After a season-opening exhibition victory over the National Team Development Program (NTDP) last week, Notre Dame hockey begins its regular season on the road this weekend in northern New York. The Irish will face off against St. Lawrence on Friday (7 p.m., ESPN+) and Clarkson on Saturday (7 p.m., ESPN+).
Irish name captains
On Thursday, Notre Dame named graduate transfer forward Ian Murphy and senior forwards Justin Janicke, Grant Silianoff and Tyler Carpenter captains for the 2024-25 season. Unlike last season, when Landon Slaggert wore the lone “C,” the Irish are calling this year’s captaincy a “collective leadership position.”
“I’m making the final decision to make this more of a collective leadership approach,” Notre Dame head coach Jeff Jackson said. “We will have captains, but I’m expecting above and beyond those four guys we have another six to eight guys that potentially could step up.”
Jackson said he chose to create collective leadership after speaking with Boston Celtics general manager and former head coach Brad Stevens. During his time as head basketball coach at Butler, Stevens did not name captains, opening opportunities for any player to step up as a leader. Stevens visited with Notre Dame head coaches last year and has ties with Notre Dame basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry.
Knuble expected to return
Jackson told the media Wednesday that sophomore center Cole Knuble is expected to return to the lineup after sitting out the exhibition. Notre Dame planned to start the Philadelphia Flyers draft pick on its power play and penalty kill but ultimately held him out of the game against the NTDP for precautionary reasons.
Knuble will add a scoring punch to a lineup that scored five goals over the NTDP last Friday. Trailing 2-1 in the third period, the Irish reeled off four consecutive goals to put the game out of reach. Graduate transfer forward Blake Biondi scored twice in the 5-2 win, both times on the power play. Notre Dame hopes to average three goals a game this year for the first time since 2022. It will need sophomores like Knuble, graduate transfers like Biondi and the power play to click to achieve that goal.
No surefire starter in goal
As expected, Jackson demurred on naming a starting netminder for this weekend’s games amidst a three-way competition for the job. Freshman Nick Kempf, junior transfer Owen Say and returning junior Jack Williams each played a period against the NTDP. Say allowed both NTDP goals but also made the most saves with 12. Kempf and Williams faced challenging shots, but not to the same extent.
“Two of the three are going to get games,” Jackson said. “I’m waiting to see how guys perform over these next three weeks. These non-conference games are important, but they are also opportunities for us to work on our game and also identify which guys are gonna play key roles.”
Jackson did not explicitly confirm which two of the three would get starts.
Irish make first visit to Appleton Arena
When Notre Dame begins its regular season Friday, it will do so in one of the most unique venues around college hockey.
Opened in 1952, Appleton Arena seats just 3,200 on its pew-like benches and makes for an intimate viewing experience. The arena recently underwent renovations to enhance the player and fan experiences.
The Irish will face a Saints team that returns eight of its top nine scorers and is off to a 2-0 start to the season. St. Lawrence topped RIT, a perennial Atlantic Hockey contender, in overtime on Saturday. It beat Canisius 5-2 on Sunday. Though he did not score in either contest, junior Felikss Gavars led the team in goals last season with 13. Gavars also brings a unique big-game experience to the team as a frequent member of Latvia’s World Championship and World Junior Championship squad.
St. Lawrence has not eclipsed 20 wins in nine seasons and hopes to finish above .500 for the first time under sixth-year head coach Brent Brekke. Brekke has guided the team to double-digit wins in each of the last three seasons after going 4-27-5 in his first year.
J. F. Houle era begins at Clarkson
Notre Dame wasn’t the only program whose offseason was dominated by coaching news.
After 13 years at Clarkson, former head coach Casey Jones left the program for conference rival Cornell. Jones will take over at his alma mater next season after the imminent retirement of Cornell legend Mike Schafer, who has been with the Big Red since 1995.
Clarkson filled its coaching vacancy by stealing J.F. Houle from the pro ranks. Houle had served as the head coach of Montreal’s AHL affiliate, the Laval Rocket, for the past three seasons. Houle played at Clarkson from 1993 to 1997 before returning to Potsdam to start his coaching career as an assistant in 2003.
Houle inherits a team that has underwhelmed in the last few seasons. Clarkson has failed to make the NCAA tournament over the last four seasons despite three straight appearances from 2018 to 2020.
The biggest change Houle will have to wrangle is his goaltender room, which saw wholesale turnover during the summer. With three netminders departing, Houle added two transfers, graduate student Ethan Langenegger and sophomore Marcus Brännman.
Both goaltenders saw action in Clarkson’s season-opening games last weekend. The Golden Knights defeated Canisius 2-1 last Saturday but lost to RIT 3-2 on Sunday.
