Can Cal Petersen Stay on Track?

Cal Petersen #30 of Team McClanahan takes part in the morning skate prior to the USA Hockey All-American Prospects Game at the First Niagara Center on September 29, 2012 in Buffalo, New York.

Sept. 28, 2012 – Source: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images North America

The NCAA hockey season is underway! Teams started to take part in preseason-like games Saturday in order to get ready for the regular season. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish do not start until next Friday when they take on the University of Guelph at the Compton Family Ice Arena. The Irish will be hoping to get the play they received from Buffalo Sabres goaltender Cal Petersen last season, this time around.

Petersen became a gem for Notre Dame last season. Although his season started out rather disappointing, the Waterloo, Iowa native turned his play around at the end of the year. He played his best hockey in the crease for the blue, gold and green in the later months of January, February and March.

In the month of January Petersen had a save percentage of .902, in February he had a save percentage of .908, and in the final month of March, Petersen had a save percentage of .917.

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March was THE month for Cal Petersen. His month started out with a bang when he played in the longest game in NCAA hockey history against the UMass Minutemen. He spent a total of 151 minutes and 42 seconds in the net, stopping a total of 87 shots. UMass did pot 4 in the triple overtime loss. Shortly after that he earned a 23 save shutout.

The question that now needs to be faced is can Cal Petersen hold his current upside and remain on track for the 2015-2016 season, or was last season a fluke?

Taking a closer look at last season, it was far from a fluke. The teams the Petersen faced in the later months included Boston University and UMass Lowell which both sat in the top ten for goals per game in the nation. Other teams included Northeastern, who had a top 10 powerplay, as well as Providence who wound up winning the NCAA tournament.

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Moving to this season, Petersen will be tested early with match-ups against Penn State, UConn, Minnesota, Northeastern, and UMass-Lowell within the 1st two months of the season.

All of those schools were in the top 20 in categories dealing with shots and creating goals. Penn State led the nation in shots on goal per game last season.

Since Petersen had a hot finish at the end of the year, perhaps the school did him a favor when scheduling. Most of the schools Notre Dame plays in their final months, including Western Michigan, Merrimack, Vermont, and New Hampshire, and Denver, were not in the top 20 last year in categories that deal in shots and goal creating.

Petersen will basically have the same team in front of him this year. The only early departure Notre Dame saw signing with an NHL team was, defenseman Robbie Russo. While he was detrimental to the Irish d-core, Petersen will have new recruit, Chicago Blackhawks prospect, Dennis Gilbert to soften the blow.

The offensive production coming out of Notre Dame somewhat helped Petersen last year, finishing 17th in the nation in goals per game. A little more goal creation could increase the confidence of Cal Petersen and ease him to blowouts in his favor.

If Cal Petersen can reach a 2.30 goals against average and stay steady with a .920 save percentage, we will know for sure if the assessments being thrown out are on target.

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