After sweeping Ohio State last weekend and riding a three-game winning streak, Notre Dame returns home to South Bend, Indiana, for a weekend series against fifth-ranked University of Minnesota.

The Fighting Irish won 6-1 and 8-1 in Columbus. Alex Steeves scored seven points in the two games, and the Big Ten named him the second star of the week. Steeves comes into this weekend riding a five-game point streak in which he has 10 points (4-6-10).

But secondary scoring stole the show in Ohio. With Michael Graham, Max Ellis and Zach Plucinski all out of the lineup, three seniors (Matt Steeves Pierce Crawford and Cam Burke) all scored their first goals of the season.

“That’s what so important, that you get other guys that can contribute,” Head Coach Jeff Jackson said. “Especially guys that haven’t played a lot in the earlier part of the season. I thought [Matt Steeves Pierce Crawford and Cam Burke] all did a really good job of taking advantage of the opportunity, and hopefully they continue to play at that level and make it difficult for other guys to get back in.”

Special Teams and Goaltending

The Fighting Irish seemed to have also overcome problematic special teams and goaltending that hurt them earlier in the season. They scored five power play goals against Ohio State, bringing their season percentage to 17.6%. They were scoring on only 12.5% of their chances in December.

“Last weekend was the best our power-play has looked all season long, and I think a lot of it had to do with [some of the personnel changes]. Some [of the changes] had to do with guys being out, other personnel changes [were] just trying to give other guys an opportunity because [the power play] wasn’t operating at a real high level.”

Jackson added that he expects scoring a power play goal will be difficult against Minnesota, who owns a 84.3% penalty kill percentage. He noted, however, that the previous meeting against Minnesota was when his team started to achieve special teams success. Landon Slaggert scored a power play goal in the first game, and Max Ellis had another one in game two.

Senior goalie Dylan St. Cyr has started every game for the Fighting Irish since the aforementioned second game against Minnesota. He has a 4-3 record in that span, with a .916 save percentage and a 2.14 goals against average.

“I thought he did extremely well the second night against Michigan, and I thought he did well against Penn State [in] both games,” Jackson said. “That led me to start him at Ohio State, and I didn’t know what we’d do in the second night but he played really well so I came back with him again. He is getting confidence. He’s not sprawling all over the place, or he’s not giving up lots of rebounds. He’s controlling his crease really well and he also gives us some advantage with his puck-handling skills.”

Jackson added he intends to play his other goalie, Ryan Bischel, “sooner than later.” He hasn’t played since January 15th against Minnesota, partly due to injury. However, Jackson said he practiced well recently.

University of Minnesota

Minnesota is coming off back to back losses at Wisconsin, and a slow start to the new year. They’re 7-5 since the start of the second half of the season, but that’s a far cry from their 8-0 first half. Minnesota lost twice at home against Notre Dame in January.

Minnesota Head Coach Bob Motzko showed some optimism when he spoke to the media on Thursday. “I’ve liked this team all year long,” he said. “We’ve done our overanalyzing and we haven’t played well in the last few weeks, in the last month. For whatever reason, we have to get back to good habits in practice, playing the game the right way. That’s what you work on.” He added that the team practiced hard on Monday, had an off-day Tuesday, but had another strong practice on Thursday.

Where to Watch

Game one between Minnesota and the Notre Dame kicks off tonight at 7:30 on NBCSN. They face off again tomorrow evening at 5:30 on SNY. NBCSN will also stream both games on the NBC Sports app and online here.

Ben Baruch

Born and raised on Long Island. Isles fan since 2009. Studying journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park.