to the calls that Pritchett was blowing a head gasket over. He made it sound like Barry Pochmara was the single worst referee who ever laced up a pair of skates and put on a striped shirt. The only comment he made then regarding Jackson was that after one of the calls Pritchett complained about he went to Naurato and explained himself but never skated over to the ND bench and offered the same to the Notre Dame coach. Perhaps Jackson didn't ask him to explain? If he made other comments about Jackson's behavior I may have missed them as I was unable to listen to the first few minutes of the final period.
Refs were terrible both nights. This year, the B10 standard for a 5 or 10 penalty was much tighter (and closer to how the calls are made at the next level). Until this weekend. I'm surprised they didn't give us the 3rd major of the weekend last night.
Looked like Bjork's kneeing penalty was a phantom call.
The offside non-call was ridiculous. Appears the only view was the standard wide angle view. You can see the puck clearly cross the blue line (but the player isn't in view). The camera then follows the puck to the MI player who is a good 5-10 feet inside the blue line. It wasn't close.
It wasn't all refs. JJ's first challenge was dumb (esp w/ lack of camera angles). And that failed challenge led to delay-of-game penalty after the offside failed challenge.
This team took far too many non-hockey bonehead penalties that costs us games this year. Boltmann needlessly spraying the goalie in Fri night's loss was the classic example. Tough to win a series against any team, let alone one that has a 36% PP when you take a bunch of penalties. We have taken more unsportsmanlike and 5-10 min penalties than I care to remember this year. Yet another thing that has worsened over the past couple seasons that needs to change to turn around the program.
Missing Nelson/Silianoff, I didn't have a lot of hope for this weekend. But 5v5 I thought we matched up well this weekend (both teams ended up with 5 even strength goals). The penalties made a difference.
At least Slaggert got his 20th goal.
You seem to follow it closely and know who the top prospects are. Is there a site you'd recommend for this kind of info?
There really isn’t any great source for ND specific information (targets, visits, etc). There’s not really any insider who leaks information.
Social media has a lot of the rumor type stuff.
HFboards has good content for virtually all hockey topics (including prospects).
If you can stomach it, the Minn board (gopherpucklive) has several forums for topics like portal, opponent recruiting, general NCAA hockey news, etc which has good up-to-date info/rumors/insight.
next year. The penalty on Mastrodimenico was a joke. The guy was falling head first into the boards before he was touched
That MastroD major made no sense. It wasn't called on the ice and the guy was going headfirst into the boards on his own.
I thought the Bavaria major on Fri wasn't a good call either. MI player was up against the boards, made a quick turn right before contact, and put himself in a vulnerable position lowering his head to the railing. Bavaria was already committed to making contact so there was nothing he could do to stop. I have no problem calling that minor boarding, but making that a game-changing major call was BS.
Given the standard the refs set for the weekend, I was shocked they didn't call us for a 3rd major yesterday. MI D tries to split between 2 Irish. Our players collapse and check the guy. Our first goy knocks the MI player into our other guy (smacking his head awkwardly). But there now accidental unavoidable head contact isn't a penalty.
And the one call they reviewed against MI for a major seemed like it should've been 5 min based off the calls against us. Our guy is vulnerable and going down against the boards. MI player finishes the check smacking Irish players head against the boards. But there it's only a minor.
Refs were all over the place.
If they want to be a pro development league, they should call the game like the pro level (where the bar for 5-10 min penalties is much higher). 5-10 min penalties have massive impact on the outcome of the games, so they should be used only for the most egregious penalties.
I also get some of JJ's griping about B10 officiating.
B10 overall has some teams that take a lot of penalties:
MSU -- 13.4 PIM/G
UW -- 10.4 PIM/G
MN -- 6.8 PIM/G
Mich -- 13.4 PIM/G
ND -- 12.6 PIM/G
PSU -- 9.2 PIM/G
OSU -- 12.8 PIM/G
But those numbers don't hold up for the blue bloods this season when they play ND (ND PIM/G vs opp PIM/G):
MSU --18.0 vs 10.5
UW -- 20.8 vs 10.3
MN -- 5.0 vs 3.0
Mich -- 13.5 vs 9.7
PSU -- 8.5 vs 13.3
OSU -- 15.0 vs 19.0
MSU and Mich may be the 2 dirtiest teams in B10, but somehow the refs act like they put their halos on when they play the Irish.
I'd much rather the refs call the game like they did with us vs Gophers this year. Both teams got away with stuff, but it was pretty consistent. And refs didn't change the outcome of the games (like they did this past weekend). And we were more competitive vs MN compared to the other top B10 teams likely because the PP-effect was diminished.
Don't get me wrong -- I also think there's stuff on our own bench to clean up when it comes to penalties. But we are facing an uphill battle in the B10.
The four teams that finished in front of us took fewer penalty minutes in their 4 games against us, and the two that finished behind us took more. I think that is just as important as the overall numbers.
Were we getting the calls our first year in the league or were we just playing better than the other teams? Ohio State and Notre Dame were the least penalized teams overall and finished 2nd and 1st. 34+ games is more illustrative too than just 4. And ask a Minnesota fan about the call that put Notre Dame on the PP a minute into the OT in the 2019 semi final, the PP that led to the winning goal. They will swear on a stack it was an awful, homer call. It might not have been the best call, but if Michigan is going to get calls over us in hockey, Minnesota definitely will too. That loss eliminated MN from any chance of an NCAA bid in 2019. The highest rated FF games since the tournament went to 16 games generally have involved Minnesota.
I think officiating in college hockey is substandard, especially when compared with the quality of the players and coaches. But it always has been. I think it is a tough stretch to think officiating had anything of substance to do with where we ended up in the standings or the fact we are not playing another game this season. I watched most of Notre Dame's home games and don't think for one second favorable officiating is why we had a home winning % 2 1/2 times better than on the road. Frankly, the way Notre Dame played on Friday for most of the game it would have taken having the refs in our pocket to win the game.
In a sport like hockey, stats give objective support to justify or refute subjective observations.
I watched virtually every home/away game live/streaming/TV. And a couple non-ND B10 games. My issue is with the subjective interpretation in what's "unsportsmanlike" vs 5 vs 10 vs suspension. Which has been applied differently to ND games (which leads to the primary discrepancy in those PIM stats with the blue bloods).
In-conference PIM/G were 13.5 ND vs 10.8 Opp.
Out-of-conference PIM/G were 10.3 ND vs 12.3 Opp.
Essentially a 5 PIM swing in vs out of conference.
This past weekend was bad. Listening on the radio doesn't do it justice (although it sounds like Pritchett was riled up about the calls). The refs were all over the place with their major interpretations (and 3 of the 4 interpretations went against us). I think the last 3 major reviews didn't even initially have penalties called on the ice.
The inconsistent major/minor calls 100% played a role in the outcome. If Bavaro's major on Friday was a minor, then MI doesn't get the go-ahead goal and the game remains tied in the 3rd.
The missed offsides wasn't even close. The MI player didn't even toe drag b/c he was too far offsides to even attempt it. But unless he was offsides, the MI player would not have been able to receive the pass and it would've been icing. And it led to a goal (and a minor penalty when our review failed b/c it was in a camera blind spot that didn't capture puck/blue line/MI player in a single image). In a game that was decided by a single goal that blown call 100% made a difference.
challenging the blatant offsides when they didn't have the correct camera angle to confirm or not! They should have actually penalized Michigan for their incompetence in not having all the required camera views!
Trying this again