edge on the Badgers because of a slightly better RPI (overall record and strength of schedule).

For sure, the Mavericks and Badgers are on the bubble and could be knocked out of the tournament if there's an upset in the CCHA or Hockey East -- like Northern Michigan continuing on to win the playoff title or

Boston

University

or

Vermont

winning out in

Boston

.

Can NMU beat No. 1 seed

Michigan

and the Miami-Notre Dame winner? Probably not. Can

Boston

U.

or

Vermont

, who meet in Hockey East's semifinals knock off

New Hampshire

or

Boston

College

? Yes, they can.

At this point, it doesn't matter where the Spartans are seeded and where they go. They just want to play again. Seniors Bryan Lerg, Chris Mueller, Zak McClellan, Daniel Vukovic and Jeff Dunne don't want their careers to end with a heartbreaking loss at home. It's the same for juniors Justin Abdelkader and Tim Kennedy, both of whom could leave the program after this season to sign with NHL teams, and basically the entire team.

The Spartans were not consistently sharp offensively, despite a lot of shots on goal, and defensively in one-goal losses on Saturday and Sunday. They spent a lot of energy battling from behind in those two games and ran into one hot goaltender in Brian Stewart.  But once MSU junior Nick Sucharski scored a dramatic goal with 2:58 left in the third period on Sunday, you had the feeling the Spartans were going to have a happy ending. It was their game to win.

But a controversial boarding penalty on Bryan Lerg in overtime stopped MSU's momentum and set the stage for the Wildcats to score the winner. After doing a solid job killing most of Lerg's penalty, the Spartans got two players trapped up ice and NMU broke down the ice on a 3-on-2 and Matt Butcher finished off the rush with a perfect snap shot from deep in the right circle that beat MSU goalie Jeff Lerg at 11:04. It came six seconds before Bryan Lerg’s penalty was set to expire.

The Spartans were shocked and angry -- by the loss and by in their opinion not a good penalty call on Lerg, who checked NMU's Ray Kaunisto from the side or from behind near the boards but didn't exactly belt him into the boards.

Vukovic said the loss was the worst moment of his hockey career. So did Abdelkader. Probably, 25 or so other players felt the same way.

But college athletes are resilient. They'll let go of the loss probably quicker than Rick Comley and his coaching staff or even hard-core Spartan fans.

They'll get back on the ice at mid-week or so, and start looking ahead. They'll be worried until Sunday's announcement that they’re in the NCAA Tournament and then once again hockey will be fun.

Even though

Northern Michigan

won the series and can control its NCAA tourney destiny, the Spartans' chances of playing in the NCAAs still seem better than the Wildcats'.

Although this may hard to do, MSU fans should be rooting for

Michigan

to beat NMU in the CCHA semifinals on Friday. And for

New Hampshire

or

Boston

College

to beat

Boston

U.

or

Vermont

on Saturday.

Still, no MSU in

Detroit for the first time in 17 years

and second time in 27 seasons. For the Spartans and their fans, it doesn’t seem right.

Comments

[Marc]

Tough loss. All the Wisconsin fans will probably come on the board and criticize the mentioning of refereeing, but how do you make a controversial call in overtime? Let the players determine the outcome of the game instead of giving one side an advantage. On the other hand, MSU put itself in a position to be playing in overtime, rather than winning the game outright, so the players take the majority of the blame in the disappointing series loss.