To open its season, Irish hockey hosted the U.S. National Team Development Program (NTDP), a team of the best under-18 aged players in the country, for an exhibition game Friday night. You can’t draw too many conclusions from preseason exhibition game, but here are 10 takeaways on the Notre Dame’s 5-2 victory, in partially-chronological order:
1. Notre Dame will need to see improvement on the power-play as well as a few individual breakout seasons in order to reach their goal of averaging 3 goals per game. It was therefore encouraging to see graduate student transfer Blake Biondi pot two goals on the power-play in this one. A Minnesota-Duluth transplant, Biondi brings a natural scoring touch that could make a difference this season for the Irish, especially if he can put together a season like his 17-goal sophomore year at Duluth. Hampered by injuries in the last two seasons, Biondi looked very comfortable on the top line with sophomores Brennan Ali and Danny Nelson. On the power-play, Biondi looked like a bona-fide netfront presence, winning crease battles on point shots from sophomore defenseman Paul Fischer to score both his goals. Last year, Notre Dame averaged 19.1% on the power-play, a middling 36th nationally. Biondi’s force could help change that. He seems to be fitting in just fine, too. When talking postgame about the Notre Dame experience so far, he referenced Lou Holtz’s famous quote — “For those who know Notre Dame, no explanation's necessary. For those who don't, no explanation will suffice.”
2. If Notre Dame’s power-play units looked strange tonight, it’s because there was a notable absence. Sophomore forward Cole Knuble was held out of tonight’s game due to precautionary reasons — he suffered an injury late in the week.
3. Notre Dame ran into more injury trouble in the second period when another sophomore centerman, Jayden Davis, was taken out of the game with a lower body injury. Davis did not return, which led to plenty of line shuffling for Notre Dame.
4. The shuffling only got worse when senior forward Tyler Carpenter, who had been filling Davis’ center-role, was thrown out of the game for a knee-on-knee check in the neutral zone that injured the NTDP’s LJ Mooney. The hit was ill-timed at open-ice, and Mooney did not return. Notre Dame also found themselves down three centers: “It was like all the work we did in the first five weeks kind of went out the window because the power play and penalty kill, everything changed,” Irish head coach Jeff Jackson said postgame. The good news for Notre Dame is that, because this was only an exhibition, Carpenter’s major penalty won’t keep him out of next weekend’s season opener at St. Lawrence.
5. Trailing 1-0 on Biondi’s first period power-play goal, the NTDP was galvanized by Carpenter’s 5-minute major. They outshot Notre Dame 14-2 over the first 11 minutes of the 3rd period, and scored twice to take a 2-1 lead. On that five-minute major, Notre Dame’s penalty-kill certainly looked like the “work in progress” Jackson described it to be. They were a touch out of place on both Will Moore and Jacob Kvasnicka’s goals.
6. For how often Notre Dame discussed their team resiliency last season, tonight showed a positive step in that regard as well. Trailing 2-1 with less than 9 minutes to play, the Irish dominated the last half of the third, outshooting the NTDP 13-0 down the stretch and scoring no less than four times. “I thought they were good on the bench,” Jackson said. “They were talking to each other about responding to adversity in the first [period] a little bit, but more so when we had the major and then they took the lead [with] two power play goals. The guys responded positively, and I thought they did a good job in both situations.” For this scribe, the comeback effort was maybe the one thing that felt the most different compared to last season. Notre Dame was 1-12-1 when trailing entering the third period last year.
7. Notre Dame played all three goalies in this one: freshman Nick Kempf started against his former team, while returning backup Jack Williams got the second. Junior transfer Owen Say played the third, and was the only goaltender to allow a goal (two, actually), but he also made the most saves (12). All three looked strong, only furthering the competition in goal.
8. It’s worth reiterating that Ali and Danny Nelson were no slouches tonight. Both utilized their speed and physicality well. Nelson finished with 8 shots on goal and Ali looked strong on puck battles all night.
9. One thing that stood out tonight was Notre Dame’s size. It isn’t across the board, but the Irish have some tall dudes on the roster, especially the freshman defense pair of Jaedon Kerr and Jimmy Jurcev. Kerr is 6’4 and Jurcev is a lanky 6’5. What’s more, Irish commit Will Belle — who was playing right wing tonight for the NTDP—is also 6’4. There’s some size in Notre Dame’s future.
10. The opening night of the season didn’t go so smoothly for everyone— #7 Michigan dropped a 5-2 decision at home to Minnesota State to start their year. Unlike Notre Dame’s victory, that one counts. Tough luck, Fielding Yost.
