MSU head coach Rick Comley said harnessing this positive energy is crucial — as keeping the game fun and preaching to his players to keep their heads up has been the “biggest challenge we’ve had as coaches.”

“I have to leave my frustration in my office and not take it on the ice with me,” Comley said. “Because I think there would be great danger of them showing up and just getting in and out of the building and not enjoying being here.”

This week’s enthusiasm began on the bus ride back from Big Rapids on Saturday night after the Spartans narrowly pulled out a 1-0 win over Ferris State.

“We had good emotion on the bus and it took some of the black cloud away a little bit,” Comley said. “It makes for such a better week. It’s a whole week you benefit from that weekend. It isn’t just Saturday and then it’s over, you let it carry through to next Friday.”

While this season has been anything but the norm for MSU hockey — as they have battled through an 11-game winless streak and found themselves in last place in the CCHA — Comley said a multiple-point weekend was a big mental boost for his team.

“Every win is critical right now,” Comley said. “These kids have been beaten down and beaten up and it’s been really hard for them. But they keep good attitudes and they are working hard. It helps to get rewarded with a win because you never know what a win will do. It might turn into another one.”

Despite the frequent losses, senior forward Matt Schepke said the ultimate low point of the season was after the Jan. 24 game against Michigan, where the Spartans lost five straight to the Wolverines and freshman forward Andrew Conboy and sophomore forward Corey Tropp committed acts Comley deemed worthy of season-ending suspensions.

“It hurt pretty bad losing Conboy and losing Tropp,” Schepke said. “You could see the team morale was down pretty bad. Then we had to get ready for (Lake Superior) that following weekend. But it was a good building process because the 19 guys we have left in the locker room had to come together and we had to be a team with what we have left.”

Schepke said he thinks this bond between his teammates is going help in the last three weeks of the regular season.

“Obviously I want to win every night we play,” Schepke said.

“You can see it in the locker room that the guys want to win every night, too. I think that’s one of the biggest things we have on our team this year — guys show that they want to win.”

Senior defenseman Kurt Kivisto expects the Spartans to build off last weekend and said the team isn’t ready to throw in the towel yet.

“You never want to be losing hockey games,” Kivisto said. “So any time you can get three-out-of-four after the year we’ve had, it makes it a little bit easier to come to the rink.”

Top line

The forward line of freshman Daultan Leveille and sophomores Andrew Rowe and Dustin Gazley has been the go-to line for the Spartans this season.

Comley has kept this line together for the majority of the year and he said it is the best line the team has.

Each player has a specific attribute that Comley likes when meshed together — Leveille has the speed, Rowe has the physicality and Gazley has the finesse.

“That line in itself is one of the few lines where every night they come to play and they are factors,” Comley said.

The line consists of three of the team’s top four active point-getters this season and Comley said he has seen improvements from all three players — a positive because all three will return next year.

The Spartans take on the Buckeyes in a home series this weekend starting at 7:05 p.m. Friday at Munn Ice Arena.