SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Though No. 5 Penn State dominated for stretches on Saturday night, No. 19 Notre Dame secured the, 5-3, victory to split the weekend series in Big Ten Conference action inside Compton Family Ice Arena.
Penn State falls to 15-5-0 on the year and 7-5-0 in Big Ten play with the loss while the Irish improve to 8-8-2 overall and 4-5-1 in conference action.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- The Irish opened the scoring for the second-straight night with a goal against the run of play as Ryder Rolston found the back of the net for the 1-0 lead at 9:42 of the first period.
- Penn State evened the score midway through the middle frame as senior Kevin Wall (Penfield, N.Y.) finished into a yawning net after classmate Connor MacEachern (Brooklin, Ontario) sent a pass off the right pad of Irish net-minder Ryan Bischel for the 1-1 score at the 12:24 mark.
- Notre Dame regained the lead with under a minute to go in the second period as Justin Janicke finished off a pass from Tyler Carpenter during a 3-on-0 rush up the ice for the 2-1 edge with just 48.8 ticks on the clock.
- The Irish extended the lead midway through the final period with a powerplay goal as Jackson Pierson sent a shot through traffic that Nittany Lion junior goaltender Liam Souliere (Brmapton, Ontario) never saw for the 3-1 lead at the 8:40 mark.
- Jack Adams made the score 4-1 for Notre Dame as he found himself on a breakaway and he beat Souliere high at the 13:58 mark of the third period.
- Landon Slaggert would add an empty net goal for the Irish at 16:17 to make the score 5-1.
- A strong forecheck behind the Irish net led to a goal for senior Connor McMenamin (Collegeville, Pa.) as he finished into a yawning net after MacEachern poked the puck away from Bischel at the 17:12 mark.
- Junior Christian Sarlo (Lynbrook, N.Y.) added a late powerplay tally with just 61 seconds remaining to account for the 5-3 final.
GOALTENDING
Souliere falls to 13-4-0 on the year after making 17 saves in the defeat while Bischel improves to 8-8-1 following a career-best 47-save performance.
NOTES
- The Nittany Lions held the commanding 50-22 edge in shots on goal, but only managed one goal on seven man-advantage opportunities while Notre Dame went 1-for-4 on the powerplay.
- Rolston's opening goal marked just the sixth time in 20 games this season that Penn State has failed to score first. The Nittany Lions are now 3-3-0 in such games. Penn State has now lost five-straight series finales in Big Ten play after sweeping Wisconsin to open conference action.
- Wall has now registered at least one point in four-straight games to tie his season-long point streak as he is now just one game shy of his career-long five game streak achieved last November.
- With a pair of assists MacEachern collects his third multi-point effort of the season and the 12th of his career.
NEXT UP
Penn State will then take the next three weeks off for finals and the holidays before hitting the ice against for a home-and-home series against No. 20 RIT on December 30-31. Tickets for the contest at Pegula Ice Arena on December 31 at 5:30 p.m. are available HERE.
For more information on the 2022-23 season presented by the Penn State Bookstore: 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.