Nightingale, Spartans Can Now Reflect on Historic Year

The Michigan State hockey team's run is over, but there's plenty of good for the team to look back on and be hopeful of going forward.

Michigan State hockey's Elite Eight loss to Michigan on Sunday marked the end of one of the Spartans' best seasons in program history.

The team earned its first-ever Big Ten regular-season championship and Big Ten tournament championship en route to receiving a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, its first tournament appearance in over a decade.

While the Spartans' were unable to achieve their ultimate goals, the team can now look back on all it accomplished this season.

"I probably don't do a good enough job of recognizing that during the year; it's always move on to the next," said Michigan State coach Adam Nightingale when he addressed the media after his team's loss on Sunday night. "And I think now that the season's done, there's some time to reflect. And just talking to the guys after, I think it's pretty arrogant to think I have the words to help them feel better.

"This one hurts for sure, and it's not about who we played, it's just an opportunity to play in the Frozen Four with the season we've had. But I do think you step back -- I mean, I don't know if we were picked to finish third or fourth in our conference, [but] we were first place wire-to-wire, and that's not easy to do in our conference with the youngest team. And we got 18 guys freshman or sophomore [who will] be back, and you think about that.

"That's why I respect our guys a ton because every night this year we played the other team was [saying] 'Hey, we're coming in to play first-place Michigan State' for 24 games, and that's pretty impressive.

"Obviously, to win our tournament championship in front of our home crowd, I mean, [I am] super thankful. I've mentioned this before, but we're building this thing, but it all ties back to Ron [Mason] and how Ron built this program. I mean, our last game, tickets were going for 1,500 bucks.

"That's nothing we did. Ron had established a culture, a hockey town, and we just need to put a product on the ice that people are excited about. And we're not perfect, but I do think [when] you watch our team play, we play team hockey, we play hard, I think we represent Michigan State the right way, and [I am] proud of our guys for building some excitement in our community."

Michigan State finished its 2023-24 regular season with a 23-9-3 record.

As Nightingale mentioned, the Spartans will be returning much of its core next season, which should be quite promising for Spartan fans, who will be expecting continued success in this new era of Michigan State hockey.

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