The Notre Dame Fighting Irish opened the 2002-03 season with an offensive explosion at the Joyce Center as they knocked of the University of Toronto 8-1 in front of a crowd of 2,367.
Freshman center Matt Amado scored twice in the game with six others getting single goals in the seven-goal victory. The Irish broke the game open in the third period when they fired 31 shots on two Toronto goaltenders.
After a scoreless first period, Notre Dame broke through on Blues’ goaltender Jamie Bruno when Amado cashed in on a two-on-one with defenseman Tom Galvin at 11:24.
The Irish improved the lead to 3-0 with a pair of goals 29 seconds apart. Rob Globke made it 2-0 when he ripped a feed from Connor Dunlop under the crossbar at 15:04. Defenseman Joe Zurenko made it 3-0 at 15:33 when he tucked the rebound of Aaron Gill’s shot under Bruno’s pads for the final goal of the third period.
The third period was all Irish as they ran off five unanswered goals to build an 8-0 lead. John Wroblewski (1:15), Dunlop (2:34) and Cory McLean (3:14) scored three goals in a 1:59 span to chase Bruno from the Toronto goal as the lead went to 6-0. Dunlop’s goal was the lone power-play goal of the game.
Amado greeted backup goaltender Tim Knight with his second goal of the game at 6:17 and Jake Wiegand closed out the scoring 41 seconds later when his wrist shot from the top of the left wing circle beat Knight to the far post.
Toronto broke the shutout at 7:48 when Scott Johnson’s shot was stopped by Tony Zasowski in the Irish goal and deflected off a Notre Dame defenseman into the cage for the final of 8-1.
On the night, the Irish outshot Toronto 61-25. Morgan Cey got the win in goal making 16 saves over the first two periods. Zasowski made eight saves in the final stanza.
Bruno surrendered six goals in 43:14 while making 32 saves. Knight gave up two Irish goals while stopping 21 shots in the final 16:46.
The Irish now begin preparations for their season opener on Friday, Oct. 11 when they travel to Duluth, Minn., to meet the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs in a two-game weekend series.
