Notre Dame Hockey Skates Past Buckeyes 5-2
COLUMBUS, Ohio – It wasn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination. But in the end, Notre Dame got the job done.
The Fighting Irish tallied a pair of goals in quick fashion to break a 2-2 tie and lit the lamp with 11:45 left in the game to secure a 5-2 victory over Ohio State on Jan. 13 at Value City Arena in Columbus.
The win salvaged a weekend split against the Buckeyes, who had slipped past the Fighting Irish with a 3-2 win in the first game of the weekend series. Notre Dame improved to 11-11-2 overall and 5-7-2 in the Big Ten with the win.
Ohio State, which saw its five-game (4-0-1) unbeaten streak come to an end with the loss, fell to 9-9-4 overall and 1-9-2 in conference play.
Notre Dame won the season series against Ohio State 3-1 after sweeping past the Buckeyes Nov. 10-11 in South Bend.
“It was not a good start for our team, but we showed some resilience to come back and tie the game,” OSU coach Steve Rohlik said. “It wasn’t pretty after that.”
Patrick Moynihan’s goal at 13:08 of the second period gave the lead back to the Fighting Irish and would prove to be the game winner for the visitors. Teammate Landon Slaggert added a power-play goal less than three minutes later to increase the Notre Dame lead to 4-2.
It was the second goal of the game for Slaggert, who now has four multi-goal games this season. His 15 goals ranks him No. 5 in the nation in that department.
The Fighting Irish added an insurance goal in the final period when Trevor Janicke scored with 11:44 remaining in the game.
Ohio State scored twice in a span of two minutes late in the first period to forge a 2-2 tie.
The Fighting Irish attempted a pass from the right of OSU goaltender Kristoffer Eberly. But the pass skipped over the stick of the Notre Dame forward and was corralled by the Buckeye’s Max Montes, who skated in on the Fighting Irish’s Jack Williams as he faced a two-on-one situation with Joe Dunlap powering in from Williams’ left.
Montes passed the puck to Dunlap, who quickly returned the pass to Montes as Ohio State scored for the first time with 2:53 left in the opening period.
The Buckeyes added what would turn out to be their final goal with 50 seconds left in the stanza when Stephen Halliday found a loose puck in front of the net and fired a backhander past Williams to tie the game at the first intermission. Halliday now has five points in his first three games since returning to the OSU lineup last week after being injured earlier this season.
Notre Dame had grabbed the early lead on a Grant Silianoff goal at 10:19 of the first period and Slaggert added his first goal of the game1:23 later when a blast from the left bounced off several players in front of the net before being tipped in by Slaggert to give the Fighting Irish a bit of breathing room.
Notre Dame returns home Jan.19-20 to play Penn State, while Ohio State travels to Minnesota for a pair of games Jan. 19-20 and will stay on the road for a pair of games at Penn State Jan. 26-27. The Buckeyes return home Feb. 2-3 when they play host to arch-rival Michigan.
Notre Dame held a 43-32 advantage in shots in the contest, Eberly, a freshman, managed a career-high 38 saves while playing all 60 minutes between the pipes for the Buckeyes.
A native of Bismarck, N.D., Ray is a graduate of North Dakota State University where he began studying athletic training and served as a student trainer for several Bison teams including swimming, wrestling and baseball and was a trainer at the 1979 NCAA national track and field championship meet at the University of Illinois. Ray later worked in the sports information office at NDSU. Following his graduation from NDSU he spent five years in the sports information office at Missouri Western State University and one year in the sports information at Georgia Tech. He has nearly 40 years of writing experience as a sports editor at several newspapers and has received numerous awards for his writing over the years. A noted sports historian, Ray is currently an assistant editor at Amateur Wrestling News.
