Oct. 7, 2006
Notre Dame, Ind. – Sophomore right wing Erik Condra score three goals – two short-handed – and freshman Dan Kissel scored a pair of goals to help Notre Dame get the 2006-07 season off to a fast start with a 9-0 exhibition game win over the University of Windsor on Friday night.
Garrett Regan, Dan VeNard, Ryan Thang and Justin White scored single goals for the Irish and goaltenders David Brown and Jordan Pearce combined for 12 saves in the shutout win. The exhibition game against Windsor is the lone preseason tune-up the Irish will have as they open the regular season next Thursday, Oct. 12 playing host to the University of Minnesota. Game time at the Joyce Center is 7:35 p.m. Notre Dame then goes to Mankato, Minn., on Saturday, Oct. 14 to close out the home-and-home series with the Mavericks in a 7:05 p.m. (CST) contest.
Condra who led the team in scoring as a freshman in 2005-06 scored two first-period short-handed goals to give the Irish a 2-0 lead after the opening stanza. On both, he stripped the defenseman at the Notre Dame blue line and raced in on Lancer goaltender Reese Kalleitner. On his first, at 10:56 of the first, he deked to the right and went to his backhand, lifting the puck over Kalleitner’s stick for the 1-0 score.
Less than six minutes later, the speedy Condra again beat the Windsor point men to the puck and was off on a breakaway, this time snapping a wrist shot past the Windsor netminder for the 2-0 lead.
“I just got a bounce on both of them that went my way and then found myself on a breakaway,” said Condra.
“The first I kind of fumbled the puck and had to go to my back hand and got it up real quick and the second I just went in all alone.”
With plays like that, Condra could see more duty on the penalty-killing unit.
“Condra did a good job for us when I used him last year to kill,” said Irish coach Jeff Jackson. “But it wasn’t always the best combination with Josh Sciba. I thought he would be good with Kevin Deeth and he was. It was a good combination, but Condra will be one of our top penalty killers this year.”
The Irish would go on to break the game open in the second period scoring four times. Regan made it 3-0 at 5:07 when he banged the rebound of a Ryan Thang shot past Kallietner from the bottom of the left wing circle. Condra would close out his hat trick at 6:08 when he beat Kalleitner one-on-one in close after a nice set up from Deeth. Aggressive forechecking by the Deeth forced a turnover in the left wing corner. He then slid the puck through the defenders legs to Condra who sent Kalleitner to the bench with his third of the night.
Goaltender Jeff Cutter would fair no better as he was beaten just over two minutes later when VeNard snuck in from the right point and took a pass from Jason Paige who was parked behind the goal. VeNard tucked it under the cross bar at 8:24 and the Irish had a 5-0 lead.
Kissel closed the period with a power-play goal at 19:04 for his first of two man-advantage goals in the game. Paige found the freshman alone on the side of the net and he drilled it past Cutter for a 6-0 lead after two periods.
Thang would join the freshman scoring parade as his unassisted goal at 4:24 of the third made it 7-0. Justin White scored his first in an Irish uniform at 5:54 and Kissel’s power-play goal at 10:20 closed the scoring.
On the night, the five Notre Dame freshmen in the lineup combined for five points on three goals and two assists. Jackson was pleased with what he saw in his newest group of players.
“Tonight was about evaluation for me since we didn’t have an intrasquad game. I really wanted to see where the freshmen fell into the mix so I wanted to play them in every situation so I can evaluate them to see where they fit in with the upperclassmen,” said Jackson. “It was good for me to see some things tonight.”
He added, “When I took the job and talked to Andy (Slaggert) about things that are important in recruiting, number one is the ability to think the game, number two is being able to compete and obviously skating skills and skills of the sport and I like those attributes of our freshmen,” said Jackson.
“Kevin Deeth and Danny Kissel are not big guys, but they play big. Ryan Thang plays a physical game and all three of them are smart forwards. Both defensemen made extremely good decisions and plays with the puck. I saw a lot of positives tonight.”
On the evening, the Irish were 2-for-12 on the power play while Windsor was 0-for-6. Brown made eight saves in 40 minutes while Pearce had four in the final stanza as Notre Dame out shot the Lancers, 34-12 in the game. Kalleitner had 11 saves in 26:08, Cutter had 12 in 24:12 and Kevin Gabriele had two stops over the final 9:40 of the game.
Summary: 1 2 3 FWindsor (0-3-0) 0 0 0 0Notre Dame (1-0-0) 2 4 3 9
First Period: ND: Erik Condra (unassisted), SHG, 10:56; ND: Condra 2 (unassisted) SHG, 16:07.Penalties: UW: 2 for 4 minutes; ND: 5 for 10 minutes.
Second Period: ND: Garrett Regan (Ryan Thang, Brett Blatchford), 5:07; Condra 3 (Kevin Deeth), 6:08; ND: Dan VeNard (Jason Paige), 8:24; ND: Dan Kissel (Paige, Noah Babin), PPG, 19:08.Penalties: UW: 6 for 12 minutes; ND: 2 for 4 minutes.
Third Period: ND: Ryan Thang (unassisted), 4:54; ND: Justin White (Michael Bartlett, Tom Sawatske), 5:54; ND: Kissel 2 (Babin, Wes O'Neill), PPG, 10:20.Penalties: UW: 4 for 8 minutes; ND: 0 for 0 minutes.
Shots on Goal:Windsor 3 - 5 - 4 - 12Notre Dame: 11 - 12 - 11 - 34
Saves:Windsor: Reese Kalleitner (26:08) 9 - 2 - x - 11 Jeff Cutter (24:12) x - 6 - 6 - 12 Kris Gabriele (9:40) x - x - 2 - 2Notre Dame: David Brown (40:00) 3 - 5 - x - 8 Jordan Pearce (20:00) x - x - 4 - 4
Power Plays:Windsor: 0 for 6Notre Dame: 2 for 12
Attendance: 1.687