Before this weekend’s series with Michigan State, Notre Dame head hockey coach Brock Sheahan compared his program with the No. 1 Spartans.
“They do a lot of what we’re trying to do. They play to their brand consistently,” Sheahan said Wednesday. “There’s a reason they’ve been so consistent. They know what their game is and they play to it all the time, regardless of who they’re playing, and it’s been really impressive.”
Right now, everyone wants to be Michigan State. And it’s hard not to see why after the Spartans (9-1-0, 4-0-0 Big Ten) swept the Irish (3-8-1, 0-6-0 Big Ten) out of Compton Family Ice Arena. The Green and White have been the class of college hockey to begin the season, completing their eighth and ninth consecutive wins this weekend. In the standings, Notre Dame is headed the other direction. It’s now lost six consecutive games to start conference play.
If Michigan State models what the Irish want to become under first-year head hockey coach Brock Sheahan, this weekend showed they have a ways to go. That’s not to say the Irish didn’t play well this weekend, though — especially in Saturday’s 3-1 loss.
“That’s the first time we’ve played like how we’re supposed to play for an entire game,” Sheahan said after the Spartans clinched the sweep. “We generated a ton [of chances]. I would say we out-generated them, and that’s the best hockey team in the country.”
Notre Dame did generate more scoring chances than Michigan State on Saturday night, just like it did at Minnesota a week ago. But the Irish lost both those Saturday games and now have scored just four goals in their last five games. They haven’t scored more than a single goal in a game since Halloween, over two weeks ago.
For a Notre Dame team that has leaned so heavily on the process to start 2025-26, that’s frustrating. There’s a tension now between the process and its anticipated results.
“I think we’ve got to use it as motivation, obviously,” junior center and captain Danny Nelson said postgame. “Brock talks a lot about the process, and obviously it’s hard when you lose to stick to the process, but it’s going to be challenging, but if we can, it’s going to prove successful in the long run.”
“That’s kind of the message in the locker room right now, is just keep pushing. [It’s] obviously tough when the result is like that, but if we keep playing this game over and over, eventually, we’ll get success,” Nelson added.
That mindset takes faith. That mindset also takes patience, and a whole lot of it. The results have not been there to start this season for Notre Dame, but the commitment to the process is clear. Only patience, now, will bide the time.
Friday: Michigan State 4, Notre Dame 1
Both games in the series followed a similar scoring pattern. The Spartans took the lead in the first period, played Notre Dame to a stalemate in the second, and assumed a defensive posture in the third to put the game on ice.
Spartan freshman forward Porter Martone continued his stellar start to the year by striking for the first goal of the series at 11:53 of the opening frame. Martone took a centering pass from senior forward Charlie Stramel, cut to his backhand, and tucked the puck behind Notre Dame starting netminder Nicholas Kempf to open the scoring.
That would not be the last Notre Dame would see of Martone. He beat Kempf over the glove-side shoulder on the power play at 6:05 of the second period to give Michigan State a 2-0 lead. The Irish would answer with a power-play goal of their own, as junior defenseman Paul Fischer snapped a wrist shot past Spartan junior netminder Trey Augustine.
Back within one, Notre Dame had its chances to tie the score at the end of the second and beginning of the third. Augustine continually shut the door, including an impressive side-to-side glove save on Irish junior forward Evan Werner. Augustine showed all weekend why he deserves the title of nation’s best goaltender, stopping 75 of 77 Irish shots over the two games.
Spartan junior defenseman Maxim Štrbák shored up Friday’s win with a goal at 8:08 of the third. Alone at the top of the circle, Štrbák had plenty of time to snap a shot through traffic past Kempf. Freshman forward Ryker Lee added an empty-net goal to bring the final score to 4-1. Kempf faced high volume, making 43 saves on 46 shots.
Saturday: Michigan State 3, Notre Dame 1
After closing the scoring in Friday’s contest, Lee opened the scoring on Saturday night just 90 seconds into the game. The Nashville Predators draft pick, who was one of Michigan State’s best players all weekend, finished off a no-look backhand pass from fellow freshman Anthony Romani to give the Spartans the lead early. Augustine stopped Notre Dame graduate forward Sutter Muzzatti on a breakaway with just eight seconds remaining in the frame to keep the score 1-0 after the first.
Again, Michigan State doubled its lead in the second period when Martone added on his third goal of the series. This one came much like his first, with a drag move to the backhand to beat Kempf. And again, the Irish responded on the power play when Nelson tipped Werner’s shot past Augustine.
The Irish created even more opportunities to tie the game in Saturday’s third period than Friday night’s. The elusive game-tying goal never came, even with the net empty and six attackers on the ice. Spartan junior forward Tommi Männistö, who had a goal waved off earlier in the period due to goaltender interference, scored into the empty net to seal the sweep.
