Game Gab - Nightly Post-Game Analysis
Come here after the games for analysis and insights from CHN Staff members.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Notre Dame 1, Bowling Green 0 - Friday, March 15, 2013
Notre Dame and Bowling Green played scoreless in regulation, before Notre Dame finally scored in overtime. Anders Lee forced a turnover. ND forward Jeff Costello picked it up and fed Bryan Rust for the game winner at 1:07, Rust's 13th of the season and team-best fourth game winner. “I just got on the ice in a line change and was able to get open in the slot,” said Rust in explaining his goal. “Jeff Costello was able to find me and I kicked the puck up to my backhand and was able to score. He (goalie Andrew Hammond) was playing with a lot of confidence. He was unbelievable tonight. You have to give him all the credit in the world." Hammond made 35 saves in the loss.
"I thought the second period was their best, but they were good all night," BG coach Chris Bergeron said of Notre Dame. "They blocked a lot of shots, and made it difficult for us in all three zones. They're a team that exposes you if you don't take care of things, and too many times tonight we didn't, and ultimately it cost us. ... You turn the puck over to people you turn it over to -- we've been preaching the longest time, you don't give people things, especially teams like Notre Dame who can create on their own without you giving them things. Unfortunately, it's a lesson we learned the hard way."
“I thought we were a little rusty early in the game,” ND coach Jeff Jackson said. “We slowly started getting our game legs back in the second period. That’s pretty typical when you have the bye week. I thought things started to change when David Gerths’ line got going. They picked up the forecheck and got the cycle going and created some scoring chances.”
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Notre Dame 4, Bowling Green 1 - Saturday, March 2, 2013
(photo: Todd Pavlack)
Bowling Green came up empty in two games this weekend, and, though it took a lot of good steps this season, was unable to take a really big one and secure home ice for the playoffs. Instead, BG finishes ninth and will travel to Lake Superior. The Falcons did get top goalie Andrew Hammond back in the lineup after an injury kept him out a while, but he still needs to shake off rust in time for the playoffs. He made a mistake playing the puck during a penalty kill and it cost his team what turned out to be the game-winning goal.
“Nowhere near good enough to win,” BG coach Chris Bergeron told reporters. “No where near the level of fight I thought we were going to have with the opportunity we had.” ... Said Falcons forward Andrew Wallace: “We had a tough time getting the puck deep and getting to our game. We didn’t take care of the puck, and against a team like Notre Dame … that can be a long night.”
Along the way, Anders Lee scored his 18th for Notre Dame, as the Irish moved into second place. Still, the Irish are teetering on that NCAA bubble, and may not play a TUC in the CCHA quarterfinals. So they have their work cut out for themselves still as far as the NCAAs are concerned.
“David (Gerths) has elevated his game the past couple of months,” Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson said of the game-winning-goal scorer. “That makes us a better team. It gives us more scoring depth from our forward lines. That line played well again tonight. They played well last weekend too with Sammy Herr in there. It’s positive for us. We have some depth depending on the opponent.”
“For what happened to us in January, for us to rebound the way we have in the last month is really good,” said Jackson. “At least we are going in the right direction heading into the playoffs. Hopefully we aren’t done getting better. We have to play better for our second round opponent. We’ll have a tough second round. We reached our first objective, finishing in the top four. Now our next objective is to get to Detroit and Joe Louis Arena.”
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Notre Dame 1, Western Michigan 1 - Saturday, February 23, 2013
Two games, two ties this weekend, with the teams splitting the shootouts, so they each end up with three points. It means they end up where they started, with WMU one point ahead of Notre Dame in second place, though farther behind Miami, which earned six points this weekend. Assuming neither catches Miami, these two will simply be jockeying for second and third next week, which doesn't mean much in the grand scheme. Of bigger importance is the NCAA picture. WMU slipped slightly to ninth in the Pairwise while Notre Dame sits at 14.
"We expected tight games," Broncos coach Andy Murray said. "It was interesting, in the Ferris series I didn't think we were as good as we needed to be; in the first game against Miami I didn't think we were as good as we need to be, and when we went to Ohio State I don't think we were as good as we needed to be. I think these games were real good for us. We've got two big games against Michigan State next weekend, and they're going to be battles for us. What's important is that we play solid games back to back like we did this weekend."
Junior forward Mike Cichy got the only goal of this game for WMU, offsetting Notre Dame's early power-play score. "No excuses but it was Senior Night; we had that presentation in the beginning and it was a little emotional for all of us," Cichy said. "This is their last home game here and it touched us. But once they came out and gave us a rude awakening on that power play it really woke us up because we were getting dominated pretty bad."
Jeff Jackson, who like Murray, spent time in the NHL, felt much the same way. “For us to come on the road and take three points is really huge for us," said Notre Dame's coach. "Our guys played hard this weekend and I thought we played two real good games.”
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Notre Dame 2, Miami 1 - Sunday, February 17, 2013
Notre Dame gets the weekend split, with the back end coming in Soldier Field in Chicago, outdoors. See our complete story.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Notre Dame 6, Michigan 4 - Saturday, February 9, 2013
As Notre Dame tries to right its ship, it needed to take advantage of a mightily-struggling Michigan this weekend -- and it did, getting the home sweep to keep within striking distance of first place. Anders Lee and Jeff Costello each had a goal and two assists in Saturday's finale. Notre Dame wins all four games in one season against Michigan for just the second time ever, with the other coming in 1972-73. “This was a big weekend for us. We need to get every point we can, especially at home,” Notre Dame head coach Jeff Jackson said. “Our next four games are going to be extremely tough. We play two exceptional teams (Miami and Western Michigan) so we really needed to take care of business this weekend if we want to finish in the top four of the conference.”
The one down side to the weekend was the penalty kill. “We gave up some power-play goals this weekend but we showed the ability to bounce back from adversity,” said Jackson. “We’ll get our penalty kill back in order. We won’t go very far if we don’t improve that. I was happy with the way we responded this weekend any time we gave up a momentum type of goal.”
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Notre Dame 2, Ohio State 2 - Saturday, February 2, 2013
With a 2-7 record in the last nine games, Notre Dame has pulled a deja vu of last season's inexplicable second-half meltdown that cost the Irish an NCAA bid. It looks like it could happen again, though at least for now Notre Dame halted the slide a little bit. It won the shootout, though that won't matter for NCAA purposes. Saturday was a rough 6-3 loss to Ohio State, a game in which Steven Summerhays got pulled; and understudy Mike Johnson got the start Saturday. ... On the other end, the Irish actually played a strong offensive game, but were stymied time and again by OSU's Brady Hjelle.
“We had a hard time getting out of our zone," OSU coach Mark Osiecki said. "I thought Notre Dame played extremely well. They played desperate and had us on our heels. We played tough though. When you find a way to hang tight and to keep it close, that’s when you need some of your big guns to step up and steal the game. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen tonight. ... We certainly didn’t have the same jump tonight. This team is in good shape. It was just one of those games. You can’t play on top of your game, like we have been, for four weeks in a row. You’re going to have a game when it is not absolutely perfect. On a national scene, it’s a tie and that’s a great point for us.”
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Notre Dame 5, Ferris State 2 - Saturday, January 26, 2013
With deja vu of last season's poor second half creeping in, Notre Dame got a sorely-needed win to get a weekend split with Ferris State. Like last year's five-game February losing streak that dropped Notre Dame out of the NCAA picture, the Irish had lost five in a row -- the last three home -- coming into this game. But goals by Mario Lucia and T.J. Tynan in the third period capped a strong night. Notre Dame actually played pretty well in Friday's loss, too, but didn't have anything to show for it as Ferris State won a tight game. Freshman Charles Williams got just his second start of the season for the Bulldogs, with C.J. Motte taking the night off. FSU has been a very streaky team this season -- this loss snapped a four-game winning streak.
The strange thing is, Notre Dame has been getting off to good starts. Friday was the fourth straight game it lost after scoring the first goal. "We've got to be better, it's plain and simple," Jackson told the South Bend Tribune after Friday's loss. "The thing that's most disturbing to me is, we're a better team than being in a five-game losing streak. ... It's just not acceptable. We've had great crowds, the band has been awesome. It wasn't for a lack of chances, though. We had scoring chances, and we didn't finish."
Saturday, the team finally got some big goals, even after scoring first again, then falling behind 2-1. “We really needed to respond tonight,” Jackson said. "I was getting into their wheelhouse during one of the time outs in the second period. We were turning the puck over too much. We did a good job early in the game and then we started turning it over. That’s when the momentum changed back in their favor.” Thomas Gerths scored to tie it, then senior Kevin Nugent got the first goal of his career in his 64th game.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Alaska-Fairbanks 2, Notre Dame 1 - Saturday, January 19, 2013
Alaska jumped to fifth this weekend with a huge sweep in South Bend, which followed two wins last week at Michigan. The team did not go home in between. In the ever-tightening CCHA race, Notre Dame clings to a first-place tie now with WMU, while Alaska is just five points back. Friday, the Nanooks won the game with just three seconds left in regulation, with Jarret Granberg scoring his second goal of the period to cap a wild back-and-forth affair. Things were much tighter Saturday, with the teams combining for just 37 shots. But the Nanooks took advantage of a five-minute major power play, getting both of their goals on it, from Nik Yaremchuk and Tyler Morley -- after Thomas DiPauli was ejected for a hit from behind. That was late in the first period and it stayed that way the rest of the way.
The four-game skid is the longest for Notre Dame since a five-game streak from Feb. 4 to Feb. 18 last season. The Irish are now 1-5-0 in January and have now finished their run of six games in the last 12 days since Jan. 8. Notre Dame must be having nightmares right now of last year's second half swoon, when it fell from high in the Pairwise in January to out of the NCAAs by selection time. Who knows if there's any correlation between the two, and there's still plenty of time here to snap out of this funk, but it's still hard not to be reminded of it. But the Irish have some guys banged up, and plenty to still be confident about. “We’ll have a day off tomorrow (Sunday) and then a good week of practice,” Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson said. "Rest and back into a normal routine with school and practice. Then we just have to wait to get some guys healthy and hopefully we can get that chemistry back. That’s what I am expecting.”
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Notre Dame 5, Michigan State 1 - Saturday, December 8, 2012
Steven Summerhays made 29 save and five different players scored, including the 11th of the season for Anders Lee, as Notre Dame took care of business with a sweep this weekend of the struggling Spartans. It was the fifth win in a row for the Irish. “I thought Michigan State had more energy than us in the early part of the game,” said Notre Dame head coach Jeff Jackson. “I think (Friday) night took a lot out of both teams. It was an emotional game. It’s always that way on Saturday night, it’s a different game because they (the players) expend so much energy on Friday and there isn’t quite as much left on Saturday.”
Jackson said that getting scoring from all four lines was a great sign. “The years that we have had success here have been when we’ve had depth,” said Jackson. “That’s important to get those contributions from others. There are nights when T.J. Tynan isn’t going to score or Anders Lee isn’t going to score. So, if you get contributions from David Gerths or Steven Fogarty or whoever, it’s a bonus for us.”
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Notre Dame 3, Northern Michigan 2 - Saturday, October 27, 2012
After a sweep to open the CCHA schedule, Notre Dame is 5-1 and rolling along so far. Mike Johnson got his first start of the season and came away with the win. If the goaltending, along with Steve Summerhays, can continue like this, Notre Dame is in great shape. What's most impressive is how they're spreading around the offense so far. Sure, T.J. Tynan and Anders Lee are at the top of the the Irish's scoring list, but no player on the team has more than two goals, yet they've scored quite a lot overall.
Notre Dame 4, Bowling Green 3 - Saturday, March 16, 2013
No Cinderella run for Bowling Green this year, though the Falcons gave Notre Dame everything it could handle in this series. Bryan Rust, who had the OT game winner Friday, scored twice, including a crucial penalty shot in the third period. Also, Nick Larson and Anders Lee scored solo goals to lead Notre Dame. The Irish are unbeaten in seven, and after a lot of tumult, look to have finally secured an NCAA bid. After going to overtime in Friday’s game, Notre Dame scored twice in the first period to build a 2-0 lead. “I thought we came out really well, put pressure on them and we were moving the puck out of our zone real well,” said Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson. “They (Bowling Green) are a good forechecking team and a good offensive zone team. We did a nice job against them in the early stages of the game and then a couple of penalties changed things in the second period.”
Bowling Green battled back for a 2-2 tie into the third, but during a penalty kill, were called for a penalty for closing a hand on the puck in the crease. Notre Dame could've opted for a 5-on-3 or penalty shot, but took the penalty shot, and Jackson chose Rust. “I figured Rusty is pretty good and we would still have the power play," Jackson said. "I had a couple of candidates to take the shot. I chose him (Rust) because I watch him every Thursday after practice and seen how he has performed in the shootouts.” ... Said Rust: “The backhand has been my move. I have a lot of confidence in it and I knew if I got a good enough first move in that I could pull it back to my backhand and get a good enough shot off.”
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