The Michigan State Spartans entered Friday night’s contest against the Wisconsin Badgers riding a nine-game winning streak and a perfect in-conference record. Up two early and seemingly in control, a rough second period forced the Spartans to chase the game. While their comeback bid fell short, and their winning streak may have ultimately come to an end last night, not all was lost. Before things turned sour, two members of the Philadelphia Flyers’ 2025 draft class combined for a pretty sweet goal.
About midway through the first period, the Spartans, while already on a power play, drew another minor and were about to get a two-man advantage. However, a Porter Martone shot finding the back off the net off of a Shane Vansaghi pass cancelled the delayed call and put the Spartans up 2-0.
After Owen West makes a great keep at the blue line, the puck finds Gavin O’Connell. With a quick deke around a Wisconsin penalty killer, O’Connell would find Vansaghi just left of the faceoff circle. Meanwhile, having just come off of the bench as the extra attacker, Martone rushed to the middle of the ice. With both Martone and Ryker Lee on the opposite side of the net, Vansaghi makes a quick one-touch royal road pass to Martone who makes no mistake.
Porter Martone makes it 2-0 Spartans on the power play! His second point of the night.
Assists to Anthony Romani and Shane Vansaghi pic.twitter.com/6zwKBnXaOw
— Michigan State Hockey (@MSU_Hockey) November 22, 2025
It’s the first time the two have connected for a goal this season, which isn’t too surprising given that they have yet to play on a line together nor are they on the same power play unit. Still, it was a cool moment to see two members of the Flyers’ future getting one on the board.
Vansaghi has had a bit of a quiet start to the season offensively, with this assist being his first point since game four, and still with just one goal this season. It looked as if Vansaghi and Cayden Lindstrom had been building some chemistry coming out of their strong series against Boston University, however, after missing last weekend’s games, Lindstrom was once again out of the lineup on Friday night. In his absence, senior center Tiernan Shoudy has been moved up from the fourth line in his place. While effectively a defense-first, checking line to balance out the all freshmen third line, the Spartans are going to need more offense from Vansaghi and his line moving forward. There have been positive signs, with Vansaghi in particular having a strong game possession-wise and on one shift in particular extending the Spartans’ offensive zone time with a couple of takeaways along the boards. Still, both Michigan State and the Flyers’ brass are likely hoping to see a bit more offense out of him, and perhaps breaking this cold streak will get his offensive game flowing.
For Martone, it was another multi-goal game for the 2025 sixth overall pick. Picking up his eight and ninth goals of the season, as well as a primary assist on the opening tally, Martone’s freshman campaign continues to impress. Through 11 games, Martone now has 9 goals and 8 assists for 17 points. His 0.82 goals per game rate is good for seventh among NCAA skaters (min. 10 games played) and his 1.55 points per game rate ranks third. Over the last decade, only a select few players have put up points at this rate over a full season in their draft or draft+1 seasons per Quanthockey: Jack Eichel, Adam Fantilli, and Macklin Celebrini, who did it in their draft years, as well as Kyle Connor, Will Smith, and Gabriel Perreault in their draft+1 seasons. We’re just a fourth of the way through the season, but if Martone is able to keep pace, this bodes really well for his NHL future.
Michigan State was uncharacteristically sloppy in their own end in this one, with the two teams trading chances for much of the night. The second period in particular was a disaster for the Spartans, allowing four unanswered goals. It was by far their worst period of the season, though that maybe goes without saying given that it was pretty much the first time they had to play from behind all season. While they technically played from behind in game one, it was only the last five seconds of the game. This was the first true stretch they’ve had while down a goal. While they were able to close the gap twice — Lee made it a 4-3 game midway through the third, and later Martone scored to make it 5-4 — they were unable to complete the comeback.
The two teams will meet again tonight to close out their season series, as Michigan State looks to prevent the weekend sweep. With the loss, Michigan State drops to 9-2-0 on the season, and 4-1-0 in Big Ten contests.