Irish Icers Stun #1 Boston College 3-2
 

Notre Dame, Ind. — Sophomore right wing T.J. Jindra scored a shorthanded goal with 14.6 seconds remaining to snap a 2-2 tie and give the Notre Dame Fighting Irish a 3-2 upset win over top-ranked Boston College on Friday Oct. 23, 2004, in front of a sold-out Joyce Center.

The win was the first of the season for the Irish, who improved to 1-3-1. Boston College falls to 2-1-0 for the year.

Defenseman Wes O'Neill broke up a pass in front of the Irish goal and held the puck for a second before finding a streaking Jindra in the neutral zone. Jindra took the pass and was able to beat Matti Kaltianen with a wrist shot from the bottom of the left wing circle over his glove to the far side for the winning goal.

"T.J. (Jindra) just seems to make the big plays for us," said Irish head coach Dave Poulin.

"If you look at his goals last season, they were all key goals. He did it again tonight. Wes O'Neill made a great play in breaking up the pass, then holding the puck that extra second, not icing it and instead finding T.J. at center."

Jindra's late-game heroics were overshadowed by the play of senior goaltender Morgan Cey, who turned aside a career-high 50 shots to hold the Irish in the game versus the high-flying Eagles. Cey made 20 saves in the first period, 10 in the second and 20 more in the final period. Twenty-eight of his 50 saves came on Boston College power plays as the Eagles were 1-for-11 with the man advantage.

"Morgan won the game for us in the first, second and third periods tonight," said Irish coach Dave Poulin following the game.

"He's different this year than in previous years. He has a certain confidence in goal. The team feeds off that."

The Wilkie, Sask., native knew he would see a lot of action versus Boston College.

"I told Cory McLean walking over tonight that if we could hold them off in the first period that we would have a good chance tonight," said Cey.

"They really showed what they could do in the third period when they scored twice in 15 seconds. They got some momentum and they're a great skating team. They really brought it hard and were right back in the game."

The win for the Irish marked the second time in two seasons that they knocked off the No. 1 ranked Eagles. Behind the stellar goaltending of David Brown in 2003-04, Notre Dame blanked Boston College, 1-0, at Chestnut Hill.

After a scoreless first period that saw Boston College have six power-play chances, the Irish got on the board at 5:32 of the second on a five-on-three power-play goal by O'Neill. The big defenseman kept a BC clearing attempt in at the left point and fed a pass to McLean near the goal line. McLean returned the pass to O'Neill who ripped a shot past Kaltiainen for his first of the season.

Freshman right wing Evan Rankin made it 2-0 in favor of the Irish at 8:05 when he snapped a pass from Matt Amado from the right wing circle past Kaltiainen to the far post for the first goal of his collegiate career. Tim Wallace started the play at center feeding the puck ahead to Amado.

The Eagles finally solved Cey at 12:16 of the third period when Brian Boyle banged the rebound of a Stephen Gionta shot past Cey for a power-play goal. Cey stopped Gionta's shot, but Boyle was parked to the left of the Irish goaltender and was able to get the puck past him.

That goal hadn't even been announced yet and the Eagles were racing back into the offensive zone. Ned Havern fed Dave Spina breaking down the left side and the senior was able to tuck the puck in the short side between Cey and the post for his second of the year at 12:41.

As the clock wound down, Tim Wallace was called for charging deep in the Boston College zone at 19:11, setting up Jindra's heroics.

For the game, Boston College outshot the Irish 52-17. Kaltiainen made 14 saves for the Eagles. BC was 1-for-11 on the power play while Notre Dame was 1-for-9.