Schedule not getting easier for No. 6 Spartans with series vs. Irish

The treacherous month of November rolls on for the No. 6 MSU hockey team.

The Spartans will host No. 14 Notre Dame tonight and travel to Fort Wayne, Ind., on Sunday to face the Irish in a neutral barn, marking the third straight series for the Spartans against a team ranked in the top 15.

But the Spartans (9-2-1 overall, 6-1-1-0 CCHA) have fared well early this season, sitting in first place in the CCHA and riding a nation-high seven game unbeaten streak.

With this weekend’s series against Notre Dame and games against No. 15 Wisconsin and Minnesota during Thanksgiving weekend, MSU head coach Rick Comley has been stressing his team stays levelheaded, although the Spartans are coming off a weekend sweep against archrival Michigan.

“These next six games are really tough,” Comley said. “That’s the message that I’m sending to them. Again, we’ve shown we can play. We aren’t much better than anybody, but we’ve won a lot of close games and we’ve been pretty solid.”

Although Notre Dame has gotten off to a rough start (5-5-2 overall, 2-2-2-1 CCHA), Comley said the Fighting Irish are “as dangerous as anybody in the country.”

“Not necessarily have they played like they want to, but when it’s all said and done, they are going to be right there,” Comley said.

Junior co-captain defenseman Jeff Petry doesn’t expect the unorthodox schedule of playing Thursday and Sunday — opposed to the usual Friday-Saturday series — to be a factor.

“I don’t see it being a problem,” Petry said. “If anything, you get that extra couple of days to rest. We’ll see how we do on Thursday against Notre Dame and we have Friday and Saturday to work on it before going down there.”

Comley called his lines “very stable” entering this weekend, an aspect senior co-captain and forward Nick Sucharski said has benefited the team.

“I’ve liked the fact that we’ve kept the lines together,” Sucharski said. “That’s something we really hadn’t done in the past too much.”

Notre Dame only has scored 27 goals through 12 games, compared to the Spartans 40 goals scored, leading Comley to expect a very defensive series.

“They are defense first and they don’t give up much,” Comley said.

“As far as their depth and talent, Notre Dame, as much as anybody in the country right now, doesn’t beat themselves. You have to be willing to play a tight game and a game that’s decided late. They’ve really hurt teams that don’t play with patience.”

Petry said he’s looking forward to another weekend where the Spartans can avenge memories of last year, as Notre Dame swept MSU with a goal differential of 7 to 1 last season.

“We have to look at (tonight’s) game and not look back at what happened last week or look past them,” Petry said.