Spartans eager to stop skid

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - Bryan Lerg says his Michigan State hockey team needs to play with an irritated, ticked-off attitude this weekend against last-place Bowling Green.

But the 5-foot-10, 175-pound junior center says there's no reason to panic over the Spartans' three-game losing streak last week.

"We should be mad at losing those points. We could be in second place right now and we blew it,'' said Lerg, who is MSU's leading goal scorer with 20 but who has been shut out during the current skid.

"We have to forget last week, but still let the feeling of losing stay with us. We have to make up for it and make sure we get the first-round bye (in the playoffs).''

MSU (18-11-3 overall, 14-9-3 CCHA) needs one victory or a tie in two games against the Falcons (6-26-2, 4-21-1) to clinch fourth place in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.

The Spartans face the Falcons at 7 tonight at the BGSU Ice Arena and close out the regular season against Bowling Green at 6:30 p.m. Saturday on Senior Night at Munn Arena.

"We're still a good team. We just have to get back to what we were doing during our hot (7-0-2) stretch,'' MSU sophomore left wing Tim Kennedy said. "Everyone has an off-week. That was our first off-week in two months.''

MSU's best-case scenario this weekend is to sweep the Falcons and have Miami lose twice or lose and tie at Northern Michigan. That would enable the Spartans to climb past the RedHawks and finish in third place.

The worst-case scenario?

That would be MSU getting swept by BGSU and Western Michigan winning two at Lake Superior State. leaving the Spartans and Broncos tied for fourth place with 31 points. But Broncos would get the higher seed and first-round bye in the playoffs because of more conference victories (15 to 14).

And that would mean MSU would host Bowling Green in a first-round playoff series and have to play on the road in the second round.

"We can still gain a lot and a lot of good things can happen,'' MSU coach Rick Comley said. "We want to get home ice and get on a positive roll.

"But we don't want to just win one game (this weekend). I want to get us back to playing well. We've come off a stretch that was really good, and then we got sloppy in some areas and caught a Western Michigan team that's playing very well.

"There's time to get going in a positive direction. We can still go into the playoffs on a positive note.''

The Spartans will try to start their turnaround against the Falcons, who have second-worst record in college hockey. But MSU isn't likely to take BGSU lightly for a few reasons:

• The Falcons shocked Michigan two weeks ago, winning 3-2 at home.

• BGSU played two solid games against now-No. 1 Notre Dame three weeks ago, losing 3-2 and 2-1 at home.

• And remember Ferris State. The ninth-place Bulldogs stunned MSU 2-1 just 10 days ago in Big Rapids.

In each of the last four seasons, the Spartans and Falcons have split each season series.

"When you play a team like (Bowling Green), you don't look at their overall record but how they've played in the past few weeks,'' Kennedy said. "They've played their best hockey during that stretch.

"How can you take a team lightly that almost beat Notre Dame and then beat Michigan?''

The Falcons are closing out a horribly disappointing season. They're 2-13-1 since Christmas and have suffered losing streaks of nine and seven games.

BGSU has the worst offense in the CCHA, averaging 1.85 goals a game, and also the worst defense, giving up 3.85 goals a game.

"They play with great energy and work hard but they've struggled to score, and their goaltending is sometimes good and sometimes not,'' Comley said. "Our quality of play has gone backwards, but we have that window of opportunity to get it back.''