All-Big Ten awards were announced by the league office on Tuesday, with Michigan State freshmen Artyom Levshunov and Trey Augustin and coach Adam Nightingale all big winners.
Levshunov, a defenseman from Zhirobin, Belarus, earned four honors, earning spots on the All-Big Ten First Team and All-Freshman Team, as well as being named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year.
Augustin, a goaltender from South Lyon, joined his classmates on the All-Freshman team and earned second-team All-Big Ten honors.
Nightingale was named the conference's Coach of the Year, capping a regular season that gave MSU three major award winners and the program's first Big Ten title. The Spartans will play Michigan for the Big Ten Tournament championship Saturday at Mann Arena at 8 p.m.
Three of MSU's sophomore forwards received Big Ten Honorable Mention. Carsen Dorwart (Sherwood, Ore.), Isaac Howard (Hudson, Wis.) and Joey Larson (Brighton).
Senior forward Nicholas Muller was named the team's Big Ten Sportsmanship Award recipient.
“With team success comes individual success,” Nightingale said in a statement. “We're so excited for the players who both won awards and were honorable mentions. What I enjoy most about them is that it's never about themselves, it's about the team. about it.”
Levshunov has been MSU's top freshman scorer since the early 1990s, ranking second nationally among freshman defensive players (12th among all defensive players) with nine goals and 23 assists. He posted a Big Ten-best +25 while playing on MSU's top defensive pairing in all 35 games. Levshunov is ranked No. 2 in NHL Central Scouting's North American skater rankings and is projected to be a top-10 pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.
Augustin, a second-round pick of the Detroit Red Wings last summer, is the youngest starting goaltender in Division I and plays in perhaps the most skilled offensive league in the country. He appeared in 32 games and posted a 21-8-2 record with a .919 save percentage and 2.86 GAA. He ranks first among the Big Ten in saves per game (31.75), second in total saves (1016), and is one of only nine goaltenders in the country with 20 wins between the pipes. One of them.
Nightingale was unanimously selected as the conference's top coach after turning around the fortunes of the Spartan hockey program in just under two years on the job. He led the Spartans to their first-ever Big Ten regular season title (and first conference title since 2001), and this season MSU was ranked No. 4 in the national poll and No. 5 in the pairwise rankings. Nightingale's two-year record is 41-27-5, the second-most wins in program history in his first two years.
The three sophomores who received honorable mention all exceeded their freshman season numbers and contributed to an offense that ranks seventh in the nation (3.86 goals per game). Dorwart and Howard skate together on the front line and share the team's current points lead (32 points). Dorwart ranks second on the team in goals (14) and Howard leads the team in assists (24), more than double his freshman season total (11). Meanwhile, Larson is the team leader in goals (15) and second in points (31).
The team's Sportsmanship Award winner is fifth-year Mueller, who serves as one of the team's alternate captains and is having a strong season following a career-best offensive performance in 2022-23. . The centerman has a scoring line of 7-20-28, a +10 rating and his 19 blocked shots.
— MSU Athletic Communications
