EAST LANSING– Michigan State hockey beat the Ohio State Buckeyes 4-1 on Saturday, securing the Spartans’ fourth sweep. 

Since the start of the 2023-24 season, the Spartans have a dominant 16-4 record in the second game of the series.

Spartans head coach Adam Nightingale credits his team’s depth for making them dominant on the second night of back-to-back games.

“I like to think we’re in good shape and we can sustain it for two games. The fact that we do play four lines, so that second game you have a lot of juice left,” Nightingale said.

After an unlucky puck bounce got past MSU sophomore goaltender Trey Augustine, a goal was given to OSU taking a 1-0 lead. 

The Spartans’ response was led by sophomore forward Gavin O’Connell and freshman forward Shane Vansaghi scoring two goals in a minute to regain the lead.

“When one goal goes in for you loosen up a bit and I think that goal helped,” Vansaghi said.

O’Connell’s goal continued his dominance over the Buckeyes in his career, through seven games against OSU the sophomore has eight goals.

Junior left wing Isaac Howard notched his fifth goal of the season, providing the Spartans a two-goal cushion late in the third period.

O’Connell and Howard’s line was on the ice for both goals allowed on Friday, bouncing back as a plus-two in Saturday’s contest.

“We talked as a line and know we need to be better than last night. So coming to the rink we kind of had an edge to us and wanted to be better tonight. So it was really good to get out there and get a couple of goals and help the team out unlike last night,” O’Connell said.

Spartans junior forward Daniel Russell potted his second goal of the series on an empty net late in the third period to seal the sweep for the Spartans. 

This game marks 50 wins for coach Nightingale, the fastest coach to reach 50 wins in program history passing Rick Comley.

The Spartans are back at Munn Ice Arena to host the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Friday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m.