Michigan
Michigan State hockey sweeps Michigan with 3-2 win in Detroit: Analysis and reaction
DETROIT – Lansing State Journal sports reporter Nathaniel Bott breaks down ninth-ranked Michigan State’s 3-2 victory over 11th-ranked Michigan in the annual “Duel in the D” on Saturday night at Little Caesars Arena.
What happened
Michigan State was looking to break a six-game losing streak against Michigan in the annual “Duel in the D” at Little Caesars Arena, having earned some momentum in a 5-1 win at Yost Ice Arena on Friday night.
Both sides skated out to a sold-out crowd of 18,410, with “Let’s Go Blue!” and “Go Green! Go White!” chants taking turns echoing throughout the arena. And in that raucous atmosphere, MSU was able to withstand a late Michigan rally to earn a 3-2 win and pivotal series sweep.
For the first time in eight meetings between MSU coach Adam Nightingale and Michigan’s Brandon Naurato, Nightingale’s side struck first. Fourth-line wing Tanner Kelly jumped on a loose puck in the slot, spun, and fired a shot past Wolverines goaltender Jake Barczewski to give the Spartans an early lead.
MSU only allowed Michigan’s vaunted power play to take the ice once. The Wolverines converted that chance in the second period as forward Gavin Brindley found Dylan Duke to level things, 1-1.
MSU’s fourth line, which started the game and matched up frequently with Michigan’s top line, came up big again in response. Forward Tommi Mannisto cycled the puck to the point and senior defenseman Nash Nienhuis. Nienhus’ shot was originally saved, but a rebound popped out to the side of the net where sophomore forward Tiernan Shoudy banged home his third goal of the season.
MSU would double its lead later in the second period after Kelly jumped into a rush with top-line forwards Karsen Dorwart and Isaac Howard. Kelly received a pass from Howard and skated in, faking a shot that drew Barczewski out of the net before delivering a pass to Dorwart, who fired into a practically open net to make it 3-1.
Brindley scored for Michigan on a backdoor play with 9:09 remaining in the third period, but MSU was able to lock down the final minutes and stave off a number of chances for the Wolverines in the final minute of action.
Trey Augustine stopped 36 shots for MSU, as did his counterpart, Barczewski. With Saturday’s win, MSU earned its first regular season series win over Michigan since 2017 and its first two-game series sweep of the Wolverines since 2019.
What it means
MSU is now 20-7-3 overall and 14-4-2 in the Big Ten, five points ahead of second-place Wisconsin, which has played two fewer games than the Spartans. MSU’s final series of the regular season, March 1 and 2, is in Madison. The Spartans are also up to No. 5 in the all-important Pairwise Rankings.
MSU’s season series with Michigan this season tells a great tale. It captured the buy-in that Nightingale wants and perhaps established a benchmark for wins going forward.
This win was No. 20 on the season for the Spartans, who had hadn’t hit that total since the 2008-2009 season — two years after their last national title.
Tanner Kelly’s come was the story of the night
There’s been growth this season to get here. Tanner Kelly’s story is part of that. Kelly came into the first meeting with Michigan this season looking for trouble. Any chance to give a little extra on a check, any opening that Michigan players gave him to react, he jumped at. It led to a 22 penalty minutes for Kelly over two games, including two five-minute majors.
The Spartans lost that first game 7-1. The next night at Yost, Kelly was absent from the lineup. In Nightingale’s eyes, his antics were too detrimental.
And when MSU found itself down 4-1 at Yost, everyone up and down the roster stuck to the gameplan and got rewarded, skating away with an impressive 7-5 come-from-behind win.
MSU and Michigan have always had fireworks on the ice. Big hits. Showboating celebrations. Scrums and fights after whistles galore. But Nightingale is changing the perception of the rivalry. As he puts it, “you don’t have to like them, but you have to respect them.”
Kelly would go on to miss the Minnesota series as well, with his freshman replacement Griffin Jurecki playing well on the fourth line and scoring a goal that sparked a third-period rally in an MSU come-from-behind win.
Kelly finally returned in last week’s Notre Dame series, with this matchup with Michigan circled.
When MSU fell behind Friday night, it was Kelly who made a great individual effort to score a goal 25 seconds later, and MSU never looked back from there. In Detroit on Saturday, Kelly scored the game’s opening goal and made a remarkable play to set up the eventual game-winning goal.
“I think it’s a really good lesson on accountability, and in the first game he took some penalties and we had a conversation and he missed some games,” Nightingale said. “Tanner is a critical piece to our team, but I made a promise to these guys that I was going to hold them accountable and to a standard. I believe in forgiveness but there are consequences to your actions. Tanner did nothing but work and he got back in and that line has been really good for us.”
That line of Shoudy, Mannisto and Kelly, have started the last three games for the Spartans and were the reason MSU won Saturday, contributing on all three goals while consistently matching up and making life difficult for Michigan’s top line.
“Winning tonight was special, but to see Tanner respond the right way when you get held accountable and then get rewarded is a pretty special moment for me as a coach,” Nightingale said.
What’s next
MSU has a bye week before hosting Ohio State on Feb. 23 and 24 in the final home series of the regular season.
Contact Nathaniel Bott at nbott@lsj.com and follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @Nathaniel_Bott
Lansing — Jocelyn Benson, the front runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor, said she believes her work in eight years as secretary of state will help convince voters to promote her this fall.
On Sunday, during a convention in Detroit, Democrats will pick a new secretary of state nominee. And on Thursday, Benson’s campaign for governor submitted about 30,000 petition signatures to get her name on the Aug. 4 primary ballot.
Amid those key moments in the 2026 election cycle, Benson, a former law school dean, sat down Thursday afternoon for an interview with The Detroit News about her time as secretary of state.
“I think that’s what people are looking for: A government that saves them time, saves them money and makes their life easier,” Benson contended. “I’ve done that as secretary of state, and I’ll do that as governor.”
The following interview was edited for length and clarity.
Question: You just dropped off your signatures this weekend. The Democrats are going to be gathering to nominate a new person for secretary of state. I was just looking over your campaign promises from 2017, do you feel like you hit them?
Benson: I had two goals when I came into office: wait times down and voter turnout up. And we did both, and I’m really proud of that.
When I started, we did a strategic planning session every January, and during our first strategic planning session in 2019, we filled the whiteboard on every wall in the office. And in our most recent one, the final one, we had just sort of one, just one little to-do list item left, which was really gratifying. Because we have not just increased turnout, but we’ve transformed our elections, eliminated gerrymandering, implemented the state’s first-ever citizens redistricting commission, which was no easy task, and then also implemented a number of new election procedures and options, educated voters about them and took Michigan’s elections from being ranked 31st in the country to No. 2.
We also did that while reducing those wait times (in Secretary of State offices), transforming our customer service experience. … Wait times are consistently 20 minutes or less, which was my No. 1 campaign goal.
Q: What were some of the strategies you used to get the wait times down for people?
A: No. 1, we listened to our employees, and No. 2, we collected data about what wasn’t working. You can’t fix what you can’t measure. And No. 3, we actually went around the country and looked at what states that actually had low wait times were doing. There weren’t many, but there were a few. Indiana and Illinois, had some interesting things that they did, and we took best practices that were working in other states and replicated them here.
But that first piece was key, listening to our employees. Early on in the process, we brought everyone in, all the branch office directors. I was expecting a daylong retreat where we would be discussing ideas, and I sat down with the director of branch office services. He had a whole PowerPoint presentation that went through everything we needed to do, from filling 900 vacant positions that were just vacant and not filled, to creating internally this opportunity for people to schedule the visit ahead of time.
We didn’t pay someone else to build that. That was built by our employees.
Q: When you ran in 2018, one of the big things you were talking about was election security. Do you feel like you’ve achieved that: improving election security? And what do you think about more people probably having faith in the results of elections then than they do now?
A: I am really proud of the fact that in this era of misinformation, we were able to protect our elections and ensure they remained secure.
While withstanding this unprecedented scrutiny and an unprecedented level of frivolous lawsuits, sham legislative hearings and falsehoods spread about our elections in the eye of the storm, we not only met the moment, but we built a better election system through it. That’s evidenced by the fact that we now have choices on how to vote in our state, we’ve modernized how you can register to vote and have increased the registration numbers we have.
Q: If one of these current candidates for secretary of state came to you and said, “I believe that the election is secure and everything is fine, but obviously there’s a lot of voters who don’t. How do we improve that?” What would you say to them?
A: Transparency is our friend.
Q: Just continue to open the process up as much as possible?
A: Well, the facts are on our side. The process is secure. So one of the most important things we need to do first is just continue to give people the tools that they need to get their questions answered and work with folks across the aisle, like we worked with Sen. Ed McBroom in 2021 to invite them into the process as well as answer questions that they have, while also, of course, maintaining any necessary confidence or security about the information that we’re providing.
But the through line is just transparency.
Q: What do you say to some of your opponents who will say, “Yeah, you decreased wait times. But what about the campaign finance website?” It’s not functioning, as they would hope it would.
A: Well, it’s certainly better than what we’ve had in the past. I think it’s important to remember that when I first ran for office, one of the things I heard most on the trail was actually, when are you going to get rid of MERTS (the former campaign finance disclosure system)?
Q: But that’s from people who are on the back end of it?
A: Right. Yeah. So I didn’t want to leave office without taking on that behemoth, knowing that it wasn’t going to be a smooth process, but it’s a necessary one if we were actually going to have a more transparent system, which I would argue also is something that the next secretary of state really needs to lean into more: getting money out of politics. I’ll be an ally for that as governor.
But when it comes to MITN and that process, one, what it really underscores is that I’m not afraid to take on big behemoths that others, frankly, past secretaries of state, refused to do, because it was too hard. And it does invite criticism. Whenever you try to transform a massive system that’s broken, yes, there are going to be hiccups along the way.
Q: Do you think voters are interested in that message: “I’ve improved these systems. I’m in government. I’ve succeeded in government. I can make it work.” Or are they looking for someone to just change everything?
A: People see a broken system that needs fixing, and they know I have transformed and fixed a system that every single one of our residents has interacted with. The other day, I was picking up food for my son and husband, and walking out with bags of food, and this gentleman in a pickup truck pulled up next to me in the parking lot and said, “Excuse me, are you the secretary of state?”
I was like, “I am.” And he said, “You know, I’m not political or anything. But I just was driving down this road the other day and realized when I passed the secretary of state’s office that it’s been years since I’ve had to go in there. Thank you for everything you’ve done to make that possible for me.” And I said, “Yeah, now imagine if all of government worked that well.”
Q: Do you think all three of the Democratic candidates running for secretary of state would be a good secretary of state? I know you’re not endorsing.
A: I’m committed to working with whoever comes through the convention and making sure they’re prepared to build on what we’ve done and achieve even more success.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
Before-and-after images of homes on Black Lake near Onaway provide perspectives on how the community was affected by April flooding.
Snowmelt and rain have stressed dams and caused lakes to flood in northern Michigan.
The Cheboygan County Sheriff’s Office shared on social media photos and videos that the agency captured of Cheboygan County floods on Friday, April 17 from both the ground and air.
Deputies “observed a level of destruction that simply cannot be understood from ground level,” the sheriff’s office said in the post.
Google Maps images taken from two locations on Black Lake in 2024, compared with the Friday images, show how the floodwater has changed the landscape.
On North Black River Road and Taylor Road, the water has overflowed to North Black River Road.
In the 400 block of South Black River Road, water has also flooded homes and lakeside property.
“Black Lake, Black River, Cheboygan River, Burt Lake, Mullet Lake, the Sturgeon River − and nearly every waterway in the county have overflowed beyond their banks, swallowing docks, roads, yards, and in far too many cases, homes,” the sheriff’s office post said. “What should be familiar shorelines are now unrecognizable expanses of water.”
“Our hearts are with every family affected by this flooding,” Cheboygan County Sheriff Todd Ross said in the post. “We know many of you are facing significant damage to your homes and property, and the emotional toll that comes with it. Please know you are not alone. We are working around the clock with our partners to ensure safety, provide support, and begin the process of recovery. Stay strong, stay connected, and don’t hesitate to reach out for help, we will get through this together.”
Nearby, the UAW Black Lake Conference Center shared images on social media of floodwater threatening its Old Lodge.
The conference center is located at 2000 Maxon Road in Waverly Township.
The Cheboygan County Road Commission and the Cheboygan County Office of Emergency Management closed the bridge at Five Mile Point Road on Saturday, April 18 due to significant road washout in the area of South Black River Road and Red Bridge Road.
The sheriff’s office had encouraged residents in parts of the area to evacuate earlier in the week and said Saturday it had completed evacuation efforts on the west side of the lake.
TEXAS TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A 20-year-old Kalamazoo man is dead after crashing his vehicle into a tree Friday evening in Texas Township, according to Michigan State Police (MSP).
It happened on South 3rd Street and West PQ Avenue around 6:50 p.m., troopers said.
While he was driving in a no-passing zone, the Kalamazoo man swerved off the road to avoid an oncoming vehicle and subsequently crashed into the tree, according to MSP.
The 20-year-old died at the scene. A passenger was hurt, but police said their injuries were non-life threatening.
Troopers do not believe alcohol or drugs were a factor, and the two were reportedly wearing seatbelts.
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This incident remains under investigation by MSP.
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