ALBANY, N.Y. — With two defensive-minded teams like Minnesota State and Notre Dame squaring off for the Albany Regional title, it came as no surprise that it was a hard-fought, low-scoring battle. Or that a couple of bounces one way or the other would be the difference.
Minnesota State’s Nathan Smith scored on a rebound from Brendan Furry with 16 seconds left in the first period. It ended up being the only goal of the game, advancing the Mavericks to the Frozen Four in Boston.
The goal came on a faceoff to the stick side of Notre Dame goalie Matthew Galajda.
“Furry won the draw back,” said Smith. “He’s a pretty good man on the draw so I expected that.
“I just tried to get a quick shot on net but there were like four guys in the lane and somebody was going to block it,” said Smith. “[Furry] found it and just put it off the pad and it bounced right to me.”
Smith leaned around the stacked Notre Dame defense in front of Galajda and wristed it in.
“It was a bounce here, a bounce there,” said Minnesota State coach Mike Hastings. “We found a way to score a goal at the end of a period and Dryden [McKay] and the rest of the guys did a really good job of managing the game from there.”
Notre Dame had a few bounces of its own on a scramble in front of the Minnesota State net with 6:24 left in regulation.
Nick Leivermann took a shot that deflected off Minnesota State’s Benton Maass and chaos ensued.
“I think he shot it, it hit his shin pad, skipped four or five times, skipped over my defenseman, skipped over my pad and hit the post and then Andy Carroll swept it off the goal line,” McKay said. “I was just trying to take up as much space as I can, I didn’t know where it was. There was like five guys in the crease. It was just one of those plays where you just take up space and don’t accidentally knock it in your own net.”
“We’ve won a lot of one-goal, two-goal games and he’s a huge part of that,” Smith said of McKay. “We strive to be strong defensively in front of him. But we have a huge amount of confidence that if we get up one or two goals that we have him behind us.”
Notre Dame kept the pressure on through the final four minutes of the game.
“We can talk about a little bit of a game plan here and there but at the end of the day, the heart and soul and the grit of the guys out there — you look at over those last four minutes, I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m going to guarantee you, we probably had to lay down and block six or seven shots so they didn’t get to Dryden,” said Hastings. “And the ones that got there, he did a really good job of cleaning up the mess.”
Notre Dame also limited Minnesota State’s chances, blocking 14 shots to the Mavericks’ 15.
“Our philosophy is to defend well and then transition from it. The problem tonight is that we didn’t get a lot of transition opportunities,” said Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson. “We’ve got guys who are willing to sacrifice. … When things break down that’s when you need guys that are willing to pay the price, to deny second chances, and to get in a shot lane.”
“We had to earn it this weekend,” McKay said. “Tonight was a battle all the way from the first shift. If you’re going to make it to the Frozen Four, you’re going to have to earn it, you’re going to have to do something extra. I think we had that kind of extra effort tonight that got us through.”
McKay earned his 10th shutout of the season and extended two records, a career 34 shutouts and the single-season NCAA record for victories to 37.
Notre Dame ended its season at 28-12-0. Minnesota State (37-5-0) awaits the winner of Sunday’s Worcester Regional final between Western Michigan and Minnesota in a Frozen Four semifinal April 7 in Boston.
Albany Regional All-Tournament Team
F — Brendan Furry (Minnesota State)
F — Graham Slaggert (Notre Dame)
F — Nathan Smith (Minnesota State)
D — Akito Hirose (Minnesota State)
D — Adam Karashik (Notre Dame)
G — Dryden McKay (Minnesota State)
MVP -– McKay
