SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Junior Evan Barratt (Bristol, Pa.) netted the game-winning goal in the third period as No. 7 Penn State scored three unanswered goals in the final frame to defeat No. 15 Notre Dame, 4-2, on Friday night in Big Ten Conference action at Compton Family Ice Arena.
The Nittany Lions move to 13-5-0 on the year and 8-3-0-0 in the Big Ten with the victory while the Irish remain winless in their last seven contests falling to 8-7-2 overall and 4-3-2-1 in conference action.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- The Irish got on the board first off a strange play as Cam Morrison directed the puck toward the net and as it was bouncing around at the near post it took a funny bounce off the stick of a Nittany Lion defenseman and slid past PSU senior net-minder Peyton Jones (Langhorne, Pa.) for the 1-0 ND lead at 10:12 of the opening period.
- Penn State evened the score midway through the second period as senior Denis Smirnov (Moscow, Russia) slipped behind the defense and used a quick fore-hand deke before roofing the back-hand over the shoulder of ND goaltender Cale Morris for the 1-1 score at 9:59 of the middle frame.
- Notre Dame regained the lead early in the third period as Alex Steeves took advantage of Jones being caught out of position and picked the top right corner of the net from the slot for the 2-1 edge at 4:45 of the stanza.
- The Nittany Lions found the equalizer as sophomore Paul DeNaples (Moscow, Pa.) collected the puck at the top of the left circle and skated below the dot ripping a laser over the blocker of Morris for the 2-2 tie at 8:20 of the third period.
- A little less than two minutes later the Nittany Lions took their first lead with a power-play goal in transition off some crisp passing by senior Liam Folkes (Scarborough, Ontario) and sophomore Aarne Talvitie (Espoo, Finland) to set up Barratt in the slot and he picked a spot over the blocker of Morris for the 3-2 advantage at the 10:15 mark.
- Talvitie then hit the empty net at 18:35 to seal the 4-2 victory.
GOALTENDING
- Jones was strong in net again for the Nittany Lions improving to 12-4-0 on the season and securing his 70th career victory with a 40-save performance, his second-straight game with 40 or more stops.
- Morris falls to 5-6-2 on the year after stopping 36 of the 39 shots he faced on Friday night.
NOTES
- Notre Dame held the slim 42-40 edge in shots on goal, but went 0-for-3 on the power-play while Penn State went 1-for-4 with the man-advantage.
- Penn State won for just the third time this season when not scoring the first goal of the game moving to 3-4-0 in such contests.
- With a secondary assist on Smirnov's goal, senior Nate Sucese (Fairport, N.Y.) is now just two points shy of David Goodwin's '17 program record of 128.
- With a pair of assists, Biro collects his fifth multi-point game this season and the 28th of his career.
- With his one goal and one assist tonight, Talvitie now has five multi-point games this season and nine for his career.
- Junior Cole Hults (Stoughton, Wis.) picked up a pair of assists moving past Erik Autio '18 and into first on the Penn State all-time assist list for defensemen with 51 for his career. It was also his fifth multi-point game this season and the 17th of his career.
- Barratt has now scored at least one goal in five of the last six games.
- With three third period goals, Penn State is now outscoring its opponents 32-18 over the final 20 minutes of action this season.
NEXT UP
Both teams return to Compton tomorrow evening to close out the weekend series and the fall semester with a 6 p.m. puck drop. The game will be available to stream through NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports App.
For more information on the 2019-20 season presented by the Penn State Bookstore: the Official Bookstore of Penn State Athletics, visit the men's hockey page at GoPSUsports.com or call 1-800-NITTANY Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.