The Cats got off to a good start on Friday night. After holding off an initial wave of Notre Dame forechecking by the best forechecking coach in the land, Jeff Jackson, the Cats capitalized on a bounce and Tim Hartung beat Jordan Pearce at 5:47. He was greatly helped by Gregor Hanson who swarmed into the zone with the puck, courtesy of Blake Cosgrove. But just like last week against MSU, the opposition responded shortly thereafter. The powerplay was kind all night to the Irish and stud Ryan Thang made the Cats pay at 12:20. So at the end of one period, it was 1-1 in a dead-even game.

The second period brought frustration to Cats’ fans. Let’s face it folks, the Cats’ powerplay stinks. To quote the late great Reg Dunlop of Slapshot, five on five, “Man for man, we can play with any f***in club in the league.” If the Cats played five on five every game, they’d be in the top five of college hockey. So something must change. When you’re 5% on the PP 8 games into the season with 25% of the season now done and over with, the rust must be scraped off. Meanwhile, ND scored its second powerplay of the game courtesy of Dan Kissel at 4:44 to put the Irish up 2-1.

In the third period, speaking of Slapshot, Christian Hanson, son of Dave Hanson pumped in his third of the year on guess what, the powerplay. After the Cats got a gift–a 5 on 3, which they didn’t do squat on, Nathan Sigmund scored a goal just after the 5 on 4 expired to get the Cats within 1 at 3-2. However, despite the late flurry and hard play, it was too late. Bottom line folks, the Cats can play with anyone and win. But everyone knows that the game of hockey greatly relies on special teams both powerplay and penalty kill. If you allow 30% of the opposition’s powerplays to score, while you are at 0% and 5% for the season, you’re going to have a tough time winning. This is not meant to be negative, because this talk is based on passion and desire for the club to win.

Notre Dame 3 NMU 2