Senior forward Chris Mueller battles with Notre Dame left wing Garrett Regan during a game Jan 13.
Although he’s a native of the Buffalo area, senior forward Chris Mueller has become fully assimilated into the MSU vs. U-M rivalry.
Mueller even admitted exchanging text messages with U-M forward Danny Fardig early this week — but none were of the discussible nature.
“We respect each other, but we’re going to do whatever it takes so Michigan State wins that hockey game,” Mueller said.
He said he’ll send Fardig another message Friday for “certain reasons.”
“There’s friends and then there’s serious business,” Mueller said. “You can’t joke around too much close to the time and get serious at the same time.”
MSU’s seniors are 5-5-6 against U-M, but have never won at Yost Ice Arena in Ann Arbor.
Mueller said he was nervous going into his first game at Yost. Adding to the nerves was a fan behind the bench riding Mueller about how bad he and the teams he used to play for were. But that was quickly quelled by a joke from then-senior Kevin Estrada.
“(He) just looked at me and said, ‘That kid’s paying to see you play, just don’t worry about it,’” Mueller said.
Junior forward Tim Kennedy takes a different approach.
Even though U-M forward Travis Turnbull was his linemate in juniors, and he’s friends with several Wolverines, Kennedy said once the season starts, “all the fun goes out the window.”
“Everyone’s different,” Kennedy said. “I just don’t like getting involved with that. If you’re friends before the game, you always say you can turn it on and off, but it’s kind of hard to turn it on and off so I just like to turn it off.”
On fire
Junior goaltender Jeff Lerg captured his third straight CCHA Goaltender of the Week honor after turning away 50 of 51 shots against Ohio State this weekend.
It’s the fifth time he’s earned the honor this season.
In 2008, Lerg has a 1.32 goals-against average and a .957 save percentage.
“He made some saves at Ohio State that I thought were goals for sure,” Kennedy said. “When he gets in his groove, he always plays great down the stretch, and he’s starting to play great right now. Hopefully he can keep it up and I’m almost sure he will.”
Close conference
The CCHA is currently packing quite a punch in the national rankings.
U-M is a near-unanimous No. 1, Miami (Ohio) is No. 2, MSU is up to No. 6 and Notre Dame comes in at No. 9.
U-M and Miami are tied at the top of the league with 30 points followed by MSU with 26 and Notre Dame with 23.
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