Weekly Wrap Up Notre Dame sweeps Michigan

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish continued its success story this season by sweeping perennial CCHA power Michigan.

On Friday night at Yost Ice Arena in Ann Arbor, the Irish came away with a 7-3 victory on the road in a hostile environment. Seven different players for Notre Dame scored goals (Tom Sawatske, Garrett Reggan, Erik Condra, Josh Sciba, Ryan Thang, Christian Hanson, and Evan Rankin) as the Michigan defense struggled to keep the puck out of the net again. This has been a constant struggle for the Wolverines all season and if they want to improve, the defense has to start playing better. For David Brown, it was another solid night for the goaltender, stopping 26 of 29 Michigan shots on goal. On the other end it was a nightmare for Billy Sauer as he got pulled after the second period only stopping 11 of 16 Notre Dame shots on goal. Nevertheless Notre Dame continued its hot streak.

After a day off, the two teams were at battle again this time at South Bend. This game was a little closer but still the same result. Michigan opened up the scoring 42 seconds into the first period when Travis Turnbull put the puck past David Brown and the Wolverines gained the early 1-0 lead and took a 2-1 lead after one. After the second period Michigan took a 3-2 lead. However, the Wolverines could not hang on in the third period. The collpase started at the 7:13 mark of the third when Ryan Thang tied it on the Irish's third power play goal of the night. 30 seconds later Garrett Regan scored his second of the night, third of the seriesd, and the game winning goal. David Brown stopped all nine Michigan shots on goal in the third and the Irish took the 4-3 victory. Notre Dame was 3-7 on the power play while Michigan was 0-6. In the series the Irish were 5-14 while Michigan could only get one power play goal out of 13 opportunities. Thats the stat of the series for you.

In other college hockey action this weekend:

Wisconsin got back on its winning ways as they went on the road to Grand Forks and swept the North Dakota Fighting Sioux.

Boston College and UMASS-Amherst split in Hockey East action.

New Hampshire improved its winning streak to nine and are now unbeaten in their last 12 (11-0-1) as the Wildcats defeated St. Lawrence.

And St. Cloud State swept Colgate in non league action.

Next weeks top games include:

Vermont @ St. Lawrence
Dartmouth @ Harvard
Denver @ Alaska-Anchorage (2 game series)

As finals week comes many of the teams have the week off until after christmas. But keep it right here on hockeynuts for all your college hockey needs as we inch closer to the return of Bracketology 2007 edition starting the first week of January.