By John Fineran
Notre Dame tries to turn its Big Ten Conference hockey season around this Friday and Saturday nights at home against the nation’s hottest team, top-ranked Michigan State.
Winners of the last two league championships, the Spartans have won seven straight games since opening the season with a 4-3 loss to visiting New Hampshire on Oct. 9. Michigan State rebounded the next night with a 2-0 shutout victory and then swept top-ranked Boston University on the road Oct. 17-18. A non-conference sweep at Northern Michigan was followed by last weekend’s sweep at home against then third-ranked Penn State.
The Fighting Irish, meanwhile, are winless in their last five games. After a 2-2 overtime tie against Robert Morris on Oct. 25, Notre Dame has been swept by No. 2 Michigan and last weekend at Minnesota in its first four league contests.
Notre Dame will have its annual Military Appreciate Night Friday, with the first 1,500 fans receiving special camo hats. Following the singing of the national anthem, members of Notre Dame’s ROTC units will rappel from the Compton Family Ice Arena’s rafters to deliver the puck for a ceremonial faceoff before the game.
WHO: Michigan State Spartans (7-1-0, 2-0-0 Big Ten for 5 points) vs. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (3-6-1, 0-4-0 Big Ten for 1 point).
WHEN: Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 6 p.m.
WHERE: Charles W. “Lefty” Smith Rink in the Compton Family Ice Arena (4,852), South Bend, Ind.
TICKETS: Available.
LINEUPS: You can find the lineups for each team at fightingirish.com/HKYLineCharts.
RADIO: WZOC-FM (94.3) and UND.com (Tyler Reidy).
TV/STREAMING: Peacock (Conor Clingen and Steve Konroyd).
COACHES: Michigan State, Adam Nightingale (Michigan State, 2005), fourth season, 76-36-9. … Notre Dame, Brock Sheahan (Notre Dame, 2008), first season 3-6-1.
SPARTANS VS. IRISH: Michigan State leads 82-53-16 in the series which began with 3-1 Notre Dame victory on Jan. 18, 1922 at the Aggie Rink in East Lansing. … The Spartans have won the last six games in the series, starting with a 4-0 victory Feb. 3, 2024 at Compton, continuing with 8-3 and 4-3 victories at the Munn Ice Arena Nov. 15-16, 2024, a pair of 5-2 victories Feb. 28-March 1, 2025 at Compton and finally a 1-0 semifinal victory in the Big Ten Tournament at Munn last March 15.
LAST WEEKEND: Michigan State swept a two-game Big Ten series from visiting No. 3 Penn State, winning 2-1 on senior Tiernan Shoudy’s goal at 2:21 into overtime Friday night and 5-0 Saturday night behind 36 saves by junior All-America goaltender Trey Augustine (his third shutout of the season and ninth of his career) and two goals and two assists from senior center Charlie Stramel. For their efforts, Augustine was named the Big Ten First Star of the Week and Stramel earned Third Star of the Week honors. … Notre Dame saw its winless streak reach five games after dropping 3-0 and 4-1 decisions at Minnesota. Senior defenseman and co-captain Michael Mastrodomenico had the only goal for the Irish, tying Saturday’s game at 1-1. Sophomore goaltender Nicholas Kempf allowed five goals in the two games while making 31 saves in each.
RANKINGS: The Spartans are the unanimous No. 1 team in the latest USCHO.com media and USA Hockey/The Rink Live coaches polls. … Notre Dame is not receiving votes in either poll.
SCOUTING THE SPARTANS: When you talk about Michigan State, the conversation starts with junior All-America goaltender Trey Augustine. Already this season, Augustine has compiled a 6-1-0 record thanks to a 1.41 goals-against average, a saves percentage of .944 and three shutouts, including last Saturday’s 5-0 whitewash of Penn State. One of Augustine’s nine career shutouts was the 1-0 blanking of the Irish in last season’s Big Ten Tournament semifinals. … Senior captain Matt Basgall (2-5-7) leads an experienced blueline corps that includes classmate Travis Shoudy (0-2-2), juniors Maxim Štrbák (0-3-3) and Patrick Geary (1-2-3) and 6-foot-6 freshman Sean Barnhill (0-2-2). … Freshman right wing Porter Martone (4-7-11) leads the team in scoring and plays on the same line with two seniors – center center Charlie Stramel (5-5-10) and left wing Daniel Russell (1-6-7). … Other productive forwards are junior left wing Tommi Männistö (5-3-8); freshman right wing Anthony Romani (3-2-5), the sixth overall pick (by Philadelphia) in last summer’s NHL Draft; and senior center Tiernan Shoudy (3-4-7), the twin brother of defenseman Travis. … One of Augustine’s backup goaltenders is senior Dolan Gilbert who played at South Bend Saint Joseph and is the son of David Gilbert, Notre Dame’s assistant athletics director overseeing athletic facilities. NCAA statistics :Scoring offense, 3.75 goals per game (8th); scoring defense, 1.50 goals per game (3rd); scoring margin, 2.25 goals per game (3rd); power-play percentage, 0.192 (5 of 26) (29th); penalty-kill percentage, 0.872 (34 of 39) (11th); faceoff-win percentage, 0.493 (264-271) (36th); penalty minutes per game, 21.13 (3rd); shots per game, 38.50; shots allowed per game, 25.25; team blocked shots, 87 (56th).
SCOUTING THE FIGHTING IRISH: One of the bright spots of the season for Notre Dame continues to be sophomore goaltender Nicholas Kempf, who has seen his goals-against average for 10 games improve to 3.08 and his saves percentage improve to .901 despite a 3-6-1 record which includes a 3-0 shutout victory over St. Lawrence on Oct. 17. … The Irish continue to get good offensive production from their defensemen – junior Paul Fischer (2-6-8), senior Axel Kumlin (1-6-7), senior co-captain Michael Mastrodomenico (3-3-6) and junior Henry Nelson (2-2-4). … Grad center Sutter Muzzatti (6-3-9) continues to pace the team in scoring ahead of Fischer, junior right wing Evan Werner (3-4-7), junior left wing Brennan Ali (3-4-7), junior center Cole Knuble (2-5-7), Kumlin, junior center and co-captain Danny Nelson (3-3-6), Mastrodomenico, freshman forward Pano Fimis (1-5-6) and freshman left wing Cole Brown (1-5-6). … The Irish continue to shine on faceoffs led by Fimis (73-41, .640), Danny Nelson (99-79, .556), Muzzatti (77-67, .535), Knuble (32-28, .533). … Sophomore defenseman Jimmy Jurcev leads the team in blocked shots with 13 followed by Henry Nelson (11) and Fischer (10). … NCAA statistics: Scoring offense, 2.90 goals per game (34th); scoring defense, 3.30 goals per game (43rd); scoring margin, -0.40 goals per game (40th); power-play percentage, 0.281 (9 of 32) (8th); penalty-kill percentage, 0.854 (35 of 41) (17th); faceoff-win percentage, 0.565 (338-260) (3rd); penalty minutes per game, 16.50 (9th); shots per game, 32.00; shots allowed per game, 31.50; team blocked shots, 101.
WHAT BROCK SHEAHAN HAS TO SAY ABOUT …
(MSU goaltender Trey Augustine) “He’s obviously one of the best goaltenders in the country if not the best. … It means we have to spend time in their end; we have to create second-chance opportunities, we have to be good in transition to generate offense. … We just have to make it hard for him.”
(Last year’s 1-0 playoff loss at Michigan State) “It’s a different team. I think any of our guys who have been here for the last couple of years know a positive experience will give them confidence that they can do it. Regardless how the first four games have gone in conference, I think our group is learning that when we play to our style of play – playing the right way – we’re going to give ourselves the opportunity to win. It’s about us doing that all the time. Where we’ve struggled is we haven’t been able to do that consistently. You’re not going to have consistent results if you are not playing consistently well. That’s where we’ve had trouble. We’re playing one of the best teams in the country, if not the best. We have to be ready to play regardless. We have to get to our game as fast as possible and play it as much as possible.”
(Improving the offensive production) “We did not generate a ton on Friday at Minnesota. We probably played our worst game (of the season). We did generate a lot more on Saturday. My message to the guys is not about scoring, it’s playing the right way and generating enough (scoring opportunities). When we play to our capability, we generate. The goals will come over time.”
(What are some positive things you learned from last weekend) “I thought on Saturday, for around 50 minutes, we played a pretty good hockey game. As things got away from us, we got away from our game. It was nice to see us play in transition fast … support the puck, be connected, be quick to close and hard to play against in our own end, things that we didn’t do on Friday. It’s another opportunity … if we can continue to build off that game, I think we’ll see results come. That was encouraging. The discouraging things, 10 games in, is how inconsistent we’ve been with our game. Practice has been good this week, which has been a real positive. That’s what we’re aiming to do – play to our style of hockey every day, every shift, and we’re just not there yet. But I’m hopeful to see it this weekend.”
(What players have taken a step forward this season) “Brennan Ali has been really good all year. He is playing a power forward game; whatever line he’s on, he’s helping his linemates, driving the play and being good offensively and defensively. Maddox Fleming … has proven every day he can play for us. He has an offensive ability – it just hasn’t shown yet. I think Danny Nelson has played good hockey recently – it’s just not going in for him. He generated the most for us on the weekend again. Hopefully he can keep doing that. He’ll score over time if he keeps doing that. And then Nick Kempf has been really good.”
(What makes Michigan State such a difficult team to match up against) “They do a lot of what we’re trying to do. They play to their brand consistently – they play fast, they’re on top of you, they take away time and space, they have talent. There’s a reason why they’ve been so consistent. They know what their game is and they play to it all the time regardless to whom they are playing. It’s been very impressive. It’s going to be a very great challenge for us. I’m excited to see how we’ll do against them.”
NEXT UP: The Spartans return home to meet No. 7 Wisconsin Friday and Saturday nights. … The Irish are off next weekend and return to action in Massachusetts during Thanksgiving week to play at Hockey East Association rivals Merrimack (Wednesday, Nov. 26 at 2 p.m.) and Boston College (Friday, Nov. 28 at 1 p.m.).