Don't know if that was the best game we've played this year

but it sure came at a good time.

Played smart, played hard, made adjustments, really good effort from all involved. I groaned just once all night. Can't remember who the Irish skaters were but they had what was effectively a 2-1 break and instead of shooting the puck they let a slightly out of position Artyom Levshunov get his stick on a pass a foot or so off the ice. His stickwork is off the charts, and I'd rather shoot the puck then pass it if there is a good chance he's gonna get a stick on it anyway. He also looked like he was ready for a pass anyway and anticipated it.

They struggled on faceoffs in the first period and early in the second. At one time the announcers said it was 13-6 in favor of MSU, but it finished with Notre Dame on top 32-28.

One area Notre Dame has excelled is 3rd period conditioning. We've scored 34 third period and OT goals, and given up just 16.

We're fortunate that our 7 remaining games come against teams that are 4th, 7th, 8th and 12th in RPI. Wins will bump our own up, and we can easily flip comparisons against other bubble teams in front of us by flipping the RPI component of the PWR. We can obviously still make the tournament as an at-large, but I don't think it's likely. As always, favorites not crapping out of their conference tournaments will help, and we're going to need that help. I can't see us finishing in the top-12 of the PWR, although playing like last night for another 7 games might change the thinking there.

That task continues tonight. MSU has been swept just once all season, in a road series at Boston College. Beating them a second time this weekend would be huge.