Notre Dame jumped out to a 1-0 lead after the first, but Chris Gobert registered an unusual hat trick to spearhead the Wildcat effort as Northern Michigan beat the Irish 3-1 in the first CCHA Quarterfinal game.
“Obviously, it’s a win we’re very happy with,” said NMU head coach Rick Comley. “Notre Dame is the type of team that gives us a lot of trouble. They’re a big strong team, they’re very physical, they’re stick-strong, they cycle well, and that usually gets the best of us.
“They’ve struggled when they’ve not scored first. We struggle until we score. Once we score, we just seem to relax … and I thought from the time we scored our goal, that’s when we started to play.”
David Inman’s final career goal for Notre Dame gave the Irish a 1-0 lead at 18:55 after the Irish spent the better part of the first period taking it to the Wildcats, pressuring Craig Kowalski mercilessly in the final minutes of the stanza and outshooting Northern Michigan 11-4 in the first 20 minutes.
For most of the second period, both teams looked sloppy — until the final three minutes, when Northern seemed to get its collective legs and turn the tables on Notre Dame. Peppering Irish netminder Morgan Cey, the Wildcats finally hit paydirt when Chad Theuer dug the puck out of the right corner and fired it to Gobert in the high slot. Gobert’s first goal of the night at 17:37 in the second tied the game.
Gobert made a heads-up play for the go-ahead goal at 7:30 in the second, stripping Irish blueliner Joe Zurenko in the left faceoff circle in the ND end. After his steal, Gobert went in one-on-one with Cey, who committed early and far out of the net.
“He committed first to me, which a lot of goaltenders don’t do,” said Gobert. “All I had to do was make a move around him and make sure I didn’t miss the open net.”
With Cey sprawled belly-down in front of the crease, Gobert helped himself to an open net and a 2-1 Wildcat lead.
With just 16 seconds to go, Gobert completed the hat trick and cemented the win with an empty-netter, and a little help from Chad Theuer. Theuer’s shot on the empty net — from just three feet away — hit the left post and bounced back to Gobert. This was moments after Dan Donnette also hit the pipe on the empty net, from about 20 feet out.
“He had two goals, so I thought I’d leave it for him,” said Theuer of his generous assist on Gobert’s third goal.
The teams split their regular-season series 2-2-0, with Northern winning the first contest of each weekend. Notre Dame head coach Dave Poulin said that the Irish and the Wildcats are very “like” teams.
“We play a very similar system,” said Poulin. “I think that’s subconsciously out of my admiration for Rick Comley. We did grind it out. We got our shots. We got our chances. Kowalski was good. Cey was good. It was a very evenly played hockey game that came down to a poke check.”
That poke check was Kowalski’s best save of the game, on Notre Dame’s Brett Lebda in the closing moments of the third, with a ton of traffic in front of the Northern net.
“In terms of where we’ve come as a hockey team,” said Poulin, “the fact that there were two seniors in the lineup tonight, five freshmen and sophomores on defense and a freshman goalie — fifteen minutes after the game, I’m very excited about the future of this team.”
Notre Dame finishes the season 16-17-5, while Northern Michigan (26-11-2) meets Michigan State in the second Semifinal game of the Super Six weekend, at 5:30 p.m. in Joe Louis Arena.
