Feb. 6, 2013
Notre Dame, Ind. –
– The Teams: #12/#11 Notre Dame (16-11-1/12-7-1-1) vs. Michigan (10-16-2/7-13-2-2)
– The Games: Friday, February 8, 2013 – Compton Family Ice Arena (5,022) – 7:38 p.m.
Saturday, February 9, 2013 – Compton Family Ice Arena (5,022) – 7:08 p.m.
– Broadcast Information: Radio: Notre Dame’s series versus the University of Michigan will be broadcast live on Real Country 99.9 FM in South Bend. Darin Pritchett, the voice of the Irish, will call the action. Television: Friday’s game will be televised live by the CBS Sports Network with Ben Holden, Dave Starman and Shireen Saski calling the action. On Saturday, Comcast will handle the broadcast with Ben Holden and Sean Ritchlin calling the shots.
– Internet: Audio/Video: Live audio streaming for the Michigan series is available on the Notre Dame website at UND.com free of charge. There will be no video streaming since both games will be televised. Statistics: Livestats can be found at GameTracker, ccha.com or collegehockeyinc.com.Twitter: Follow Irish hockey on Twitter at ND_hockey.
WHITE OUT NIGHT: Notre Dame will host its only home hockey games for the month of February when the Michigan Wolverines visit the Compton Family Ice Arena on Fri.-Sat., Feb. 8-9 for a weekend series versus the Irish. Friday’s game has a 7:38 p.m. start time and will be televised by CBS Sports Network. Ben Holden, Dave Starman and Shireen Saski will provide the play-by-play and commentary. On Saturday night, the two teams will battle at 7:08 p.m. in front of a Comcast TV audience with Ben Holden and Sean Ritchlin calling the action. The game can be seen locally on South Bend’s Comcast Channel 3. On Friday night, Notre Dame will hold its annual “White Out Night,” with fans receiving white, long sleeve t-shirts and pom-pons when entering the building. The Irish enter the game with a 16-11-1 record and a 12-7-1-1 mark in the CCHA, good for 38 points in the standings. They are coming off an 0-1-1 weekend at Ohio State with a 6-3 loss on Friday to the Buckeyes and a 2-2 overtime tie on Saturday. Notre Dame picked up the extra point in the shootout with a 1-0 victory. Michigan enters the weekend with a 10-16-2 overall record and is 7-13-2-2 in league play. The Wolverines are coming off a sweep of Michigan State last weekend with a 3-2 win at home on Friday and a 5-2 win at Joe Louis Arena on Saturday. Michigan has 25 points and is tied for eighth with Bowling Green in the standings.
IRISH VERSUS WOLVERINES: Michigan is Notre Dame’s oldest rival as the two teams first met during the 1921-22 season and have played each other 132 times. The Wolverines come into this weekend’s series at the Compton Family Ice Arena with a 74-53-5 lead in the all-time series. At Ann Arbor, Michigan is 42-25-3 versus the Irish while at South Bend, Notre Dame has a 24-23-2 advantage. The Wolverines also have a big edge in games on neutral ice as they are 9-4-0 versus the Irish. The two teams met in November with Notre Dame getting its first sweep at Yost Arena since Feb. 3-4, 1978, taking 3-1 and 4-1 victories. The teams have split the last six games (3-3-0) going back to the start of the 2011-12 season. Since Jeff Jackson took over as coach at Notre Dame in 2005-06, the Irish are 12-12-0 versus Michigan. The last time the Irish beat Michigan at home came on Jan. 20, 2012, a 3-1 win. The last time the Wolverines won at Notre Dame came the following night, Jan. 21, 2012, a 2-1 victory.
THE STRETCH DRIVE: The race for the top six spots and the CCHA regular-season title gets interesting with eight games left to play. Here are the points and games played totals for the top six teams heading into games that will be played this weekend.
PTS GP1. Miami 44 202. Western Michigan 43 203. Notre Dame 38 204. Ferris State 36 225. Ohio State 35 206. Alaska 34 22
Key games this weekend: Michigan at Notre Dame, Miami travels to Western Michigan, Ferris State is at Northern Michigan and Ohio State visits Alaska.
NEXT FOR THE IRISH: The Irish are back on the road next weekend for a pair of games with the Miami RedHawks. Notre Dame travels to Oxford, Ohio for a 7:35 p.m. game on Feb. 15. That game will be televised by CBS Sports Network. The two teams will then travel to Chicago, Ill., to participate in the OfficeMax Hockey City Classic at Soldier Field on Sunday, Feb. 17. The Irish and RedHawks will play outdoors at 12:05 p.m. (CT) in a game that will be televised by Fox Sports Detroit.
RANKINGS: Notre Dame enters the weekend series with Michigan ranked 12th in the USAToday/U.S. Hockey Magazine poll. The Irish are tied for 11th with Minnesota State in the USCHO.com poll.
OHIO STATE RECAP: Friday, Feb. 1 – Power plays were the name of the game in the Feb. 1, 6-3 win by Ohio State. The Buckeyes scored four of them on nine chances while the Irish had two in five and also scored with the teams playing four-on-four. Ryan Dzingel led the way for OSU with a pair of power-play tallies. Nick Oddo chipped in a goal and two assists while Alex Szczechura, Anthony Greco and Jason DaSilva also scored for Ohio State. Mario Lucia (Fr., Plymouth, Minn.), Kevin Lind (Jr., Homer Glen, Ill.) and Bryan Rust (Jr., Novi, Mich.) lit the lamp for Notre Dame. The Irish were out shot in the game by a 33-32 margin. Steven Summerhays (Jr., Anchorage, Alaska) played the first 40 minutes and made 20 saves. Mike Johnson (Sr., Verona, Wis.) played the third period (19:10) and had seven. Brady Hjelle had 29 stops in the Buckeye’s goal. The Irish scored the first goal of the game for the sixth consecutive contest when Lucia lit the lamp on the power play at 12:32 of the first period. Notre Dame is now 1-5-0 when scoring first in those six games. The Buckeyes exploded for five goals in the second period, the most surrendered by the Irish in a period this season, as were the six in the game. Four of them came via the power play with three on a five-minute major penalty to start the stanza after Mike Voran (Jr., Livonia, Mich.) was called for hitting from behind at 19:50 of the first period to take a 3-1 lead. The Irish managed to battle back on goals by Lind and Rust to make it 3-3 with just eight minutes gone in the second, but the Buckeyes would add two more as Greco made it 4-3 and Dzingel added his second of the period to give Ohio State the 5-3 lead after two periods. An empty-net goal with 50 seconds left closed the scoring in the 6-3 win by the Buckeyes.
Saturday, Feb. 2 – Anders Lee (Jr., Edina, Minn.) scored the lone goal of the shootout and goaltender Mike Johnson stopped all four Ohio State shots as Notre Dame took the extra shootout point in the 2-2 overtime tie at Value City Arena. The shootout was the first of the season for the Irish and the second for Ohio State. Notre Dame got regulation goals from Thomas DiPauli (Fr., Woodridge, Ill.) and Sam Calabrese (Sr., Park Ridge, Ill.) while the Buckeyes scored a short-handed goal by Darik Angeli and a power-play goal by Craig Dalrymple. Notre Dame peppered Ohio State goaltender Brady Hjelle with a season-high 47 shots on goal and the senior stopped 45 of them. In the shootout, he stopped the first three shots he faced before giving up a wrist shot by Lee through his pads. Johnson faced 22 shots in the game and made 20 saves for his third win of the season. In the shootout, he stopped all four Buckeye shots on goal. Ohio State opened the scoring at 11:11 with a short-handed goal by Angeli. With the Irish on a power play, Ohio State’s Sam Jardine hit Angeli with a long pass behind the Notre Dame defense. Angeli used a teammate as a decoy on the two-on-one, whipping a wrist shot from the left face-off dot past Johnson for his second goal of the year. The Irish got the equalizer with just 6.7 seconds left in the first when DiPauli poked a loose puck through Hjelle’s pads to tie the game with his fifth goal of the season. Notre Dame took a 2-1 lead at 11:22 of the second when Calabrese saw his shot from the right circle hit an Ohio State defenseman in front and deflect past Hjelle for the senior defenseman’s first goal of the season. The Buckeyes tied the game on a 5-on-3 power play when Dalrymple moved in from the left point and took a pass from Tanner Fritz to hammer a shot from the left circle over Johnson’s stick hand to make it 2-2. The goal was Dalrymple’s second of the year. That was it for the scoring until the shootout.
SHOOTOUTS: Notre Dame’s shootout win versus Ohio State on Saturday, Feb. 2, marked the first shootout of the season for the Irish and the first since Nov. 22, 2011, one that they lost 2-0 at Western Michigan. Notre Dame had not won a shootout since Jan. 29, 2011 when the Irish defeated Miami, 1-0, behind a goal from T.J. Tynan (Jr., Orland Park, Ill.). The Irish were 0-3 in the shootout during the 2012-13 season. Since the shootout started in 2008-09, Notre Dame is 8-9 in 17 games that have gone to a shootout.
THE LAST TIME: Notre Dame surrendered four power-play goals in nine chances in the opening game of the Ohio State series on Feb. 1. The last time the Irish gave up four power-play goals in one game came on March 11, 2005 when they surrendered four to Michigan in a 10-1 loss at Yost Arena in the first game of a CCHA playoff series. The last time that Notre Dame gave up six goals in a game was on Jan. 27, 2012 in a 6-3 loss at Alaska.
RARE SWEEP: Notre Dame’s back-to-back wins at Michigan on Nov. 15-16 marked just the fourth all-time sweep for the Irish at Yost Arena in the program’s history. The last time that Notre Dame won a series at Michigan came on Feb. 3-4, 1978 when the two teams were members of the WCHA, 35 seasons ago. The previous sweeps came in 1970-71, 1972-73 and 1977-78. Only once in the program’s 45-year history have the Irish swept a four-game series with Michigan. That came in the 1972-73 campaign when the Irish won twice at the Joyce Center (5-2 and 8-5) and twice at Yost Arena (3-2 and 4-3).
SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES: When Notre Dame swept Michigan in the 1977-78 season, two members of that team were forward Kevin Nugent, Sr. `78 and defenseman Don Lucia `81. It would take 35 seasons for the Irish to duplicate the sweep feat at Yost Arena and again the Notre Dame roster had a Nugent and a Lucia on it. Senior forward Kevin Nugent, Jr. (New Canaan, Conn.) and freshman forward Mario Lucia were members of this year’s team with Lucia scoring a goal in the victory.
THE OTHER GUY: Senior goaltender Mike Johnson saw action in both games of the series at Ohio State, playing the third period (19:10) of the 6-3 loss to the Buckeyes and then the entire game in the 2-2 tie on Saturday. Friday’s appearance was his first since Jan. 15 when he dropped a 4-2 decision at Bowling Green. Johnson stopped all seven shots he faced in Friday’s game at OSU, then made 20 saves in 64:53 minutes in Saturday’s start, giving up just a short-handed goal and a 5-on-3 power-play tally in the 2-2 game. In the shootout, he stopped all four Buckeye shots to help the Irish take the 1-0 shootout victory. The Verona, Wis., native is now 2-1-1 with a 2.28 goals-against average and a .912 save percentage. For his career, he has appeared in 96 games, making 89 starts and is 41-34-13 with a 2.62 goals-against average and a .901 save percentage with two shutouts. His 41 wins make him just one of seven Notre Dame goaltenders to win 40 or more games in his career.
SHIRT OFF THEIR BACKS: During the weekend of Jan. 25-26, the Notre Dame hockey team wore special jerseys that were then auctioned on the Notre Dame website at UND.com to raise money for Defending The Blue Line, an organization that helps kids in military families stay in the game of hockey despite the significant family stresses brought about by additional training and deployment requirements. The fundraising effort was spearheaded by senior left wing Nick Larson (Apple Valley, Minn.) and included silent auctions at each game and fan donations. The online auction ran through January 31 and the totals are in for the weekend. The event raised over $28,000 dollars and that included the silent auction and monetary donations of $12,500. The top selling jersey was one worn by Jeff Costello (Jr., Milwaukee, Wis.) that went for $970. He was followed by Mario Lucia ($920) and Anders Lee ($620). Larson’s jersey also was among the top sellers as it went for $520.
M IS FOR MOVEMBER: In November, the Notre Dame hockey team participated in another fundraising effort as they all grew, or “attempted” to grow mustaches in order to raise awareness and funds for men’s health, specifically prostate and testicular cancer inititiaves. This effort was led by junior defenseman Stephen Johns (Wampum, Pa.). Fans, friends and family had the opportunity to make donations in the name of their favorite player and his mustache. The Irish hockey team raised $4,400 in this charity event.
WORK HORSE: Dating back to last Feb. 24, Irish goaltender Steven Summerhays has played in 30 of the last 35 games, making 29 starts. During those 30 games, Summerhays is 17-12-0 with a 1.84 goals-against average, a .932 save percentage and five shutouts. His shutout win versus Western Michigan (4-0) on Nov. 4 was the 20th win of his Notre Dame career. He is now 29-22-1 for his career with a 2.32 goals-against average and a .908 save percentage. This season, Summerhays is second in the CCHA in wins (14) and is fifth in goals-against average (1.96). He is eighth in save percentage (.921) and tied for the league lead with three shutouts.
MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME: Freshman left wing Mario Lucia continues his strong rookie season as he recorded a power-play goal in Friday’s 6-3 loss at Ohio State (Feb. 1). After missing the first nine games of the season with a broken leg, Lucia now has nine goals and eight assists for 17 points in 19 games. His nine goals are second on the team and his four power-play goals tie him for the team lead in that category. Lucia has points in five of his last six games (4-3-7) since Jan. 18. He was named the CCHA Rookie of the Week twice in December and was the Rookie of the Month for December.
SCORING FIRST: Notre Dame has scored the first goal of the game in 19 of its first 28 contests this season and is now 14-5-0 in those games. The Irish scored the first goal in six consecutive games between Jan. 15 and Feb. 1 but were just 1-5-0 in those games. When they don’t light the lamp first, the Irish are just 2-6-1 in those games.
RUST NEVER SLEEPS: Junior right wing Bryan Rust is off to the best start of his Notre Dame career. In 28 games this season, Rust ranks third in scoring with 19 points on seven goals and 12 assists. He has three power-play goals and three of his goals have been game winners. Rust leads the team with a +14 rating and he is second on the team with 79 shots on goal. His seven goals are a career high and his 19 points equal a career best. The power plays and game winners are also career highs. As a sophomore, Rust had five goals and six assist for 11 points. His best season was his freshman campaign when he had six goals and 13 assists for 19 points.
HELPING HAND: Senior defenseman Sam Calabrese (Park Ridge, Ill.) set a career high in assists when he picked up his 14th of the year on Mario Lucia’s first-period, power-play goal in the 6-3 loss at Ohio State. He then scored his first goal of the season (a power-play goal) in the 2-2 tie with the Buckeyes on Saturday. For the year, Calabrese has one goal and 14 assists for 15 points and is second among Irish defensemen in scoring. For his career, the lone senior on the Notre Dame defense now has 10 goals and 39 assists for 49 points in 113 career games. SHORT-HANDED: The Irish opened up the January portion of the schedule giving up just one power-play goal in 22 chances over the first four games of the month. Since then, over the last six games, Notre Dame has given up 10 power-play goals in 26 chances for a .615 success rate. For the season, the Irish are 100-for-118 for an .847 penalty-killing success rate. That ranks Notre Dame sixth in the CCHA and 15th in the nation on the penalty kill.
SHOOTING THE BISCUIT: The Irish fired a season-high 47 shots at Ohio State netminder Brady Hjelle on Feb. 2 with Hjelle making 45 stops. The previous high was 41 and came on Nov. 24 versus North Dakota. Hjelle’s 45 saves were the most by an opposing goaltender since Northern Michigan’s Reid Ellingson had 44 in a 1-1 tie on November 5, 2011. Through the first 28 games this season, Notre Dame has out shot the opposition in 21 of them and recorded 30 or more shots 19 times. The Irish are averaging 31.5 shots per game to 25.1 by their opponents. They are 12-6-1 when getting 30 or more shots in a game and 13-7-1 when out shooting them in all games.
BACK IN THE LINEUP: Junior left wing Mike Voran (Livonia, Mich.) returned to the lineup at Ohio State after missing four games with an injury suffered on Jan. 15 at Bowling Green. He recorded one assist in each game of the series against the Buckeyes.
PENALTY SHOT: Junior center Anders Lee was awarded a penalty shot in the 5-2 win over Ferris State. He was pulled down by defenseman Simon Denis at 6:45 of the second period. His shot was stopped by goaltender Charles Williams. For Notre Dame, Lee’s penalty shot was the first in the Compton Family Ice Arena since Nov. 11, 2011 when Riley Sheahan was awarded one and scored on the shot in a 5-4 win over Alaska. There have now been three penalty shots at the Compton Family Ice Arena since it opened in Oct. of 2011. Boston College’s Chris Kreider scored on the second one on Nov. 18, 2011 in a 3-2 Notre Dame overtime win.
SUSPENDED: Junior defenseman Jared Beers (Mishawaka, Ind.) has been suspended from the Notre Dame hockey team indefinitely due to an off-ice incident that occurred on Sunday, Feb. 3. Beers has played in eight games this season with no points, two minutes in penalties and is -1 for the year.
FIRST TIME: It took 64 games but senior right wing Kevin Nugent made the most of his first career goal when he scored the game winner in Notre Dame’s 5-2 win over Ferris State on Jan. 26. He also added an assist in the game for the first multiple-point game of his career. His goal at 14:49 of the second period snapped a 2-2 tie on the way to the win. Nugent now has a goal and three assists for four points, all career highs. One of three Notre Dame players to follow his father to Notre Dame, Kevin’s father, Kevin Nugent `78 played from 1974-78 for the Irish and had 54 goals and 75 assists for 129 career points.
LEAGUE LEADER: Junior center Anders Lee scored his 14th goal of the season in the 3-1 loss to Ferris State on Jan. 25. He is tied for the lead in the CCHA (along with Kyle Bonis of Ferris State) in that category and is tied for fourth in points with 24 (14g, 10a). Nationally, his 14 goals tie him for eighth in the country in goal scoring and he is four behind St. Lawrence’s Greg Carey who leads the nation with 18 goals.
FOUR STRAIGHT: Notre Dame’s most recent four-game home stand (Jan. 18-Jan. 26 versus Alaska and Ferris State) was played to four standing room sellout crowds of 5,022. Through 14 home games this season, the Irish have had seven standing-room sellouts. In the two seasons that the Compton Family Ice Arena has been open, the Irish have had 33 home games with 18 of them being sellouts of 5,022.
SHARING THE WEALTH: Through the first 28 games of the season, the Irish have been good at spreading the scoring around. In those games, 17 different Notre Dame players have scored the team’s 79 goals with Anders Lee leading the way with 14. Mario Lucia is next with nine goals. Nineteen of the team’s 22 skaters have scored at least one point with Lee leading the way with 24 points while T.J. Tynan follows with 23. Nine different players have scored game-winning goals for the Irish with Tynan and Bryan Rust leading the way with three.
SWEPT AWAY: The two losses at home to Alaska (Jan. 18-19) marked the first time that the Irish have been swept at the Compton Family Ice Arena since Dec. 2-3, 2011 when Northeastern took 9-2 and 2-1 wins over the Irish. The last time the Nanooks swept Notre Dame in South Bend came on March 3-4, 2006, when they won both games of a first-round playoff series against the Irish.
HUMANITARIAN AWARD: Junior goaltender Mike Johnson has been selected as one of 11 nominees for the BNY Mellon Wealth Management College Hockey Humanitarian Award. The award honors college hockey’s top citizen and will be presented during the Frozen Four in Pittsburgh, Pa., on April 12. Johnson has been active in all the community service projects that the Notre Dame hockey team has been involved in during his four seasons at Notre Dame. As a senior in 2012-13, he oversees the team’s community service efforts and is in his second season as one of the hockey team’s liaisons to Notre Dame’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). This past summer and through the first half of this season, he participated in the Irish Experience Camp. The camp works with disadvantaged kids, teaching them to set goals and how to work towards them. As a junior, he was a member of Life Work’s Dream Teams that visited area schools, serving as mentors to elementary school children. Throughout his career at Notre Dame, Mike has been active in the Irish Youth Hockey League (IYHL), working with local youth hockey groups, teaching and helping grow the game in the local area. He has participated in team activities like the Junior Diabetes Walk, the Buddy Walk for kids with Downs Syndrome and has participated in Habitat for Humanity.
HOBEY HOPEFULS: Three members of the Notre Dame roster are under consideration for the Hobey Baker Award. Centers Anders Lee and T.J. Tynan along with goaltender Steven Summerhays are among the 78 players listed on the Hobey Baker voting website. Fans can vote for their top players at hobeybakeraward.com, now through March 10. From there, a top 10 list will be announced. That list will be paired to the Hobey Hat Trick of three finalists on April 3 with the winner announced on April 12 at the NCAA Frozen Four in Pittsburgh, Pa.
INTO THE TOP 10: Junior center T.J. Tynan scored his fifth career short-handed goal in the Jan. 18 loss to Alaska. The goal moved the speedy center iceman into a tie for 10th on Notre Dame’s all-time short-handed goals list.
THE PUCK STOPS HERE: Notre Dame junior goaltender Steven Summerhays made 30 saves in the Jan. 11, 1-0 win, over Michigan State to record his third shutout of the season and the fifth of his career. He is the first Irish goaltender to record three shutouts in one season since Jordan Pearce `09 had eight in the 2008-09 season. Summerhays has recorded all five of his shutouts in his last 29 starts, dating back to Feb. 24 of last season. His first career shutout came versus Michigan State, a 2-0, 25-save performance on that date.
CAREER YEAR: Sophomore defenseman Robbie Russo (Westmont, Ill.) now has career highs in goals (5), assists (13), points (18) and power-play goals (4) this season and he has done it in just 28 games. As a freshman, Russo had four goals and 11 assists for 15 points in 40 games. He is tied for the lead among CCHA defensemen (along with Michigan’s Jacob Trouba) in scoring this season with his 18 points. His four power-play goals tie him for tops on the team.
CAREER YEAR II: Junior defenseman Stephen Johns picked up his career-high 12th assist in the 6-3 loss at Ohio State. With a goal and 12 assists, he has equaled his career high in points (13) that he set as a freshman in 2010-11 (2g, 11a). Last season, he had a career high with four goals in the goal-scoring department.