Notre Dame hockey: Irish season comes to end in regional final loss to Minnesota State
Good goaltending wins games. Especially in March.
Minnesota State net-minder Dryden McKay went into Saturday’s Albany Regional championship game with the second-best goals against average in the country, 1.31. It’s not easy to improve upon that, but Dryden did. In the process, he ended Notre Dame’s season.
The Fighting Irish were bested by Dryden and Minnesota State, 1-0. Notre Dame threw 23 shots on net. Dryden stopped all of them to expand his own NCAA record of 34 career shutouts.
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It wasn’t as if Dryden completely robbed Notre Dame of an opportunity to advance to the Frozen Four for the third time since 2017, though. Minnesota State was the better team for most of the night. Still, if there were any thoughts coming from the blue and gold about counterattacking and at least forcing overtime, Dryden stopped them in a hurry. There were multiple scrums in front of the Mavericks’ net in the final 10 minutes. Often times, those mixups end up with the puck somehow finding its way across the line.
Not on Dryden’s watch. And not with the team he has out in front of him.
“They’re tough to play against,” Notre Dame head coach Jeff Jackson said. “They defend well, and a lot of it is with puck possession. It’s not just defending. They do a goof job possessing the puck. They have a lot of experienced guys. It makes it challenging when you go up against a team with good depth and good experience. They have both.”
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The knock on Notre Dame has long been the Irish aren’t consistent enough offensively. When it gets to the nitty gritty of tournament time and every opposing team is one of the best in the country, an issue like that gets exposed. If not for Notre Dame graduate senior goalie Matthew Galajda, Minnesota State might’ve skated the Irish right off the ice. Galajda stopped 28 of 29 Mavericks shots. Minnesota State played a three-quarters ice game for large stretches of the night. Sustained zone time, a clearance, regroup and right back in. At times, it demoralized Notre Dame.
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Mavericks forward Nathan Smith netted the only goal of the game. Minnesota State won an offensive zone face off with roughly 20 seconds left in the first period. The Mavericks worked a shot on goal from a high-chance area near the left dot. Galajda made a kick save with his left pad, but the puck trickled perfectly to a Maverick waiting for it in the slot.
It was Smith, and he easily ripped it home.
The Mavericks picked up their 17th straight victory and advanced to the Frozen Four for the second year in a row. Few teams in the nation have been as good as Mike Hastings’ the last two seasons. Notre Dame still hung right with ’em. The Irish finished the season with a 28-12-0 record. Minnesota State is 37-5-0 and needs two more wins to claim its first ever Division I national title.
“We had belief we’d get one there, or even two there,” Notre Dame senior captain Adam Karashik said. “It’s just unfortunate it didn’t happen for us.”
