Irish hockey exits Compton Ice Arena after Notre Dame’s game 3 loss against Michigan State in the 2023 Big Ten Tournament.
A quick turnaround is in order for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish hockey team. Both the Irish and this weekend’s opponent, the Clarkson Golden Knights, come into their season-opening series without a full week of practice under their belts.
“It’s really challenging in college hockey when our first official day is the day we play our first game,” longtime Irish head coach Jeff Jackson said in a press conference Tuesday. “We’ve been operating on eight-hour weeks, and we can only go on the ice for four hours a week during that period of time, and we can’t spend our whole preseason working on systems.”
Instead, the Irish have put an emphasis on skill development in the month or so of ice-time they’ve had leading up to the season. Jackson noted that the team has only really begun to focus on tactical play in the last two weeks.
This is nothing out of the ordinary for college hockey teams who are restricted to eight hours of team-oriented activity a week up until the first official day of the season on Oct. 7. Nonetheless, the constraints pose a challenge in a season where every game is important.
“You know, it’d be nice to have a few weeks where we could actually practice a normal week, where we’re going four days, five days a week in practice, and going for an hour and a half, an hour and 15 minutes on a daily basis, but Clarkson’s in the same boat,” Jackson said. “We’re all in the same boat as far as the amount of time we have.”
With shortened ice time and a young team — at an average age of 21 years and seven months, the Irish are the eighth-youngest squad in the nation according to College Hockey News — an important key to this weekend’s series may simply be overcoming nerves.
“The biggest challenge is going to be getting the jitters out,” Jackson said. “In general, early on it’s a lot of turnovers, guys trying to make plays that aren’t there. It probably will be exciting for the fans, but it won’t be for the coaching staff.”
The Golden Knights come to South Bend with the same challenge. Clarkson will have to deal with some first-game jitters of their own, especially for the 12 newcomers to the team who comprise almost half of the 28-man roster.
The roster turnover comes after a lackluster 2022-23 season for Clarkson, who finished with a losing record (16-17-4) for only the fourth time in head coach Casey Jones’ 12-year tenure. Clarkson was unable to garner any sort of momentum throughout the season. The Golden Knights bowed out of the ECAC Tournament quarterfinals in two games against Cornell and failed to make the NCAA Tournament.
Coming into 2023, Clarkson placed fourth in the preseason ECAC coaches poll. Up front, they will have to deal with the loss of Alex Campbell, who tied for the team lead in goals last season with 14 and transferred to Northeastern during the offseason. The Golden Knights also have a question to answer in net, as two-year starting netminder Ethan Haider transferred to UConn for his senior season. Both Campbell and Haider were Nashville Predators draft picks.
The Golden Knights do return their two leading scorers from last season, junior Ayrton Martino and graduate student Mathieu Gosselin. Martino was named preseason first-team All-ECAC by the league’s coaches, as was senior defenseman Noah Beck. Beck, a 2020 St. Louis Blues draft pick, is expected to lead the D-corps. Providence College transfer Austin Roden will battle it out for time between the pipes with freshman Emmett Croteau (a Montreal Canadiens draftee) and last year’s backup Brady Parker.
More than anything, Clarkson will pose a physical challenge right out of the gate for Notre Dame this weekend. Weighing in at an average of 191.3 pounds, the Golden Knights are the country’s second-heaviest team and could wreak havoc if they force the issue against the Irish.
“Their team is going to put a lot of pressure on us,” Jackson said. “They’re a puck pressure team, they come at you. So, we are going to be forced to make puck decisions.”
Making those puck decisions wisely may just be the biggest key for the Irish to come away from this opening weekend successfully.
“It’s going to be about us doing a better job of managing the puck, and then transitioning on defense when we have to,” Jackson said. “And if we manage the puck well, we transition on defense less. So that’s the best thing we can do, is try to make sure we don’t give the puck up too easily. We have to work to possess it.”
The puck drops on the season Saturday night at 6 p.m at Compton Family Ice Arena. Game two is Sunday at 5 p.m.
Series history
Clarkson and Notre Dame have only met four times in their history and have never played a two-game regular season series. All-time, the Irish and the Golden Knights are 2-2-0 against each other, with three of the four meetings played at neutral sites.The latest meeting between the two teams came in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament Northeast Regional in Manchester, New Hampshire. Cam Morrison scored the game-winning goal in overtime to give Notre Dame the win, though the Irish would go on to lose to Cale Makar and the national championship game-bound UMass Minutemen in round two.
Irish recruiting notebook
The Irish picked up a verbal commitment from 2003-born defenseman Jimmy Jurcev last week. The Palos Heights, Illinois, native spent last season with the USHL’s Lincoln Stars after two years with the NAHL’s New Mexico Ice Wolves. At 6-foot-5 and 185 pounds, Jurcev had seven points in 39 regular season games last year.On Tuesday evening, another Lincoln Star announced he would be committing to Notre Dame. 2005-born forward Dashel Oliver was previously committed to Nebraska-Omaha but flipped his commitment to the Irish. A Bloomington, Indiana native, Oliver will stay in state for college hockey. The 5-foot-9, 181-pound Oliver spent all of last season with Lincoln, recording seven goals and six assists.
Jurcev and Oliver will skate with the Stars again this year, suiting up with fellow Irish commit Jack Larrigan. According to a press release by the Stars organization, both Jurcev and Oliver were on Notre Dame’s campus this past weekend to meet the coaching staff and tour facilities.
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