March 9, 2007
Box Score
By Danny Martin, Staff Writer
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Published March 10, 2007
NOTRE DAME, Ind. -- The Notre Dame Fighting Irish hit Alaska like a hurricane, dropping the Nanooks 7-1 in Friday night's opener of a Central Collegiate Hockey Association best-of-three quarterfinal series.
The 11th-seeded Nanooks were in a 5-0 hole in the first period and trailed 7-0 in the third at the Joyce Center before they scored to avoid a second shutout this season against the Fighting Irish, who are the top seeds for the CCHA tournament and were No. 1 in three national rankings this week -- polls by U.S. College Hockey Online/College Sports Television and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine, and the Inside College Hockey.com Power Rankings.
Senior defenseman Nathan Fornataro scored for Alaska in the third period, but he and his teammates were stunned by Notre Dame's second five-goal outburst in one period this season against the Nanooks in the Joyce Center. The Fighting Irish scored five times in the second period of a 6-2 win over Alaska here on Dec. 3.
"It's definitely tough," Fornataro said. "They scored that first goal and that slows you down, and that kind of gets into your head; but they just kept coming and they kept going up (on the scoreboard). They were making great plays and putting the puck in the back of the net."
The Nanooks need to win tonight to stave off elimination and force a third and deciding game on Sunday. Each of the league's four quarterfinal winners advance to the CCHA Championship Tournament on March 16-17 at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
"You can't dwell on a 7-1 loss," said Alaska senior center Lucas Burnett. "It might as well have been 1-0 because if you lose a game, you lose a game. We've got to learn from all of our mistakes, we've got to tighten up in our d-zone a little bit and on the penalty kill, we've got to limit some chances.
"We've got to get going offensively. I don't know how many shots we ended up with, but if it was below 20, that's not going to do the job," Burnett added. "We've got to fire everything we can at the net; we've got to attack and crash the net like we did at Western Michigan."
The Nanooks were outshot 31-17 Friday, including 26-9 for the first two periods.
Notre Dame, because of its No. 1 ranking and its No. 2 status in the PairWise Rankings, has assured itself of a berth in the NCAA Division I Tournament, which opens with regionals on March 23-25. The PairWise is a system used by the NCAA Tournament Committee to select the 16 teams for the tournament and it takes into consideration such factors as a team's record against nationally-ranked opponents and in head-to-head competition.
Defenseman Wes O'Neill, who scored the game's first goal, had an assist and was among eight Notre Dame seniors in the lineup Friday, said the Fighting Irish don't want to go to the NCAA Tournament without getting a chance to play for the title in the CCHA Championship Tournament.
"That's been our goal the whole year," said the 6-foot-4, 231-pound blue liner. "We didn't even worry about the NCAA's at the start of the year; we just wanted to go to the CCHA Tournament. Coach (Jeff Jackson, Notre Dame head coach) always preaches `Joe Louis, Joe Louis, Joe Louis' ... that's our goal."
Notre Dame has never placed at a CCHA Championship Tournament since joining the league in 1992. In its last appearance at the Joe, Notre Dame lost to Ohio State in a quarterfinal of the 2004 Super Six Tournament.
Alaska placed third in the 2005 Super Six. The following season, the CCHA switched to the current playoff format of the best-of-three first-round and quarterfinal series followed by the four-team championship tournament at the Joe.
On Friday night, the Fighting Irish (28-6-3) were also coming off a first-round bye, while the Nanooks (11-21-6) needed three games last weekend to capture a first-round series against the Western Michigan Broncos in Kalamazoo, Mich.
"I think it was pretty easy to tell which had the weekend off last weekend," Alaska head coach Tavis MacMillan said while sitting on a bench across the hall from his team's quiet locker room. "We looked like a tired team and they looked like a team that was fresh and ready to go."
Besides getting outshot nearly 2-to-1, Alaska missed on five power plays, while Notre Dame converted two of its 10 chances.
"You can have the best intentions and run the best power play, best penalty killing and best forecheck in the world," said MacMillan, "but if one team is playing at 100 mph and the other team is only playing at 50 (mph), you're in a lot of trouble. That was the case tonight ... they were playing at a completely different speed than we were."
Sophomore left wing Garrett Regan, who accounted for two of Notre Dame's first-period goals, said the Nanooks' upset of sixth-seeded Western Michigan affected the Fighting Irish's approach to the quarterfinal series, particularly for Game 1.
"Coach had talked about getting a jump on them because, obviously, that had some momentum coming into this series," Regan said. "So, we wanted to come in and get the forecheck going. We were lucky to get a couple of bounces there and we were fortunate to get a couple of goals early."
It's the second time Alaska gave up five goals in a one period of a playoff game. Michigan State deposited five pucks in the opening period of the Nanooks' 11-1 loss on March 14, 2003 in East Lansing, Mich.
Notre Dame goal scorers were open on three of the five goals in the first period Friday.
An open O'Neill scored his first of the season from the slot at 3:06 with a quick wrist shot through the pads of Nanooks junior goaltender Wylie Rogers, whose stay in the game would be brief.
Despite a good cycle by Alaska, Notre Dame got hold of the puck and generated a 3-on-2, which Regan finished off for a 2-0 lead at 6:44.
Erik Condra was pressured by the Nanooks on the right-wing boards, but managed to pass to open defenseman Brock Sheahan, who burst into the slot and beat Rogers high at 9:34.
"When they can enter through the neutral zone with that much speed, it's very difficult to defend against," MacMillan said. "You've got to take away their time and space. We just weren't doing that and they were playing at a lot better pace than we were."
Rogers was replaced by sophomore Chad Johnson at 14:25 after Regan notched his second of the night on a back door play, just two seconds after the Nanooks killed off Jeff Lee's hooking penalty. Rogers, though, is slated to start tonight in Game 2.
Johnson was greeted by a power-play goal by center Jason Paige at 15:27 of the first.
The Nanooks limited the Fighting Irish to one goal in the second period -- defenseman Kyle Lawson's steaming wrist shot from the right circle at 16:14 -- and were outshot 11-3.
Alaska, though, survived five power plays and was more effective defensively and in forechecking compared to the opening period.
Junior left wing's Mark Van Guilder's power-play goal 58 seconds into the third period stretched Notre Dame's lead to 7-0.
Fornataro denied Fighting Irish senior goaltender David Brown his second blanking of the Nanooks in nearly a month by drilling a wrist shot from the left circle at 4:41 of the third. The goal, set up by junior center Ryan Muspratt and freshman right wing Jeff Lee, occurred just seconds after an Alaska power play ended.
Brown registered 28 saves in a 1-0 victory at the Carlson Center on Feb. 16 to help Notre Dame clinch its first CCHA regular-season crown.
Alaska senior center Curtis Fraser sat out Friday night with an injury sustained Sunday at Western Michigan and isn't expected to play tonight.
