Steven Summerhays how has a personal-best shutout streak of 190:19 over a four-game period that includes two full shutouts and one shared shutout.

Steven Summerhays Named Hockey East Co-Defensive Player Of The Week

Feb. 24, 2014

Notre Dame, Ind. – For the second week in a row, Notre Dame senior goaltender Steven Summerhays (Anchorage, Alaska) has been selected as the Hockey East Defensive Player of the Week, this week sharing the honor with UMass.-Lowell goaltender Doug Carr.

For the week ending Feb. 23, Summerhays was 2-0-0, gaining his seventh shutout of the season, 2-0 versus Boston University on Feb. 21 and then sharing a shutout with fellow senior Joe Rogers (Marysville, Mich.) in a 2-0 win over the Terriers on Feb. 22. He stopped all 40 shots he faced in the two-game series.

Summerhays has now not given up a goal since the third period of a 2-2 tie on Feb. 14 at Providence College and has helped Notre Dame to three consecutive shutouts as a team, a first in the 46-year history of the program. His current shutout streak stands at 190:19 and is just 3:08 off the school record of 193:27, set by David Brown `07, between Oct. 17-Nov. 7, 2003, when Brown had three consecutive shutouts.

On the year, Summerhays now has seven shutouts to his credit and shares an eighth with Rogers. The senior goaltender now leads the nation with seven shutouts. He has 13 in his career at Notre Dame and is now the school’s all-time shutout leader, passing David Brown and Jordan Pearce `09.

In Friday’s 2-0 defensive struggle, Summerhays stopped all 19 shots he faced against the Terriers and got goals from Austin Wuthrich (Jr., Anchorage, Alaska) and Stephen Johns (Sr., Wampum, Pa.) for the win. The shutout was his second in a row (started streak with 3-0 blanking of Providence College on Feb. 15) and improved his personal scoreless streak to 131:11.

On Saturday night, Notre Dame’s Senior Night, the 6-0, 190-pound puck stopper was at it again with his mother, Angela, and brother, Jeff, in attendance, Summerhays was on his way to a third straight shutout in three games, something that had never happened for the Irish or one goaltender in that many games.

Through two periods, the score remained tied at 0-0. Just 19 seconds into the third, Jeff Costello’s (Sr., Milwaukee, Wis.) scored on a power-play goal to make it 1-0. The score remained that way until the 17:29 mark when Wuthrich scored his second on the weekend to make it 2-0.

From there the Irish worked on getting Summerhays his eighth shutout of the year that would tie a Notre Dame single-season record.

Boston University was assessed a penalty at 19:08 of the third period and at that point, Summerhays skated to the bench and asked head coach Jeff Jackson to put his teammate and fellow senior, Rogers, into the game on Senior Night. Jackson did and Rogers closed out the game. By taking himself out of the game, Summerhays did not get credit for the shutout, but will share one with Rogers.

Jackson credited his senior goaltender for making the classy gesture late in the game.

“That was big of Steven to come over,” said Jackson.

“I had talked about it to him earlier in the week wanting to get Joey (Rogers) into the game. With the break (the penalty call), he came over and reminded me. For him to give up that chance at another shutout by himself shows you what kind of kid he is in that senior class.”

“I think coach was thinking the same thing when I went over but he didn’t know there was a penalty coming,” said Summerhays.

“Once we scored that second goal, I wanted to give Joe a chance. So I skated over and told coach that I wanted Joe to finish the game.”

Summerhays is currently 17-11-2 on the season with a 1.90 goals-against average and a .929 save percentage to go with his seven shutouts. He leads Hockey East in wins (17), shutouts (7) and minutes played (1,795:35) while he is fourth in goals-against average (1.90) and sixth in save percentage (.929)

The victory gives Notre Dame a 19-12-2 overall record and an 8-9-2 mark in Hockey East. The Irish have 18 points in the league standings and go into the final weekend of the season in a tie for seventh with Vermont.

Notre Dame closes the regular season schedule with a 4:00 p.m. game against Boston College on Saturday, March 1 at BC’s Kelley Rink at Conte Forum.