If Notre Dame hockey (7-14-1, 2-11-1 Big Ten) is to go on a run down the stretch, it’ll have to find a way to sustain success. Since Big Ten play began at the start of November, the Irish have had three bright moments in the midst of their struggle-filled season.
At the Friendship Four in Belfast, they defeated Harvard and came within 10 minutes of upsetting Boston University to win the tournament. Just over a month later at Wrigley Field, they won a thrilling shootout against Penn State. However, Notre Dame followed up both of those experiences with consecutive losses, bringing it right back to square one in terms of momentum.
This weekend’s trip to face No. 3 Minnesota (18-4-2, 9-2-1 Big Ten) will give the Irish another opportunity to build on a positive. In Saturday’s series finale against Michigan, Notre Dame, which has the lowest-scoring offense in the conference, hit its highest goal count in almost three years with a 7-4 win. The game alone cranked out half a season’s worth of highlights, ranging from three Notre Dame goals in a 32-second span to senior forward Justin Janicke’s hat trick to sophomore center Danny Nelson’s +6 rating, a Big Ten record.
Just winning a game, let alone doing it in such a prolific fashion, won’t come easy this weekend in Minneapolis. The championship-contending Golden Gophers already swept the Irish in November and lead all of college hockey in both scoring offense and scoring margin. The Irish also won’t play another Big Ten game after Minnesota until Feb. 7, rendering this weekend a critical chance to turn the corner for Notre Dame, which hasn’t won a true road game since Oct. 12.
Signs of life from the Irish offense
Notre Dame has the talent among its top six forwards to find far more offensive success than it has in the first three months. It’s just a matter of keeping everyone healthy and finding the combinations that will produce.
At this point, the Irish have the availability box checked, though the game of hockey can change that in a flash. Sophomore center Cole Knuble, who didn’t play a full series for a month in the first half, has skated both ends of three consecutive weekends and still leads the team with 22 points on the season. Danny Nelson, tied with Janicke for the team lead in goals with nine, is settling back into college hockey after spending three weeks away at the World Junior Championships.
With the entire roster at or close to full strength for the first time all season, head coach Jeff Jackson made a major forward line shakeup last weekend, generating results on Saturday. Nelson and sophomore winger Brennan Ali remained together on the top line, but Janicke left his customary unit with Knuble and graduate winger Blake Biondi to join them. That led to a Janicke hat trick and a three-point night for Nelson. Senior forward Hunter Strand joined the Knuble-Biondi line, playing on the wing for the first time in college and turning in his first career two-goal game on Saturday.
After Saturday’s game, Coach Jackson identified team speed as a top factor in unleashing Notre Dame’s seven-goal output. Against Michigan’s skilled and fast-moving game, the Irish upping their intensity and overall pace got them to prime scoring areas, where they buried the puck time and time again in the series finale. Minnesota, with more than half of its roster drafted to the National Hockey League, will demand a similar style of play for 120 minutes this weekend.
Special teams take center stage
Penalty minutes, penalty minutes, penalty minutes. Who’s going to avoid them this weekend?
You’d be completely reasonable to choose Minnesota. Bob Motzko’s Golden Gopher teams have always stayed out of the box, taking the least penalty minutes in college hockey last year and still sitting in the bottom 12 at 7.6 per game this season. Minnesota must keep its discipline because its penalty-kill unit reeks, ranking 60th in the nation and last in the Big Ten with a 73.2% success rate. Notre Dame’s power play hasn’t been great lately, converting on two of its last 16 opportunities. But it was terrific in limited opportunities against Minnesota in November, going 3 for 5, and it still ranks eighth in the country for the entire season.
The Irish haven’t had a poor disciplinary series since that November going weekend, averaging just 6.5 penalty minutes across the last eight games. Against the Golden Gophers, Notre Dame took 33 penalty minutes, including a five-minute major on Janicke for kneeing. Minnesota went to the power play a preposterous 11 times, scoring four times and killing Irish rallies on both nights.
At this point in the season, Notre Dame’s penalty kill doesn’t profile much better than Minnesota’s. With a 75% success rate, the Irish PK ranks 52nd nationally and sixth in the Big Ten. Michigan put four power-play goals on the Irish in five attempts last weekend, and Minnesota’s coming off a Saturday win with three power-play goals at Ohio State, so recent trends favor the Golden Gopher power play.
Either way, both teams have numerous special teams metrics working for and against them, but they won’t show up unless someone starts taking penalties. Keep an eye out for where the lion’s share of special-teams chances go this weekend.
Gauging the Golden Gophers
Having another excellent season, Minnesota’s using a similar formula to the one that got it to the national championship game two seasons ago. The Golden Gophers wield a first-rate offense littered with some of college hockey’s most dangerous weapons and backed up by an elite defensive unit.
Minnesota leads college hockey with 4.08 goals per game. On one look at the roster, it’s easy to see why. The Golden Gophers have 16 NHL draft picks, including four first-rounders that lead the power-play personnel. Junior Jimmy Snuggerud might just have the best wrist shot in the country, and he’s used it to total 114 points in 103 career games. He’s got a team-high 30 points this season. Fellow junior Matthew Wood, a UConn transfer, enters the weekend with a five-game point streak and 26 points on the year. Sophomore Oliver Moore scored twice against the Irish in November and just won a gold medal as Danny Nelson’s World Juniors linemate. Sam Rinzel, another sophomore Blackhawks draft selection, has averaged a point per game as a defenseman and burned the Irish with four points two months ago.
Beyond those headliners, junior Connor Kurth has broken out to add another dimension to Minnesota’s offense. The sixth-round draft pick’s 27 points rank second on the team to Snuggerud and put Kurth six past his previous career high. Junior Brody Lamb has had a terrific year as well, pacing the offense with 13 goals, eight of them coming on the man advantage. Watch out for Minnesota to start fast offensively this weekend, as the Golden Gophers have nine first-period goals in their last four games.
On the blue line, fifth-year Gopher Mike Koster anchors Minnesota with his 164 career games played. He scored two power-play goals last time out against Ohio State. In the crease, Minnesota has done well at filling the large shoes of former netminder Justen Close. Sophomore Nathan Airey (.910 save percentage) typically makes the Friday starts, and it took him 13 games to receive his first loss of the season. Saturdays belong to Penn State graduate transfer Liam Souliere, whose resurgence must be studied. Over the last three years as a starter Souliere’s save percentage has bounced around from .917 to .874 to .938 this season. He’s never fared well against the Irish, though, and did not see them in November.
Minnesota’s first and only Big Ten loss of the season happened last Friday at the hands of suddenly contending Ohio State. The Gophers countered the 5-1 setback with a 6-1 Saturday win, their 12th game this season with at least five goals scored. With Michigan State leading the Big Ten by just a point over Minnesota and Ohio State five points back of the leader, there’s a very real chance that next weekend’s tilt between the Spartans and Gophers in East Lansing decides the Big Ten regular season champion. The two powerhouses have been that clean elsewhere in conference play.
For now, Notre Dame hopes to dirty Minnesota’s track record with an 8 p.m. Friday puck drop and a 6 p.m. Saturday start inside 3M Arena at Mariucci.
