Penn State hockey drops heartbreaker to No. 13 Notre Dame
First, Notre Dame hockey delivered Penn State a nasty gut punch, erasing a 4-3 Penn State lead by scoring with 2:13 remaining and the Fighting Irish net empty at the other end of the ice.
For the Nittany Lions, that was painful. But the knockout blow to follow proved so much worse.
With 8.9 seconds remaining in the ensuing 3-on-3 overtime period, the Fighting Irish won a face-off in their defensive zone. Spencer Stastney skated the length of the ice, fired a shot that Penn State goaltender Oskar Autio saved.
The rebound went right to Notre Dame’s Max Ellis, who scored with 0.2 seconds remaining on the clock to give Notre Dame a 5-4 win.
The point they’ll get in the Big Ten standings for the overtime loss will over the Nittany Lions little consolation. Swept on their home ice for the second time this year, tied for last place in the Big Ten, this one stings.
“That’s one of the tougher losses I think we’ve had here,” Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky said. “It’s a tough way to lose. It’s tough after how competitive we played.”
The game-winning goal was as remarkable as it was painful for the Nittany Lions and their fans.
With the puck in the Notre Dame end and less than 10 seconds on the clock, a Fighting Irish attack didn’t even seem like a possibility. The Nittany Lions would either win the face-off and look to orchestrate a chance, or they’d lose and a shootout would ensue. Right?
Wrong.
Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson said afterward they’d intentionally thrown two of his faster players on the ice in Stastney and Ellis to give his team the best chance of getting up the ice in time.
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“With that much time on the clock, you just want your best face-off guy out there and your two fastest guys out there with them,” Jackson said.
Notre Dame’s late, game-tying goal also came right from a face-off. This time, the Irish won a draw in the Penn State zone, and the Nittany Lions lost Cam Burke at the right post. He smashed a rebound off Autio to make it 4-4, undoing plenty of good work on the part of the Nittany Lions.
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“I don’t think it’s a miscommunication,” Gadowsky said. “I think it was a misunderstanding of what had to happen there.”
Gadowsky once again pointed to his team’s relative inexperience as he dissected the fine margins that led to Penn State’s ninth Big Ten defeat in 12 games.
But it was a sophomore — defenseman Jimmy Dowd Jr. — who made the biggest difference for Penn State in this game. He scored once in the first to tie the game at one, then again in the second to give the Nittany Lions their first lead.
Notre Dame responded with goals from Jack Adams and Nick Leivermann to knot the game back up at three, but Clayton Phillips put the Nittany Lions back ahead at the end of the second period.
It seemed Penn State had successfully taken the air out of the game in the third period. The Nittany Lions went into their defensive shell and didn’t crack until the Fighting Irish opted for the extra attacker.
Then, calamity struck. Not once, but twice.
“When you lose something like this, a game this way, those lessons tend to stick a lot tighter,” Gadowsky said. “And I hope that’s the case.”
