Notre Dame hockey moves past Wisconsin to set up showdown at Michigan
Jack Adams shouldn't have had much of a chance of scoring from where he shot the puck.
No. 7 Notre Dame's graduate student forward was nearly even with Wisconsin goaltender Jared Moe along the goal line and closer to the boards than Moe in net. Yet the shot Adams slung at Moe managed to sneak past the goalie on his wide side to give Notre Dame a 1-0 lead in the first period of Saturday's Game 3 finale of the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal at Notre Dame's Compton Family Ice Area.
Sixth-seeded Wisconsin (10-24-3) made it tough on third-seeded Notre Dame (27-10-0), but the Irish never relinquished that lead in a 4-2 victory.
“Anytime you lose the first game it is always a challenge,” said Notre Dame head coach Jeff Jackson. “It takes character to do it. Give Wisconsin their due, they made that a tough series on us. Our guys settled down going into the third … it calmed down and we played controlled.”
When junior forward Trevor Janicke, who made the game-winning goal in Game 2 Saturday, scored an empty net goal with 41.2 seconds remaining in regulation, Notre Dame secured a spot in the Big Ten semifinal at No. 5 Michigan on Saturday (6:30 p.m. EST on Big Ten Network).
Notre Dame led by two goals on three separate occasions, but it didn't stick until the closing seconds of the game. Sophomore forward Landon Slaggert gave Notre Dame its first two-goal lead when he scored on the power play (14:14) fewer than three minutes after Adams' opening goal. Slaggert gathered a pass from his older brother, Graham Slaggert, and knocked it past Moe.
Wisconsin scratched back to within one goal when Sam Strang whipped a shot over goaltender Matthew Galajda's left shoulder with 3:59 remaining in the first period.
Notre Dame and Wisconsin traded goals in the second period. Senior forward Jake Pivonka scored his first goal of the season for Notre Dame 1:55 into the period when he cut into an opening in the Wisconsin defense on a pass from junior forward Jesse Lansdell.
Wisconsin freshman Daniel Laatsch matched that with his first career goal at 15:22 in the period. The puck he slid from near the blue line managed to make its way past Galajda without being redirected in traffic.
A clean third period allowed the Irish to ice away its lead. Following a long stretch without a stoppage, only 6:11 was left in regulation when the media timeout created a short break. The Badgers pulled Moe out of net with 1:20 remaining but didn't manage a shot on goal before Janicke put the game out of reach with 51 seconds left.
A night after the two teams combined for 13 penalties, Notre Dame was only whistled for one Sunday. Notre Dame converted one of Wisconsin's three minor penalties into a power-play goal.
Galajda was steady for Notre Dame in net. He allowed a goal on only five shots in the first period, but he recovered to save 20 of the 21 remaining shots. Moe, who stopped 49 shots in Game 1, saved 29 on Sunday.
Second-seeded Michigan (27-9-1) advanced to the Big Ten semifinal round by beating Michigan State by a 12-1 margin in two games. The Irish were 4-0 against the Wolverines in the regular season with a pair of road victories in November and home victories in late February.
The winner of the one-game semifinal in Ann Arbor will advance to the one-game final on March 19 against first-seeded Minnesota (23-11-0) or fifth-seeded Penn State (17-19-1).
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