Minnesota (2-3-0) vs. No. 18 Notre Dame (3-1-2)
Location: Compton Family Ice Arena | South Bend, Ind.
Puck Drop: Friday – 7:35 p.m. CT | Saturday – 6:35 p.m. CT
TV: Friday – ASN | Saturday – NBC Sports Network
Stream: WatchUND.tv
Radio: 1500 ESPN, Gopher Radio Network
INSIDE THE MATCHUP
The Gophers hold a 26-14-3 all-time advantage in the series.
Minnesota made the trip to South Bend last year but beat UMD and RPI in the Ice Breaker Tournament without actually playing the Irish. The Gophers returned to Indiana less than a month later and swept the Irish, 5-0 and 4-2.
Minnesota holds a 5-0 National Championship advantage.
STORYLINE CENTRAL
Dan Colleran of UND.com details Notre Dame’s first appearance in the USCHO.com poll. Following their sweep of Connecticut, the Irish find themselves ranked 18th in the country.
Stuart Baron of USCHO has a recap of Notre Dame’s 8-2 domination of Connecticut. You’ll notice some familiar local names including Minnesotans Dylan Malmquist and Connor Hurley making plays for the Irish.
Don Lucia’s son, Mario, is a senior this year. Since it’s his last year, we can finally be done asking questions about what it’s like for Don to coach against his son. Until then, here’s a good story from Al Lesar of the South Bend Tribune about one of Notre Dame’s senior leaders.
NOTES AND QUOTES
Scouting the Irish
Notre Dame is off to a solid start this season. Coming off two ties with UMD and a sweep of UCONN, the Irish look ready to welcome the Gophers to South Bend. Over the bye week, Don Lucia was able to watch his son and Notre Dame in action.
“I went out Friday night late and got to watch the team Saturday in Hartford and Sunday in Brooklyn,” said Lucia. “[They’re a] good team. Better than last year’s team. I think they’re deeper up front throughout their lineup and they’re scoring more goals.”
The high-powered offense is something the Gophers have already taken note of.
“They have a lot of guys that can produce,” said Michael Brodzinski. “They have five guys on their team that have over a point per game. They have a lot of guys that can dominate and have to shut them down early.”
The Irish pose a big test for the young Minnesota squad.
“You take care of the puck,” said Lucia. “They counter very well. Their specialty teams have been strong. Both their power play numbers and penalty kill are the numbers you want them to be at…They’ve had goals from all four of their lines this year.”
As in years past, the Gophers expect a close, well-played series.
“These have been good games the last few years,” said Lucia. “They play the game the right way. I think playing these games have made our team better and it’ll be a good measuring stick for us because they’re off to a good start with a 3-1-2 record.”
Bye Week Lull
The Gophers are coming off an early season bye week before they face the Irish. The erratic schedule makes it difficult for a team with so many new pieces.
“I wish we would have played quite honestly,” said Lucia. “Sometimes you like a bye week but it would have been nice to continue to play games and keep with some rhythm because we’ve only had two weekends all year where we played back-to-back games.”
Minnesota has switched lines and personnel quite a bit this year. Playing games is the only way to really see what groups are working well together.
“I’d rather not have two open weekends the first half of the year,” said Lucia. “Continuity really won’t come until the second half of the season but we have so much room to grow there really isn’t an area of our game that we don’t need to work on. Some days we look pretty good, other days we don’t. That’s just trying to get guys to understand how we need to play, how we want to play with energy, with pace. Some of the young guys have to figure out how hard they need to play to be successful.”
After a slow start the season, Minnesota had plenty to work on over the off week.
“We’ve just being going hard every day in practice,” said Brodzinski. “There’s nothing much you can really do but control your effort and everybody on our team has had pretty good effort in practice.”