SOUTH BEND, Ind. — A gritty stretch of hockey in a game two days earlier apparently carried over for Minnesota-Duluth.
Matt McNeely made 23 saves for his second collegiate shutout, and Dominic Toninato collected his third goal of the weekend for the Bulldogs, who took third place in the Ice Breaker Tournament with a 3-0 victory over No. 12 Notre Dame on Sunday.
The Bulldogs were forced to the consolation game at Compton Family Ice Arena by a loss to Minnesota on Friday, but their third-period play in cutting a three-goal deficit to one in that game was at times tenacious.
That was the way they went about their business on Sunday, going to the net with emphasis in the attacking zone and blocking shots at the other end.
“We need to play that way,” Bulldogs coach Scott Sandelin said. “Our guys knew it even Friday, how we played [with] a little more determination, a little bit hungry. We need to have more of that for our team to have success.”
A statistical representation of the effort: The Bulldogs were credited with 16 blocked shots, with 11 different players getting in the way of at least one Notre Dame shot.
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“When McNeely’s sitting back there with the shutout, you really want to come together and block shots and do all you can in the [defensive] zone for him,” Toninato said.
Decorated Notre Dame freshman Cal Petersen made 26 saves in his collegiate debut, but the Irish fell to 0-2 for the first time since 2005-06, Jeff Jackson’s first season leading the team.
“Any time you lose two games at home, it’s not good,” Jackson said. “But I’m going to be patient. I have to be. I have no alternative. We’ve got some good young players, but they’re young.”
The Bulldogs (1-1) scored a pair of power-play goals in the first two periods and opened up a 3-0 lead at the second intermission.
Petersen, the USA Hockey goaltender of the year last season when he was with Waterloo of the USHL, stopped a Toninato power-play rebound chance in front, but the Irish couldn’t clear the puck and Tony Cameranesi backhanded it in for a 1-0 lead in the first period.
In the second, Alex Iafallo finished off a quick rush up the left wing with a backhand shot high past Petersen, making the Bulldogs 2-for-4 with the man advantage at the time.
They had multiple power-play goals in a game just five times in 36 games last season and finished 43rd out of 59 Division I teams with a 15.8 percent success rate.
“Last year, I’m hoping it was a little bit of an anomaly,” Sandelin said. “It’s nice to get a little better start … to build off that.”
Toninato made it 3-0 in the final minute of the second period when he tipped an Adam Krause pass past Petersen. He added an assist Sunday for a four-point performance in the two-game tournament.
McNeely made eight saves in the third period, helped by six blocked shots, to secure the shutout.
His only other shutout came against Michigan Tech on Jan. 11, 2013. The Bulldogs posted just one zero in the goals-against column all of last season, against Miami on March 1.
McNeely had to face a five-on-three Notre Dame power play in the first period, but the Irish helped ease that situation for the junior when Peter Schneider took a holding penalty.
“For any goaltender, especially early in the year, your first game, if you can get a couple of tough saves that you make, it puts him in the right frame of mind,” Sandelin said. “And then to throw in a five-on-three on that, it was right into the fire early. I thought he made a couple key saves for us and you could see he was in it after that.”
