The Irish and Wolverines play for the second time this season
Now that the football team has taken care of business it is time for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish hockey team to do the same. This weekend the Irish will be at home for their second series of the season against the Michigan Wolverines. Notre Dame enters this series after splitting with Penn State last weekend. Michigan also comes in off a split last weekend but the Wolverines are ranked #9 in the country, far ahead of the Irish. Both teams played a single game outdoors last weekend at Wrigley Field with mixed results.
Where, When, How to Watch
- Where: Compton Family Ice Arena, Notre Dame, IN
- When: Friday, January 10, 7pm ET; Saturday, January 11, 6pm ET
- How to Watch: Both games streaming on Peacock
Last weekend Notre Dame could not take advantage of playing at home against the Big Ten bottom dwellers in Penn State. The Irish and Nittany Lions split both games with the Irish win coming in overtime at Wrigley while the game at home indoors was a loss.
Notre Dame returns two key players this weekend in sophomores Danny Nelson and Paul Fischer. Both are back in action for the Irish after winning gold medals with the United States at the World Junior Championships. Nelson has been a large part of the Irish offense this season, sitting fourth on the team with 13 points and leading the team with 8 goals. He will be looking to step right back into things with offensive leaders Cole Knuble and Justin Janicke to help the Irish step up on offense. Fischer meanwhile is a do everything defender that the Irish blue line certainly missed while he was away.
In net, expect the Irish to continue splitting time between Nicholas Kempf and Owen Say. Kempf earned the win on Friday last weekend in the shootout and has played his way to an even level statistically with Say, who started the year hot and looked to take control of the net before stumbling a bit at the end of last semester. Kempf is a freshman from the USNTDP and has begun to settle in to the point where he certainly looks like the goaltender of the future for Notre Dame (and a possible World Juniors participant next year). He will be looking to finish out the season strong and set himself up for next season in the Irish net.
Michigan is currently ranked #9 in the country but is just one place (and 9 points) ahead of Notre Dame in the Big Ten. Earlier this season these two teams played in Ann Arbor, with Michigan winning both games in the middle of what was a 7 game winless streak for Notre Dame. The first game was tightly contested and went to overtime before the Wolverines found the 2-1 winner, the second game was won by Michigan 4-2 with one of those goals being an empty netter. Given they were on the road the two games were rather evenly matched up.
Prediction
After the two games last semester were close throughout, and considering they now play at home, Notre Dame has a chance to flip the script this weekend. It is a tall task to beat the #9 team in the country twice in a single weekend but Notre Dame can and should split this series at a minimum.