Unlike the other three schools in Chicago, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish have never won a hockey national championship. Notre Dame has only been to the championship game once in the school’s history, but has continually been one of the better programs in the country, especially recently. Now the Irish are looking to finally break through but to do that they first have to get past the No. 1 overall seed Denver Pioneers on Thursday.
Don’t miss the action on the ice from the United Center in Chicago at 9:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, April 6, 2017. Catch every moment of the game live on ESPN2. We will have NCAA hockey odds at BookMaker.eu available for both Frozen Four college hockey matchups.
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Denver is not as dominant as a No. 1 seed as we have seen in the past. The Pioneers took care of business against virtually every unranked team it played this season, save Providence, but were consistently splitting against the other ranked teams in the country.
That being said, the Pioneers cruised through their regional, trouncing both Michigan Tech and Penn State by three goals.
As for Notre Dame, the Irish were the only team to upset the apple cart and beat one of the seeded teams after knocking off Minnesota in the Northeast Regional. After that, they got some revenge against UMass-Lowell to reach the Frozen Four. UMass-Lowell had hammered Notre Dame in the HEA Tournament just a week prior, but the Irish rose to the top when it mattered.
Last Year’s Meeting
These teams played a two-game series in Denver last season with both games ending in ties. Though these games ended in draws, Denver outplayed Notre Dame from the opening faceoff onward in both games, but the Irish were able to scratch out draws because of the solid play of goalie Cal Petersen.
Petersen saw a jaw-dropping 95 shots over the course of the two games against Denver, Notre Dame only put 52 shots on goal itself conversely, but came up huge in keeping 92 of them out of the net. This season, he has been the yeoman for Notre Dame, starting every game and has an outstanding save percentage of .929.
The Pioneers have gone on the record saying that to beat him they think they need to put bodies in front of the net and stop him from seeing the puck. Whether or not that works though is a totally different story.
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Denver’s coach Jim Montgomery felt that his team needed to shake things up ahead of the NCAA Hockey Tournament. Montgomery didn’t like how his team performed in the conference tournament, so he mixed up the lines and saw his tinkering rewarded. The Pioneers scored 11 goals in their first two tournament games and while it’s unlikely they can keep that pace up, the line juggling seemed to have the desired effect.
Anders Bjork has been one of the go-to guys for the Irish this year and the team is going to need him to have another solid performance if they want to knock off the Pioneers. Bjork has 21 goals and 31 assists on the season with six of those goals being game-winners. Notre Dame is 22-5-2 when he registers a point, but a dreadful 1-6-3 when he does not.
Denver is going to be the favorite to win this game and it would be a surprise to see them falter. The Pioneers are stacked on every line and have way more depth than the Irish do and those bench guys have proven they can affect the course of the game. Look for Denver to roll to a comfortable victory in this one and take a long look at the over as well.
College Hockey Odds: Denver 6, Notre Dame 4
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