That's Hockey - Costly Miscue In OT Costs the Nanooks

Talk about lucky bounces, as the bouncing puck leaped over two Nanooks' players sticks and settled down right on the stick of Brett Perlini who had no problem burying the game winner. Talk about your all-time backfires, but that one stings a bit. Honestly though, the Nanooks weren't looking to hot in OT either. MSU came out firing, and the Nanooks didn't have an answer. The Nanooks did get one scoring chance, Greenham had to be extremely sharp in the early going to keep the Nanooks in it as the Spartans took it to them early.

The Nanooks did look good though for the better part of the game. The Nanooks scored first, as Scott Enders got his 1st of the year from the point, and they did a good job crashing the net, getting screens and creating chances. One of those chances resulted in a goal for Colton Beck just as he came out of the penalty box that was eventually waived off because of a Nanooks player in the crease. Video replay clearly shows that they were pushed in, but apparently that's irrelevant. It also didn't appear that the goalie was interfered with, but there were a lot of bodies in the way of the camera angle they showed online that didn't give a clear look if someone was interfering with him or not.

But 6 minutes later, Brent Darnell popped in two quick goals just 35 seconds apart. The first on a lucky bounce down low off of the dashers, the 2nd on a play as every player in blue put their eyes on Torey Krug as he was pinching in. Greenham also came way out to cut down Krug's angles, but Torrey found Darnell in the slot for a shot at a wide open net that Greenham could do nothing about.

After that, the 'Nooks kept grinding and grinding, and eventually tied it up in the 2nd as Kunyk's shot found twine through traffic from the high slot. A beautiful snipe from Kunyk evened things up and really set the stage for a dramatic finish.

But a scoreless 3rd period sent the game to a 3rd consecutive overtime period between these two teams, but this one had a bit of a different ending. Nik Yaremchuk was out there, and his motor was turning, but he couldn't break the tie despite a valiant effort.

Like I said, it sucks, and its a loss that stings me as a fan. It's a game that the Nanooks seemingly should have won, but that waived off goal seemingly took the energy away from them as Michigan State took advantage to get right back in it, and get ahead. Sad days, but the 'Nooks get another shot at the Spartans tomorrow night. Keep in mind, the game starts an hour later.