Rob Globke scored two goals and Michael Chin, Alex Lalonde and John Wroblewski added single tallies as the Notre Dame Fighting Irish completed their weekend sweep of the Lake Superior State Lakers with a 5-2 win Sunday night at the Joyce Center.
The win gives Notre Dame its first weekend sweep on the year and improves the Irish to 4-6-4 on the year and 4-3-3 in the CCHA. Since an 0-4-1 start, Notre Dame is 4-2-3 in its last nine games and 3-1-2 over the last six. The loss was Lake Superior’s seventh straight road loss and drops the Lakers to 3-11-0 overall and 2-10-0 in league play.
Nobody was happier with the results than Globke. In the weekend series he had three goals and an assist. After starting the season with two goals on the first weekend, the sophomore center went 10 games without a goal.
“I hope this weekend helps to get me back on track,” said Globke. “Things hadn’t been going the way I wanted this year, so it feels good to get a couple of goals tonight.”
Globke got the Irish on the board first when he slid a David Inman pass through Lakers’ goaltender Matt Violin’s pads at 7:23.
“We dumped the puck in deep and Dave (Inman) did a great job of getting it in the corner. He threw it in front and the goalie tried to poke-check it. I just got to it and slid it through his legs,” said Globke.
That was the only goal the Irish would get in the first period as they poured a season-high 16 shots on the Lakers’ goal.
The Irish opened up a 2-0 lead at 5:39 of the second when Michael Chin got his fifth of the year as he deflected Connor Dunlop’s centering pass behind Violin. For Chin, the goal was his third in the last four games and extended his point scoring streak to seven games (4-4-8).
“The emergence of Michael Chin has been a big boost for this team,” said head coach Dave Poulin. “He gives us flexibility and he’s fit in well with David Inman and Rob Globke. Those three give us a big, fast line that can be tough to stop.”
Alex Lalonde upped the lead to 3-0 at 17:34 with his fourth of the year. Dunlop again made the play as he found Lalonde coming hard off the left wing at the left post with a centering pass. He got his stick on the pass at the left post to direct it past Violin.
The chance of a pair of shutouts for Notre Dame was snapped at 2:22 of the third period when Laker defenseman Will Magnuson scored from the right point as his shot snuck past Tony Zasowski’s right shoulder for the first goal of his career.
After dominating the Lakers for over five periods, Lake Superior made it a close game when Jason Nightingale scored from in front of Zasowski at 4:28 to cut Notre Dame’s lead to one.
“These games are never easy,” commented Poulin. “The thing that pleased me was the fact that once they scored the two goals, we never flinched. We got great special teams killing two late penalties and we got a special play from a special player on Globke’s second goal.”
With one second left on a Derek Smith hooking penalty, the face-off came in the Lake Superior zone to the left of Violin. In one motion, Globke won the draw and snapped the puck under the crossbar at 11:25 to give Notre Dame a two-goal lead.
“I just wanted to throw the puck at the net. I didn’t think that I would get that kind of wood on it. It turned out to be a pretty good shot,” explained Globke.
“That was a big goal, no question,” said Poulin. “Those are the kinds of plays we look for from Robby. He was going for the goal. That works once in a great while and it did tonight.”
The Lakers pulled Violin for a sixth attacker towards the end of the game and the Irish took advantage at 17:34 when Neil Komadoski blasted the puck around the left wing boards. Brad Wanchaluk was able to deflect it past the Laker defenseman and John Wroblewski picked the puck up and carried the puck into the LSSU zone before shooting into the empty net for his fifth goal of the season.
“I really thought we worked hard the entire game. This was not an easy game. We had to battle, battle, battle all over the ice all night. Sweeps are not common in this league. This makes next weekend at Bowling Green very important,” said Poulin.
For the night, Notre Dame had a season-high 41 shots on goal while Lake Superior had just 19. Violin made 36 saves in the game while Zasowski made17 in picking up his first win of the season.
