There are typically twelve forwards in any hockey team’s lineup. By the end of the game, the No. 1 Michigan hockey team had just twelve players on the bench.
Despite an injury to starting freshman goaltender Jack Ivankovic midway through the second period and numerous players being ejected, the Wolverines (18-4 overall, 9-3 Big Ten) swept the season series against Notre Dame (4-14-1, 0-9) with a 7-4 win.
If last night’s game was a grinding, slow game out of the gate, tonight was the opposite. Both teams came out flying in the first period. Just two-and-a-half minutes into the game, freshman forward Aidan Park collected a pass from junior forward Garrett Schifsky that deflected off Notre Dame goaltender Nicholas Kempf and tapped it into the net. The Fighting Irish responded, though, with forward Jayden Davis burying a pass top-corner on freshman goaltender Jack Ivankovic five minutes later. As the period wound down, Notre Dame was pushing hard to take the lead and Michigan was struggling to keep up.
The Wolverines fought back. With less than four minutes to go, Park drove the net and sent a backhand across the crease. The puck banked off the inside of Kempf’s knee into the back of the net for the 2-1 lead. Emerging from the first intermission, sophomore forward Michael Hage extended the lead to two with a one-timer from the left dot on the power play. Michigan had all the momentum.
The game changed in an instant.
Shortly after Hage’s goal, Notre Dame forward Danny Nelson slid into Ivankovic right after Ivankovic made a save. Ivankovic immediately went down holding his left knee and had to be helped off the ice by teammates, putting no weight on that leg. Senior forward Josh Eernisse earned a major and a game misconduct for cross-checking Nelson in retaliation, meaning Michigan had only 11 forwards for the rest of the game. The Wolverines successfully killed the major penalty, with freshman goaltender Stephen Peck coming up with crucial saves, but former Wolverines forward Evan Werner poked one home in a massive net-front scramble just after the penalty expired to cut the lead to just one.
A lesser team might have wilted, but Michigan refused to lose. It was Schifsky, who had not scored a goal in eight games, who restored the Wolverines’ two-goal lead, hammering a one-timer past Kempf. Junior forward Nick Moldenhauer pulled the lead to three, roofing the puck amid a netfront scramble created by a senior defenseman Tyler Duke slapshot.
Notre Dame wouldn’t quit, either. Fighting Irish defenseman Caeden Carlisle took advantage of a defensive lapse by Michigan and rocketed the puck past Peck with three minutes to go in the second. Seven minutes into the third, with the Wolverines struggling to maintain their defensive structure, Notre Dame defenseman Axel Kumlin slapped the puck past Peck to make it 5-4.
Schifsky responded again. On an odd-man rush, sophomore forward Michael Hage fed Schifsky, who was streaking down the middle. Schifsky one-timed the puck into the back of the net to again give Michigan the two-goal lead. Junior forward Jayden Perron slid the puck through Kempf’s five-hole on a breakaway to make it 7-4 for the Wolverines.
As the third period came to a close, Michigan’s bench got even shorter. Multiple fouls from Notre Dame and subsequent reactions from the Wolverines led to them having just 11 skaters on the bench as the game ended. But they pulled through, clinching the victory in the messiest game of the season.
