Gophers Come Up Short Against Notre Dame
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (GopherSports.com) – A frantic two-goal rally in the third period wasn’t enough for the Gopher Hockey program as Minnesota fell to No. 18 Notre Dame by a 4-3 margin on Friday night in South Bend.
Hudson Fasching and Leon Bristedt each had two points for the second-straight game including a pair of power-play goals late in the third to briefly tie the game while Eric Schierhorn made a career-best 34 saves in net for the Maroon & Gold.
After a scoreless first period, the Irish (4-1-2 overall, 2-0-0 Hockey East) broke the scoring drought 4:34 into the second period on a goal from Anders Bjork. The goal sparked a four-goal second period with Jack Sadek and Fasching feeding Bristedt to tie the game at 7:29 only for the Irish to answer back with two more goals from Dylan Malmquist and Jordan Gross at 12:46 and 19:17, respectively.
Minnesota (2-4-0, 0-0-0-0 Big Ten) bounced back during a huge power-play opportunity in the middle of the third period, however. Malmquist took a five-minute major and game misconduct for contact to the head followed by a cross checking penalty to Luke Ripley to set up a five-on-three for the Gophers.
Bristedt scored his second of the night at 14:51 on the two-man advantage after being set up by Tyler Sheehy and Jake Bischoff to make it a one-goal game and then Michael Brodzinski and Tommy Novak fed Fasching for the power-play equalizer at 16:38 as Minnesota closed out the night 2-for-4 on the power play and 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.
The tie wouldn’t last though as Gross tallied his second of the night soon after at 18:04 for the game winner.
Schierhorn took the loss for the Maroon & Gold to move to 2-4-0 in his freshman campaign while Cal Peterson made 31 saves to pick up the win and move to 4-1-2 on the year.
The Gophers and the Irish close out this weekend’s series on Saturday at 5:35 p.m. CT.
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