One More: Irish Meet Bulldogs In National Championship

April 6, 2018

SAINT PAUL, Minnesota — The University of Notre Dame hockey team will seek the program’s first national championship on Saturday, April 7, when the Irish take on Minnesota Duluth in the NCAA Frozen Four final.

Puck drops at 7:30 p.m. ET at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul. It’s a rematch of a 2011 Frozen Four semifinal game which UMD claimed, 4-3, on the same sheet en route to a national title. Fans can watch live on ESPN and WatchESPN, with the radio call available on 94.3 FM in South Bend and worldwide on UND.com.

Countdown To Puck Drop

158 | Senior defenseman Jordan Gross has skated in 158 consecutive games (each game of his Irish career).
137 | Jake Evans leads all players in the Frozen Four in career points (41-96-137). Evans (32) is also one of 15 players nationally with at least 30 assists on the season.
86 | Junior defenseman Dennis Gilbert ranks fourth nationally with 86 blocked shots this season. He totaled 70 blocks as a freshman and 78 as a sophomore.
31 | The Fighting Irish are outscoring opponents by a combined 31 goals over the second, third and overtime periods this season (88-57).
27 | With a 27-7-1 record, sophomore goaltender, Hobey Baker Top 10 Finalist and Richter Award finalist Cale Morris leads the nation in victories.
14 | Notre Dame is 14-3 in one-goal games this season, including 5-0 in the postseason.
13 | Head coach Jeff Jackson is in his 13th season behind the Notre Dame bench. He has led the Irish to nine NCAA tournament appearances and four Frozen Fours.
7 | With the 2018 Big Ten tournament and regular season titles, Notre Dame has now won seven conference championships in program history, each under Jeff Jackson (three regular season).
.944 | Hobey Baker Top 10 Finalist Cale Morris has a .944 save percentage, which leads the nation. He has posted the impressive save percentage while playing 21 games against the nation’s top-15 scoring offenses (ranked by goals per game) and leading the nation in shots faced.

For Starters

• For the second time in program history, the Notre Dame hockey team will play for the national title at the Frozen Four. The only other Irish trip to the national title game came in 2008, when they defeated Michigan (5-4/OT) in the semifinals before falling to Boston College (4-1).
• Notre Dame has won all five postseason games in 2018 (two Big Ten, three NCAA) by one goal, with the game-winning goals all coming in the final 31 seconds of regulation or overtime.
• Irish head coach Jeff Jackson is looking to become the fourth coach in NCAA history to win national titles at multiple schools. The three coaches to have accomplished the feat are Jerry York (Bowling Green & Boston College four times), Ned Harkness (Rensselaer & Cornell twice) and Rick Comley (Northern Michigan & Michigan State).
• Since 2008, the four total Frozen Four trips by the Irish trail only Boston College and North Dakota (five each) in national semifinal appearances.
• Notre Dame is the top remaining seed in the tournament and enters the weekend ranked No. 1 in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll. This is the seventh week in 2017-28 the Irish have been at the top of either the USCHO or USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll.
• This is the third consecutive NCAA appearance by the Irish, who are the only program in the 16-team championship field to have won their league regular season and tournament titles.
• Notre Dame won the Big Ten regular-season title with a 17-6-1-1 league mark before capturing the tournament championship thanks to a 3-2 overtime win over Ohio State.
• The Irish are looking to become the first NCAA hockey team to win their conference regular season championship, league tournament title and the national championship in the same year since Union College in 2013-14.
• Notre Dame had won three previous conference tournament championships including CCHA Tournament titles in 2007, 2009 and 2013.
• Hobey Baker Top 10 Finalist Cale Morris leads the nation in save percentage (.944) and victories (27). The sophomore goaltender was named the Big Ten Player of the Year and Goaltender of the Year while collecting first team all-conference accolades. He made 36 saves in Notre Dame’s opening round win over Michigan Tech and saved 19-of-20 Providence shots in the regional final, earning All-Regional honors. He is a finalist for the Richter Award.
• Morris was joined on the All-Big Ten first team by seniors Jake Evans and Jordan Gross. Evans leads the Irish with 45 points (13-32-45) on the season, while Gross has 30 points (10-20-30). The duo connected for the game-winning goal against Michigan Tech, with Gross scoring from Evans and Jack Jenkins. The pair assisted on Andrew Ogelvie’s equalizer in the regional final win over Providence and Gross assisted on Evans’ game-tying goal in the second period against Michigan at the Frozen Four.
• Notre Dame is 11-9-0 all-time in the NCAA tournament (11-8-0 under Jeff Jackson).
• As an athletics department, Notre Dame claimed its 31st team national title on Sunday, April 1, when the Irish women’s basketball team claimed its second NCAA championship. That title came one week after the Notre Dame fencing program secured its 10th national championship. Notre Dame has never captured three national titles in the same academic year. Only four times have the Irish won multiple national titles in the same year: 2010-11 (women’s soccer and fencing) 2004-05 (women’s soccer and fencing), 1977-78 (football and men’s fencing) and 1943-44 (football and men’s golf).

Quick Hits

• Jake Evans (41-96-137) now ranks 20th all-time in program history for career points and 15th in program history for career assists.
• Evans has skated in 130 consecutive games dating back to his freshman season.
• Dennis Gilbert is the only defenseman in the country with multiple shorthanded goals this season (two).
• Evans’ fifth game-winning goal of the season in the national semifinal against Michigan leaves him tied for second nationally, while Andrew Oglevie‘s four game-winners are tied for 17th.
• The Fighting Irish are ninth in the country in scoring defense with a 2.18 goals against per game mark and their penalty kill ranks second (89.2), trailing only Ohio State’s penalty kill of 89.4 percent. Notre Dame killed three Michigan power plays in the semifinal victory.
• Jordan Gross, who has played in all 158 games of his Irish career, leads all active defensemen with 121 career points on 36 goals and 85 assists (Mark Auk of Michigan Tech and Garret Cockerill of Northeastern are tied for second with 84 points each). He is three points away from setting the Notre Dame record for career points by a defenseman (123 by John Schmidt from 1978-82).
• The Irish are 17-6-2 against ranked opponents this season.
• With Notre Dame & Minnesota Duluth in the Frozen Four for the second straight season, it marks the first time since 2008 multiple teams are in the national semifinals for the second consecutive year. This year’s Frozen Four also features three of the same teams from the 2011 Frozen Four, the last time the event was played in St. Paul (Michigan, Minnesota Duluth & Notre Dame), when UMD captured its first national title.