2026-27 Michigan State Hockey Primer
The 2026-2027 season begins Friday, Oct. 2, with the Spartans playing host to top 15 team Boston College for an exhibition. Here is a primer to get ready for the season!
The fifth season of Michigan State Spartans hockey gets under way tonight with an exhibition game between USCHO poll No. 3 MSU and No. 12 Boston College, featuring scores of NHL talent at Munn Arena. Nothing may speak to the change in the program under Adam Nightingale more than the number of NHL logos on an MSU line chart, including players scratched from the lineup. As Nightingale sits five wins away from 100 as head coach, the Spartans have won three Big Ten regular season championships, two Big Ten playoff championships, and three Great Lakes Invitational championships in his tenure. However, what has eluded the program is not just a national championship but even a berth in the Frozen Four.
Once again this past summer, amid excitement over possibly the best freshman class in hockey arriving on campus, the talk around town was, "Yes, but will they finally get over the NCAA hump?" As with last season, I expect that will be the question posed to me in each conversation while covering the team and appearing on podcasts, and my answer remains that this is one of the premier programs in hockey, operating at peak efficiency, but winning an inefficient lottery like the NCAA tournament will take some luck and peaking at the right time. There is no way to know if that will happen on Oct. 2, but tonight begins to reveal how likely an NCAA championship may end up being, as the program seeks its first Frozen Four appearance and first title since 2007.
Who Has Left
As will be the case each season under Nightingale, constructing a roster with so much NHL talent means there is a ton of turnover from last season's team to this season's. Gone from the squad are seniors Charlie Stramel, Tiernan Shoudy, Daniel Russell, Travis Shoudy, and captain Matt Basgall. Freshman All-Rookie team selection Porter Martone now plays with the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers, while defensemen Maxim Strbak and Colin Ralph also signed early to their NHL entry-level contracts. Looming largest of all departures was junior goaltender Trey Augustine, last season's NCAA goaltender of the year, who signed his entry-level deal with the Detroit Red Wings.
Altogether, the Spartans lose 70 goals (51.4% of last season's total), 135 assists, and all 26 wins in net, as backup goaltender Melvin Strahl was lost in the transfer portal to the Minnesota Golden Gophers (joining another former Spartan goaltender, Luca Di Pasquo). It will be no small task to blend new players into the roles lost from last year, including depth and penalty-killing players with an offensive spark (Shoudy), leading scorers (Martone), and a workhorse in net (Augustine).
