ALBANY, N.Y. — It took 60 minutes of a physical, defensive battle, 12 minutes of video review and 1:38 of overtime for Notre Dame to prevail 2-1 over North Dakota on Graham Slaggert’s power-play goal in the Albany Regional semifinal Thursday evening.
At the end of regulation, the Fighting Irish looked to have won on a short-handed goal by Adam Karashik just as the clock hit zero.
But an extended video review using multiple camera angles — while players watched, waited and skated a bit to stay loose — resulted in the goal being disallowed.
“At the end of the day, you want to try and get the call right and take as much time as you can and they did,” said North Dakota coach Brad Berry. “They took a lot of time and they finally felt they made the right call. It gave us a lot of energy going into the locker room and coming back out.”
North Dakota players said they were not fazed by the delay.
“Our coaches did an excellent job keeping our head right in it after call,” said North Dakota’s Ethan Frisch. “We were quick enough to get a video review upstairs and the guys we have looking at replays, they said, ‘It’s not going to count. It was definitely after time ran out.’ … So that helped a lot.”
“I’ve been talking to them over the last several weeks, never too high, never too low. This stuff happens in this tournament for some reason,” said Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson. “I reminded them to remember what happened to Mankato last week because that’s exactly what happened again today. It’s disappointing that it has to happen at this level, but I’m just proud of how these guys responded because we still had 30 seconds to kill.”
Jackson also expressed skepticism about the no-goal.
“I just based it on what was on the scoreboard and they’re telling me there’s two different clocks? We’re playing to the scoreboard, not to a clock that’s not visible to anybody,” Jackson explained. “When the green light went on I assumed there was still time on the clock. At least that’s the way it is in the NHL.”
The green light behind the goal did appear to turn on after the puck was in the net. However, the NCAA ice hockey rule book gives precedence to the clock. Rule 4.2 states, “Time displayed on a clock or timing device shall supersede any disparity with lights or horn signaling the end of a period or game.”
A statement by the NCAA after the game said that the scoreboard clock was “burned-in” to the various camera angles viewed by the officials.
North Dakota started overtime with time left on a power play from a Jack Adams penalty for hooking late in regulation and hoped to capitalize quickly.
“We really wanted to attack and make the most of the 26 seconds that was remaining on the power play,” said Berry.
But with 12 seconds left on the man advantage, Landon Slaggert raced out of the Notre Dame zone after a loose puck that likely would have led to a breakaway. He was knocked down by North Dakota’s Chris Jandric, leading to an Irish power play 14 seconds later.
“They made a great play to get a puck past us,” said Berry. “We had to take a penalty on it and the goal they scored was on their power play.”
“We’ve been kind of working on that play the last few weeks,” Graham Slaggert said of his game-winning goal. “We scored a similar goal against Wisconsin in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten. Landon does such a great job of screening the goalie and I kind of knew where he was going to let me shoot.”
.@GrahamSlaggert. Called. Game.
The senior scores less than two minutes into OT and the Irish 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙙𝙫𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚!
See you Saturday.#GoIrish pic.twitter.com/yveUB1WqLa
— Notre Dame Hockey (@NDHockey) March 25, 2022
North Dakota got the game’s first goal as Brent Johnson’s shot from the right point at 18:43 of the first period found its way through a crowd. Landon Slaggert tied the game at 1-1 at 1:03 of the second period. Rushing up the left side Slaggert got around Jandric and tucked home the goal.
Notre Dame is relishing the day off before facing Minnesota State for a spot in the Frozen Four at 6:30 p.m. ET Saturday.
“It’s nice to have a day off and have a little more time to get ready for the next game and have another day to be with each other as well,” said Graham Slaggert.
“I think that was an outstanding [rule] change,” said Jackson. “It’s good that there’s a day off so that you get the best out of both teams.”
