Following a tough series against the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, the Michigan State Spartans are preparing to face the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in a two-game series. Head Coach Danton Cole and forward Josh Nodler spoke to the media Tuesday, talking about the most recent series and looking forward to this weekend.

Cole started with an opening statement. “Wrapping up last weekend quickly, went out to Minnesota on short rest… probably not the optimal way to play that team. That aside, I think you have to look at two games and try and figure out there were some good things and there were some things we didn’t like. I thought we moved the ball on some things. I didn’t mind, overall, how we played both nights… I think we made five mistakes in the first period (of the second game) that were bad defensively, and four of them ended up in our net. That not normally how things happen, but against a good team it is, and they’re a dangerous team upfront. We’ll learn a little bit from there but I thought our special teams weren’t bad… We’ll take the positive things out for this weekend against Notre Dame and go right back into it.”

He was impressed with the composure of Pierce Charleson in this second game of the series against Minnesota, who stopped 20 of 21 shots after coming in for Drew DeRidder in the first period. Despite only playing in three games, all as goalie substitutions, Charleson has impressed the coaching staff during practice and has shown the staff that he will be a great goalie for the Spartans in the future.

Focusing on the Fighting Irish, Coach Cole and the Spartans are trying to take down a team that they had some success against earlier in the season. “The big thing with Notre Dame is you better be ready at the drop of the puck. The immediacy of it has to be there, and Lionel Rosen talks about the “Three I’s”, immediacy, intensity, and intelligence. You better have those three when you are playing them. When we’ve had success, we’ve had all three of those working for us. Just be ready to battle right away and those are probably two of our harder games in terms of the workload that we’d have… They’re an extremely hardworking team, they’re going to make you work to get out of your zone, to get into their zone, and to stay down there.”

Josh Nodler’s game has grown as a true sophomore this year, after spending a year behind Patrick Khodorenko in the lineup. “That’s something that was definitely a big challenge for me this year and something that I was looking forward to, playing behind Patty last year was super helpful and it was great because he is such a great player, and I learned a lot from him, both at practice and in games, and the way he carried himself off the ice, too. Taking on that role this year has been good for my game and something I need to continue to work on and mature as my game continues.”

The Michigan State Spartans and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish face off tonight at 6 P.M. EST and tomorrow at 3 P.M. EST, both on BTN+.

SEF