2022–23 Michigan State Spartans men's ice hockey season

The 2022–23 Michigan State Spartans men's ice hockey season was the 81st season of play for the program and 32nd in the Big Ten. The Spartans represented Michigan State University in the 2022–23 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey season, played their home games at the Munn Ice Arena and were coached by Adam Nightingale in his first season.

Season
After spending the previous decade as a moribund program, there were few expectations for Michigan State in Adam Nightingale's first season behind the bench. The Spartans were picked to finish last in the preseason poll, a common result for the team in recent years. Defying expectations, MSU got off to a decent start and posted a winning record over the first month of the season. The big test for the team would come from within their conference as the Big Ten was the strongest league in the nation in 2023. The Spartans stumbled at the start but went 5–1 against Big Ten opponents in November, including a sweep of #10 Ohio State, which earned the team their first appearance in the national polls in three years.

Not everything was clear sailing, however. During the game against Ohio State on November 11, Kamil Sadlocha was given a game misconduct for yelling a racial slur at Jagger Joshua. The Big Ten supported the match penalty but, due to a lack of incontrovertible evidence, would not add any additional punishment. Because of the lack of action from either Ohio State or the Big Ten, Joshua went public with the incident a week later. Though Jagger did not name the offending player, Sadlocha was the only one to receive a match penalty in the game. After the full account of the incident was reported, the Ohio State athletic department sent Sadlocha home for an indeterminate time.

By the beginning of December, Michigan State was near the top of the conference standings and was ranked among the top 10 teams for the NCAA tournament. Staring at what would be their first trip to the tournament in over a decade, Michigan State's season began to unravel. Over an 8-game stretch that was spread out due to the winter break, Michigan State went 1–7. Because seven of those games came against a nationally ranked team, MSU didn't fall out of NCAA tournament contention but they were placed right on the edge of the bubble. Michigan State continued to stub their toes in the second half and ended the year with a .500 record.

When the conference tournament began, Michigan State sat at #19 in the tournament rankings and needed a good performance in the playoffs to climb back above the cut line. Knowing that they needed to win to save their season, MSU was in for a fight with Notre Dame. The Irish were only a few spots ahead of the Spartans and could not afford to lose for their own postseason chances. The Spartans came out firing in the first game, sending 36 shots on goal, but were unable to solve the Big Ten's top goaltender, Ryan Bischel. It wasn't until the 28th minute of game 2 that Michigan State was able to get their first goal but when it came it opened the floodgates. MSU scored 4 consecutive markers to take the rematch, the program's first playoff victory since 2015, and set up a deciding game 3. With both team playing for their seasons, Dylan St. Cyr had his best performance as a Spartan and stopped 37 shots in a 4–2 victory for the Spartans.

The win put Michigan State into the top 16, however, because the final spot was reserved for the Atlantic Hockey champion, the Spartans were still outside the playoff picture. If they wanted to reach the NCAA tournament, MSU would have to take down the top team in the nation and they aimed to do just them when they travelled west to face Minnesota. Knowing they had to play a near-perfect game, the Spartans got off to a good start. MSU opened the scoring on the power play before 5 minutes had elapsed and were pressing the Gophers for much of the first 10 minutes. The Spartans made their first mistake in the 13th minute when Viktor Hurtig took a tripping penalty. On the ensuing power play, Minnesota's wealth of talent enabled the Gophers to tie the score and then completely take over the game. Minnesota scored the final 5 goals of the game and skated away with a rather pedestrian victory despite being outshot by MSU.

Despite just missing out on the tournament, this season could be seen as a success as it was the first non-losing season for Michigan State since 2015.

Roster
As of July 11, 2022.

Schedule and results
!colspan=12 style=";" | Exhibition

!colspan=12 style=";" | Regular Season

!colspan=12 style=";" | Great Lakes Invitational

!colspan=12 style=";" | Regular Season

!colspan=12 style=";" | Big Ten Tournament

Rankings
USCHO did not release a poll in weeks 1, 13 and 26.

2023 NHL Entry Draft
† incoming freshman