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THIS WEEK
Western Michigan opens Central Collegiate Hockey Association play by heading to No. 20 Michigan State on 7:05 p.m. on Friday. The Spartans make the return trip on Saturday to Kalamazoo for a 7:35 p.m. start.

LAST WEEK
The WMU hockey team headed down to Huntsville, Ala., for their first road trip of the season and came away with a pair of 2-1 wins over the UAH Chargers.

On Friday freshman forward Trevor Elias netted the game-winner with 9:48 remaining in the third period and Jerry Kuhn made 31 saves in his first start of the season. Elias got the Broncos off to a quick start on Saturday with a goal midway through the first period. Chris Clackson added a second goal and Riley Gill made 29 saves for his third win of the season.

SERIES HISTORY - MSU, 57-29-8
Western Michigan and Michigan State have a long history of battling in the CCHA. In all the two teams have met 95 times and MSU holds a 57-29-8 advantage. The gap widens at Munn Ice Arena, where the Broncos are just 5-33-6. At Lawson the Broncos have a 23-20-2 advantage and WMU is 8-10-4 record under head coach Jim Culhane against the Spartans.

SCOUTING THE SPARTANS
Michigan State enters Friday’s game ranked No. 20 in the nation after upsetting No. 1 Miami at Miami last Saturday. The Spartans (4-2-0) have split series with Miami and Maine the past two weekends.

MSU boasts the current top scorer in the CCHA and in the nation in Corey Tropp. The Junior forward has six goals and six assists in six games so far this season. Tropp has been feasting on the power play, which MSU is 11-of-41 (26.8-percent), with four goals and four assists. The Spartans also have the league’s top scoring freshman in Derek Grant. Grant has four goals and five assists in nine games, with seven of his nine points coming on the power play.

Drew Palmisano has started four of MSU’s six games this season and comes in to Friday with a 3-1-0 record. Palmisano, who battled WMU to a 2-2 tie last year, has a .914 save percentage and a 2.48 goals against average.

Max Campbell and Tyler Ludwig are the only current Broncos to have scored goals against the Spartans.

COLLECTING THE HARDWARE
The Broncos have played two weeks of action so far this season and have collected two CCHA weekly awards. Trevor Elias is the most recent, taking home the CCHA Rookie of the Week Award with his play from the UAH series. J.J. Crew was named Offensive Player of the Week for his four-goal and two-assist performance against Mercyhurst to open the season in the previous week.

Last year the Broncos accumulated eight weekly CCHA awards and four monthly awards including the National Player of the Month Award by Patrick Galivan for the month of February.

OH WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES
At this time last year WMU freshman Trevor Elias and MSU freshman Derek Grant were playing on the same line with the Langley Chiefs in the British Columbia Hockey League. Last season the two combined for 39 goals, 77 assists and 116 points in a combined 78 games.

This season the two are off to hot starts on different teams. Grant is the top scoring freshman in the CCHA with four goals and five assists through six games. Elias has tallied a point in each game he has played so far this season with an assist in each game against Mercyhurst and two goals against Alabama-Huntsville. Each have been awarded the CCHA Rookie of the Week Award this season.

RECEIVING VOTES
The Broncos (4-0-0) received nine votes in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll, putting them unofficially at 23rd in the nation. They received 41 votes in the USCHO.com/CBS College Sports poll, putting them unofficially in 25th place.

The last time the Broncos were receiving votes was in the 2006-07 season. In the Feb. 26 poll they received six votes in the USCHO.com/CBS College Sports poll. The last time the Broncos received votes in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll was Oct. 27, 2003 poll, in which they got three votes.

The last time the Broncos were ranked in either poll was Feb. 11, 2001 when they held the 15 spot in both polls.

2,548 DAYS
Or six years, 11 months and 22 days is the amount of time between WMU’s two most recent successful penalty shots. Before Cam Watson’s goal in Friday’s 2-1 win over Alabama-Huntsville, the last successful penalty shot by a Bronco was by Pat Dwyer on Nov. 1, 2002 against Nebraska-Omaha.

NON-CONFERENCE ROAD DROUGHT ENDED
While it had been six-plus years since WMU’s last successful penalty shot, it had been just under five year’s since the Broncos had won a non-conference road game. The last non-conference road win came in 2004 when the Broncos won at Bemidji State 4-3 in overtime. The Broncos followed Friday’s win with a 2-1 win on Saturday for the first non-conference road sweep since Nov. 10-11, 2000 at Niagara.