Senior left wing David Inman continued his red-hot play with a two-goal game and freshman goaltender Morgan Cey stopped 33 of 36 Michigan shots as Notre Dame rallied from 2-0 and 3-1 deficits to pull out a 3-3 tie versus the Wolverines Friday night.
The tie gives the Irish a 5-1-1 record in their last seven games and makes them 7-7-5 overall and 5-4-4 in the CCHA. Michigan goes to 11-6-4 overall and 8-3-3 in league play.
Despite rallying from a pair of two-goal deficits, Notre Dame head coach Dave Poulin asked to reserve judgement on the whether it was a good tie until Saturday night.
“I’ll be able to tell you tomorrow (after the second game of the series) if this was a good tie,” said Poulin. “I was pleased with the way we came back tonight. We battled hard and made some key plays when we needed them.”
The first period was a defensive struggle for the first 15 minutes, before Michigan struck with the game’s first goal on the power play at 15:50. John Shouneyia got his seventh of the year when he batted in the rebound of a Craig Murray shot.
The Wolverines took a 2-0 lead at 14:57 of the second period as Michael Woodford scored his fourth of the season when he took a feed from behind the net from David Moss.
Inman started the Irish rally with his first of the night at 16:50. Kyle Dolder got in deep on the Michigan defense causing them to send an errant pass around the left wing boards. Jake Wiegand corralled the puck and fed it to Inman who was streaking down the middle. Inman wasted little time as he one-timed the pass past Josh Blackburn for his 11th goal of the year.
Michigan got its two-goal lead back at 8:30 of the third period as they scored their second power play marker of the game. Brandon Rogers picked up his first of the season when he whipped one past Cey with Joe Zurenko in the penalty box.
“The power play was the difference in the game – Michigan scored twice and we didn’t score on our chances,” commented Poulin.
There was still some fight left in the Irish as Inman picked up the sixth two-goal game of his career. Aaron Gill kept the puck alive behind the Michigan net where Connor Dunlop picked it up and carried it to the left of Blackburn before sliding a pass across the crease where Inman banged it home at 14:19.
Gill got the game-tying goal just over three minutes later at 14:19. Defenseman T. J. Mathieson fired the puck along the right wing boards in his own zone to Tom Galvin. Galvin hit Gill in stride with a crossrink pass at center ice. Gill carried the puck into Michigan’s zone and cut across the front and fired a shot past Blackburn for his sixth goal of the season.
Cey, the CCHA’s Rookie of the Week last week, turned in another strong performance that included 15 saves in the third period on the way to a 33-save night.
“Morgan’s made adjustments all season and just keeps getting better. He’s giving us a chance to win every night,” said Poulin. The Wolverines outshot the Irish 36-25 on the night with
Blackburn finishing with 22 saves.
The tie on Friday sets up an interesting second game on Saturday night.
“This really makes things interesting for Saturday. Both teams really have a chance to make it a great weekend series,” said Poulin.
