I think the staff needs to revamp the recruiting philosophy

Obviously you need to bring in players that can function within the abilities of the coaches to teach and their own strong points. Also you need to recruit student-athletes who will fit into Notre Dame's academic expectations, although with hockey this is not the same challenge as it is with football or men's basketball. But clearly Notre Dame needs to recruit players with more skill.

I wouldn't think that with the success Rust and Lee are having on good NHL teams it should be impossible to get players to come here who have the potential to be decent scorers in the NHL.

From Jackson's second through sixth seasons here (06/07-10/11) the team finished outside of the top 20 in scoring just once, in 2010. From 2007-2009 they also finished in the top 5 in both defense and on the PK. We generally have not seen teams as complete as his first few since then. The 2018 team finished in the top 10 in defense and on both the PK and PP but was only 25th in scoring.

You don't have to do it all to win, but you either have to be pretty good at both ends of the ice or great at one. The 2008 team was only 19th in scoring and their PP was awful, but their overall defense was great and they had a shut down penalty kill. The 2011 team was really the only successful team that was not particularly well rounded. They had some great scorers but they did not defend well and the special teams were anything but special. That Frozen Four was really the result of a late 6-0-2 stretch that cemented an NCAA spot and then some very timely goaltending out east.