This time, it was the second period that sealed it.
One night after using a four-goal third period to break five-game winless streak, Notre Dame scored three over a six-minute span in the middle frame to cruise to a 4-0 win over Massachusetts for a weekend sweep at Mullins Center.
Robbie Russo scored twice for the Fighting Irish, while Austin Wuthrich added a goal and an assist. Freshman Cal Peterson had an easy 14-save night in which the defense was strong in front of him and Notre Dame, which held a 33-14 edge in shots, as the Irish dominated possession of the puck.
“It’s about puck possession, that’s the best defense,” Irish coach Jeff Jackson said. “(UMass) is a good transition team and if you possess the puck you take that away.”
Russo began the second-period run with a goal at 2:08 of the second period off a feed from Sam Herr. Herr received a pass from Jordan Gross in the high slot and slipped the puck to Russo at the top of the left circle. The senior one-timed the puck and finished an impressive goal from a difficult angle to beat Minutemen goalie Steve Mastalerz.
Wuthrich doubled Notre Dame’s advantage at 7:54 when he tapped in a floating puck to make it 2-0. Vince Hinostroza’s initial shot deflected off Mastalerz and went airborne in the crease. Wuthrich snuck through a weak UMass defense during the shot and was right in front to get a stick on the puck.
Mario Lucia quickly put the game out of hand with a goal 33 seconds later.
After a similarly impressive showing in the third period Friday, Jackson said his team did a good job seizing momentum both games and limiting mistakes in order to maintain it for so long.
“Hockey’s a momentum game,” he said. “You try to control the momentum. In my opinion, you do that with things like faceoffs, power plays, penalties, and then not making blatant turnovers.
“For those stretches of time when we had that success in the second or last night in the third, I thought we did those things well. That’s where you have to be consistent. You try to do it for 60 minutes. It’s impossible to do every game, but that’s what you strive for.”
That’s when the frustration kicked in for the Minutemen.
Three different scuffles took place along the boards Saturday night. UMass totaled 16 penalties for 48 minutes in the box compared to the Irish’s eight for 24 minutes — a product of the game getting out of hand for the Minutemen. The two teams combined for three 10-minute misconducts for the game.
“If there was fighting in college hockey, there probably would’ve been a couple tilts tonight,” captain Troy Power said. “I think at times we got into scuffles we didn’t need to get into and in turn took penalties on. I think at times we were a little frustrated.”
UMass coach John Micheletto was noticeably irritated by the amount of penalties his team took, saying, “We put ourselves in a bad spot with some of them, took some frustration calls. Somehow, they just seemed to keep multiplying.”
The penalties led to numerous power-play opportunities for the Irish. They finally capitalized 17:07 into the third when Russo scored his seventh of the season in a five-on-three situation.
