Good sweep. The Irish did what they absolutely

Good sweep. The Irish did what they absolutely
by wearendhockey (2024-01-21 11:57:02)

needed to do, take two from a struggling team. It was good to see some offense again and we only trailed for about 2 minutes all weekend.

Grain of salt time though, Penn State has almost always been a defense optional team. They've given up more goals this season than all but a handful of teams. They've allowed 28 goals already in 5 January games, so you're SUPPOSED to put up 4 or 5 goals a game at home against these guys. Can we do this against teams not named Penn State, or Ohio State?

I'm trying hard to find reasons for optimism in the program and one small victory is the freshman scoring. 23 goals in 26 games. A damn sight better than the last couple of seasons, when the freshman classes may as well have been playing somewhere else. This holds to this day as all of the sophomore and junior players recruited by Notre Dame have just 11 goals among them in total.

Hopefully also the freshmen aren't simply hitting their peak. Hunter Stand is the lone player among the 2nd and 3rd year players who had a decent freshman season, potting 8 goals in 40 games in 2021-2022. But in 63 games since he has managed just 8 more goals. You have to recruit and you have to develop. More players than not should be better as juniors or seniors than they were as freshmen.

We're 5-1-2 against the bottom two teams in the conference and 0-4 against the ones in the top two spots. 6 of our final 8 games are against teams with better conference records than our seemingly yearly .500 mark. If this team doesn't want to see the season pissed away and ending before the middle of March it's going to require beating teams that don't suck. That means scoring goals against teams that don't suck. We're more than a goal a game better against OSU and PSU than we are against the other 4 teams.

Good observations.

I'd love to see more shots on goal from this team. Way too many possessions seem to be wasted because everyone is looking for one more pass instead of throwing the puck at the net and seeing what happens.

I also love the physicality that this team shows. Penn State was clearly trying to play some Broad Street hockey Saturday and the Irish were not having it at all.

The last thing I noticed (at least Saturday night) is that the arena seemed a little more amped up than normal. I felt a little bit bad for the Penn State fans behind us in Section 8. That was until I remembered that they're Penn State fans.

Sometimes it doesn't seem like it, but Notre Dame shoots the

puck as much as anyone. Only two teams have more shots on goal than the Irish and only 1 has more total shot attempts. Michigan State and Penn State have more on goal than the Irish and only Penn State has attempted more. The big difference is MSU is 3rd in goals per game in the NCAA and PSU is 11th.

The Big Ten has become an offensive league. 5 teams currently sit among the top-12 in goals per game in the NCAA. If we're going to compete in this league, we have to score goals. Ohio State does just fine out of conference, but as the only team in the league with fewer goals than the Irish they have been laughably bad in the Big Ten.

Our scoring has been improving, and we're just shy of 3 goals per, but we have not exactly been facing defensive juggernauts. 3 of the last 4 series have been against teams among a baker's dozen of the most goals allowed per game in the NCAA.

That's an eye opening stat. *