TOLEDO, Ohio – Michigan State’s hockey team will play its first “win or go home” game of the season on Thursday. Its opening-round opponent in the NCAA Tournament has been playing elimination games for nearly an entire month. The Spartans (26-6-4) are the No. 2 overall seed in the tournament and the top seed in the Toledo, Ohio regional but aren’t overlooking a surging Cornell, the No. 15 overall seed. The Big Red (18-10-6) enter Thursday’s first-round matchup (5:30 p.m., ESPN+) riding a six-game win streak, tied with Western Michigan for the longest active run in the country. “They’re going to be really well-coached, really well-prepared,” MSU third-year head coach Adam Nightingale said Wednesday inside Huntington Center in Toledo. “There’s not going to be easy ice. I think they’re a team where if you’re looking to get easy offense, it’s not the night to be looking for it. This is going to test us big time. We’re excited for it. I think our team has played in a lot of different games against a lot of different opponents and different styles of play, but I know for sure that their team will be jacked up, and they should be.” Cornell is galvanized after it pulled off what 30th-year head coach Mike Schafer called a “miracle on ice” in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Tournament. The team was predicted to finish first in the conference after making the NCAAs the past two seasons but had a bumpy start as an array of injuries took a toll on the roster. The only path to a NCAA Tournament berth was winning the league as the No. 6 seed. It rattled off five straight wins to accomplish its task, with the most improbable coming in the semifinals against No. 1 seed Quinnipiac. Trailing by one with just under two minutes remaining, the Big Red took a penalty to put it a man down. This is Schafer’s final season before retirement, and the team needed a comeback to extend his career for at least another game. Cornell won a defensive zone draw, quickly transitioned up ice and scored shorthanded to send the game to overtime. Senior defenseman Tim Rego was the hero in overtime to send the team to the title game, where it knocked off No. 2 seed Clarkson 3-1. Fittingly, the tournament was in Lake Placid, New York, where the United States pulled off one of the greatest upsets in sports history by beating the Soviet Union en route to winning the gold medal in the 1980 Olympics. “A significant amount of injuries throughout the course of the year kind of derailed all of our expectations and plans that we had, and these guys as a group of players figured out a way to get healthy and start playing their best hockey of the year late in the year,” said Schafer, who is coaching in his 15th tournament. “It’s been a wild ride, a wild run, but we’re excited to be back in the NCAA Tournament.” MSU has been a top team in the country all season and is coming off its second straight Big Ten Tournament title. Nightingale knows Cornell’s players will have extra motivation playing for Schafer. MSU faced a similar situation in the Big Ten semifinals against No. 7 seed Notre Dame, which pulled off a stunning upset over No. 2 seed Minnesota in the best-of-three quarterfinals. The Irish struggled throughout the regular season under legendary coach Jeff Jackson, who announced before the year that 2024-25 would be his last. After beating Minnesota, Notre Dame also gave MSU a fight before Big Ten Player of the Year Isaac Howard scored early in the third to power the Spartans to a 1-0 victory. RELATED: Michigan State star making strong case for Heisman Trophy of NCAA hockey Nightingale said he was proud of his team for not deviating from its game plan despite being stymied by the Irish through two periods. The Spartans also didn’t panic after blowing a two-goal third-period lead against the Buckeyes before prevailing in double overtime to claim the league tournament title. Thursday marks the beginning of a new season, and Nightingale knows the Spartans will need to match their opponent’s intensity. “There’s no cheat in their game,” Nightingale said of Cornell. “You got to earn everything. They’re gonna play physical, they’re gonna defend hard, they’re gonna manage the puck. You’re gonna have to earn anything you get. it’s hard to get to the inside and then offensively they’re heavy at the puck, they’re coming competitive. It’s not just for a sequence in the game; they’re going to do it the whole game. “This is going to be a hard-fought game. You’re going to have to fight for ice. You can’t get frustrated, and I think our guys have done a good job of that.” On paper, MSU still holds a clear advantage. It ranks eighth in scoring and fourth in defense while playing one of the most difficult schedules in the country. But it also learned a hard lesson last season that earning a No. 1 seed doesn’t mean anything once the puck drops. It needed overtime to beat No. 4 seed Western Michigan in its opener before losing to No. 3 seed Michigan, which it beat four times during the regular season, in the regional final. “I think definitely can learn a lot just being in it last year,” senior forward Tanner Kelly said. “We know that every team in this tournament is a really good team and no team’s gonna take a night off. Just gotta be prepared and play a full 60 minutes. I think we just can’t take any team lightly and we just need to stick to our game plan and do what we’ve done all year. That’s given us the success to get here.” Another advantage the Spartans have is playing just under two hours away from East Lansing. Thursday’s games – No. 3 seed OSU faces No. 2 seed Boston University in the first regional semifinal of the day – are sold out at 8,000-seat Huntington Arena. “Looks like we got a great venue here,” defenseman Matt Basgall said. “I like the atmosphere in here. Pretty close to East Lansing, so hoping to see a big turnout of Sparty fans. Really excited to see how we show out, and I’m sure the atmosphere is going to be awesome.”