The Only Colors, a Michigan State Spartans community

3-1 loss to Union in the first round. Still, after where the hockey program was the past couple years, making the tournament at all is something of a moral victory.

We're the 4 seed (lowest) in the East by the USCHO projection; first-round matchup with Mass-Lowell, with Union and BC in the other half of the region. Big series this weekend with Michigan - at Munn tonight (7:35 ET, BTN), Joe Louis tomorrow (same time, Fox Sports Detroit). They've been on a major roll since the GLI, aided by Jon Merrill's return from a coach-imposed suspension and some great play from Shawn Hunwick in net. Chris Brown, their second-leading scorer, will be out tonight due to picking up a game DQ for fighting last weekend against Miami. Despite being a matchup of the teams at #3 and #7 in the conference standings, we actually have the two best goal differentials in conference play (Michigan +19, MSU +8; Ferris and Western, the conference leaders, are both at +7). A sweep could vault us up as high as second place; a split probably keeps us in the bracket for next week.

The Spartans recovered from that ugly sweep at the hands of Miami to take 9 points out of a possible 12 over the past two weekends (a win and tie each weekend, winning the shootout against Northern Michigan). MSU sits 8th in the CCHA, which is even more of a mess than the Big Ten in basketball: first-place OSU is just six points ahead, and we have two games in hand on them (as well as on Miami, Michigan, and Lake State). 14th in the Pairwise is a key spot: assuming two auto-bids that would not get at-large bids (which is typical), 14th is the last spot in the tournament. Up ahead: a two-week road stretch at Ferris State this weekend, Ohio State next.