Notre Dame hockey hit the low point of its season this weekend.
The visiting No. 9 Ohio State Buckeyes swept the Fighting Irish out of Compton Family Ice Arena with 5-1 wins on both Friday and Saturday nights, handing Notre Dame one of its worst weekend series at home since the Arena opened in 2011.
The most painful part? On both nights, the Irish weren’t all that bad. Friday saw Notre Dame get off to one of its best starts this season, and Saturday night Notre Dame might’ve been better, putting 19 pucks on goal in the first period.
“It’s just the consistency factor,” Irish head coach Jeff Jackson said after Friday’s loss. “We can’t seem to get a 60-minute hockey game in.”
In a season riddled with inconsistency, the manner of defeat on Friday and Saturday nights was ironically consistent.
On both nights, Notre Dame scored first. On both nights, Notre Dame had chances to add to its lead but did not. On both nights, Ohio State tied the game late in the first. On both nights, Notre Dame allowed two second period goals. And on both nights, when the clock struck zeroes, the scoreboard read the same: Ohio State 5, Notre Dame 1.
Perhaps that makes the Irish consistently inconsistent. They displayed some of their best play of the season at the start of Saturday’s contest, taking a 1-0 lead behind sophomore center Danny Nelson’s 11th goal of the season. They forced Ohio State senior netminder Logan Terness to routinely make difficult saves, and very well could have led the game by multiple goals after the first.
“The consistency, we just can’t sustain it,” Jackson said after Saturday’s game. The Irish head coach, in his 20th and final season, still remains two wins shy of 600 for his career. “We had a lot of good chances in the first. We needed to bury a few of them, and we didn’t. It’s hard to chase the game."
Terness made it especially difficult to do so. Making the start on consecutive nights for the first time since November, he stopped 41 of 42 Notre Dame shots for a total of 68 saves on the weekend. His two game save percentage? .971. He gave the Buckeyes time to get back into the game on both Friday and Saturday nights.
And get back in the game they did. The 10-2 aggregate score amounts to the worst visitor sweep at Compton Family Ice Arena by final score since Northeastern beat Notre Dame 9-2 and 2-1 in the Arena’s inaugural season.
The sweep also sends Notre Dame back out on the road, licking its wounds after a bye week that was supposed to help heal from a difficult January. The Irish will travel to Penn State and No. 19 Wisconsin in the coming weeks, still hoping they can find their game somewhere between State College and Madison.
“We need to find that consistency in our game, and it’s getting late.”
Friday: Ohio State 5, Notre Dame 1
Ohio State piled on late to win a close game by a wide margin Friday night. As they have in each of their last four Friday night losses, the Irish scored first. With 2:29 remaining in the first period, graduate winger Blake Biondi one-timed a pass from sophomore center Cole Knuble for a power-play goal. The Buckeyes answered just 48 seconds later, though. Junior forward Davis Burnside was left alone in front of the net, and tucked the puck past Irish junior goaltender Owen Say to tie the game.
Late in the second period, Ohio State got a bounce to go its way and took the lead for good. After having his initial shot blocked from the slot, sophomore forward Ryan Gordon found his own rebound and beat a sliding Say to the glove side. It would be the first of two goals on the night for Gordon. Fellow sophomore Riley Thompson added an insurance goal 2:02 later, beating Say with a backhander from the hashmarks.
Notre Dame was unable to muster a challenge against Terness in the third. Terness finished with 27 saves on 28 shots, 12 of which came in the first period. With less than a minute to play, Buckeye senior forward Patrick Guzzo scored an empty-net goal to put the game out of reach. Then, with Say back in the net, Gordon found himself open for a tap-in to make the score 5-1 in garbage time. Say finished with 27 saves on 31 Ohio State shots.
Saturday: Ohio State 5, Notre Dame 1
Looking to salvage a series split, Nelson put the Irish out in front again on Saturday night. After helping to force a turnover against the Ohio State breakout, Nelson surprised Terness with a quick wrister on the blocker side.
Notre Dame continued to pour on the offense, but Terness rose to the challenge. He made 19 saves in the first period, many from dangerous scoring areas, buying his team time to get back in the game. Ohio State made good on that time, tying the score yet again before the period ended. With Notre Dame graduate defenseman Zach Plucinski in the box for kneeing, Northeastern graduate transfer Gunnarwolfe Fontaine scored on the power-play to tie the game. Fontaine shot the puck off the post and past Irish freshman goaltender Nicholas Kempf.
The Irish continued to carry the play at the start of the period, but momentum swung Ohio State’s way 10 minutes in when Buckeye sophomore forward Sam Deckhut beat Kempf on a breakaway. Officials initially waved off Deckhut’s goal because he had collided with Kempf after taking his shot, but upon review the officials determined that the puck was going into the net before the collision occurred. The Irish never quite seemed the same after the Deckhut goal. Burnside added his second of the weekend following Ohio State’s strongest offensive zone shift of the game, and the Buckeyes again took a 3-1 lead to the locker room.
Sophomore defenseman Nathan McBrayer and sophomore forward William Smith added to Ohio State’s lead in the third, while Notre Dame tested Terness just five times in the final frame.
