Over the weekend, Notre Dame hockey (6-10-0, 1-7-0 Big Ten) made history as the first Big Ten team to compete in the Friendship Four tournament. Held since 2015 at SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the four-team event has mostly featured programs from Hockey East and the ECAC, linking the sister cities of Boston and Belfast. This year, the Irish joined Boston University and Merrimack of Hockey East and Harvard of the ECAC in the competitive field.
Once the puck dropped on Friday night, the Irish were prepared for a weekend of quality play. Notre Dame snapped a seven-game losing streak in its semifinal against Harvard, downing the Crimson by a 5-2 score. In Saturday’s championship game against BU, the Irish led by multiple goals in the third period but couldn’t hang on in a 4-3 loss to the 13th-ranked Terriers, who captured the Belpot Trophy in their second foray in the Friendship Four.
Flying over to Dublin on Sunday night into Monday morning before driving to Belfast on Tuesday, Notre Dame made a neat cultural experience of the overseas venture afterwards. The team visited historical sites such as the Crumlin Road Gaol and the Titanic Museum in Belfast, made brewery stops at Guinness and Teeling Irish Whiskey in Dublin, appeared at local schools and shared a Thanksgiving meal with friends and family.
Fast start gets Notre Dame back in the win column
Rocking their slick, Book-of-Kells-inspired navy blue uniforms, the Irish didn’t need much time to get their game legs underneath them against Harvard. With sophomore forward Cole Knuble, the team’s leading scorer, back in the lineup, Notre Dame’s offense found twine three times in the opening period.
Goal number one came off the hot stick of graduate forward Blake Biondi, who lit the lamp for the fourth consecutive weekend. Knuble set him up with a low-to-high pass from the netside, leaving Biondi to slap the puck inside the left post for his fifth goal of the season, a power-play marker at 8:25 of the first period.
Eight minutes later, the lead doubled on an offensive-zone faceoff win by sophomore forward Jayden Davis. Freshman defenseman Jaedon Kerr received the available puck at the left point and rifled a wrist shot underneath the crossbar for his first collegiate goal. Only 32 seconds passed before Notre Dame struck a third time, as sophomore defenseman Paul Fischer’s offensive support in the corner won the puck for junior blue-liner Michael Mastrodomenico in the slot. With plenty of room to fire, Mastrodomenico netted his third goal of the season, forcing Harvard head coach Ted Donato to pull everyday netminder Aku Koskenvuo at the first intermission.
Playing in front of debuting backup goalie Ben Charette, Harvard’s skaters found new life early in the second period. The Crimson scored two goals, one on a Joe Miller wraparound and another on Cam Johnson’s interception and snipe in the Irish zone, within the frame’s first seven minutes. BU and Merrimack had charted a similar course in the opening semifinal hours earlier, with the Terriers going up 3-0 in the first period before the Warriors drew within a goal early in the third. Likewise, Notre Dame found itself staring down the barrel of a Harvard rally midway through game two.
But junior goaltender Owen Say made sure that the Irish lead would hold up. Coming off his worst statistical games of the season against Michigan State and Minnesota, Say stopped each of the final 16 shots he faced against Harvard — 12 of those coming with Notre Dame ahead only by a single goal.
Late in the third period, the Irish gave their netminder some breathing room, going up 4-2 with another power-play conversion. This time, senior forward Justin Janicke forced in the rebound of sophomore forward Danny Nelson’s initial shot for his fourth goal of the season. Scoring twice in three chances against Harvard, Notre Dame’s power play ended the night ranked atop the Big Ten and fifth in the nation with a success rate north of 30%.
Down two goals, Harvard yanked Charette for the extra attacker early, moving to 6-on-5 hockey with 3:35 left in regulation. However, the Irish held the Crimson off long enough for Knuble to pot an empty-net goal, his team-high seventh of the season, that sealed Notre Dame’s semifinal win with 81 seconds remaining.
Terriers steal Belpot Trophy with third-period comeback
To start a very even championship game, BU flipped the script on Notre Dame’s terrific power play. Capturing a turnover in neutral ice, the shorthanded Kamil Bednarik went into the Irish zone, dragging the puck around Fischer and sliding a backhander past the left pad of Say for a beauty of a first collegiate goal. The Terriers led 1-0 just under eight minutes in, but the Irish wouldn’t wait long to pull ahead themselves.
Just past the midway point of the first period, Notre Dame scored two goals 15 seconds apart on marvelous passing plays. On the first tally, Mastrodomenico slipped the puck from the neutral-zone boards to the center of the BU blue line, where Hunter Strand skated onto the puck in behind the defense like a wide receiver running underneath a deep ball. In alone against experienced Terrier goalie Mathieu Caron, Strand stickhandled once and went top-shelf on his forehand for his fourth goal of the season.
After the ensuing faceoff, Danny Nelson pulled the puck out of an offensive-zone scrum and went in on a shortened 2-on-1 with Janicke. As the BU defender laid on his stomach to block a cross-crease pass, Nelson unleashed a buttery saucer pass that arced above the defender and landed right on Janicke’s tape. The senior whacked it past Caron for his fifth goal of the year and second in as many nights.
Notre Dame added on four minutes into the second period, as Biondi moved into the BU zone on a solo mission. Dragging the puck as if on a string through the sticks of two Terriers, he reached a shooting position and snapped the biscuit past Caron for a 3-1 Irish lead. After his three-point weekend in Belfast, Biondi has nine points in last five games and is on pace for his most productive offensive season in five years of college hockey.
Unfortunately for Notre Dame, the remainder of Saturday’s offensive productivity belonged to BU, as the Terriers scored three goals in the third period to swipe the lead. Gavin McCarthy first made it 3-2 on a high-slot give-and-go with Matt Copponi. Ryan Greene then evened the ledger with 4:42 to play, tapping in Shane Lachance’s precision pass from the corner after an Irish turnover below the goal line. Lachance then put BU ahead 20 seconds later, finding the puck among the feet of Notre Dame skaters near the goal crease and whipping it past Say before the goaltender could react.
Notre Dame went to 6-on-5 with the net empty inside the final two minutes but struggled to sustain possession in the offensive zone, going down quietly, with BU the Belpot Trophy recipient.
Up next
Upon coming home from Belfast, the Irish will take a weekend off to reset the body clock and heal up a bit in South Bend. The following weekend, Notre Dame will head to Columbus on Dec. 13-14 to oppose Ohio State in its final series of 2024. The Irish won three of four meetings against the Buckeyes last year, but Ohio State has played better to the tune of a 9-4-1 overall record and 2-2-0 start to Big Ten action this season.
