April 4, 2018
By John Heisler
Consider these dozen questions circulating at the 2018 NCAA Hockey Frozen Four in advance of Notre Dame’s Thursday night national semifinal game against Michigan (following Ohio State versus Minnesota Duluth in the opener of the doubleheader) in Saint Paul, Minnesota:
1. How much home-ice/home-crowd advantage will there be in the Xcel Energy Center for Minnesota Duluth, located about two and a half hours north and a little east on Interstate 35?
2. How intent is Notre Dame on making a better showing than a year ago when the Irish fell 6-1 to eventual champion Denver in a Frozen Four semifinal in Chicago?
3. Michigan’s men’s basketball team played in San Antonio Monday in the NCAA men’s basketball title game. Notre Dame won the NCAA fencing title two weekends back at Penn State and then claimed the NCAA women’s basketball crown Sunday night in Columbus, Ohio. Which school will extend that run of success?
4. If the Wolverines arrived in Saint Paul as the hottest team of the four (10-2-1 in February and March), how will that translate against Notre Dame?
5. Irish goaltender Cale Morris, the Big Ten Player of the Year, has been a model of consistency in building his season-long save percentage that is the nation’s best. How will he perform on this grandest of stages for college hockey?
6. Notre Dame has won almost twice as many one-goal games this year as any of the other three Frozen Four representatives–including each of the last five Irish games (two that went to overtime) and featuring two in the Big Ten Tournament and two more in the NCAA East Regional. Will that give the Irish confidence in any tight, late-game situation in Saint Paul?
7. Only three opposing goaltenders posted shutouts against the Irish in 2017-18 and the last of those was Michigan’s Hayden Lavigne Feb. 18 in Ann Arbor. How much will that affect the Wolverines’ confidence level Thursday night?
8. Notre Dame’s 112 goals are the fewest among the four remaining teams. So can the Irish score enough this weekend to prosper?
9. On the other hand, Notre Dame allowed fewer goals this season than any other team in Saint Paul. Will that trend continue–and will it give the Irish confidence their defense and goaltending can pave the way?
10. Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson first took a Lake Superior State team to the Frozen Four in 1992 (winning an NCAA title that season and another two years later). Twenty-six years later, in yet another Frozen Four stop for Jackson, how will that comfort level help his Irish?
11. Beginning in 2008 when Notre Dame made its initial NCAA Frozen Four appearance the Irish now have reached that final weekend four times in that 11-year span. Considering the only programs with more in those 11 years are Boston College and North Dakota (five each), how much does that help Notre Dame’s national profile?
12. There have been 14 games already this season involving a combination of Notre Dame, Ohio State and Michigan. How will that level of familiarity play out in the Frozen Four?
Senior associate athletics director John Heisler has been covering the Notre Dame sports scene since 1978.