UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In a hard-fought, extremely physical game, the No. 18 Penn State Nittany Lions used an offensive onslaught to defeat the No. 8 Minnesota Golden Gophers, 5-1 Friday night at Pegula Ice Arena.
“I thought that was the most complete game we have played this year, both offensively and defensively,” said Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky. “It was the most consistent game of what we like to think of Penn State hockey. It was nice to see.”
Penn State (15-13-5, 8-10-5-2), who has a reputation as a high-volume shooting team, peppered Minnesota goalie Mat Robson with 61 shots and had consistent offensive zone puck possession through out the game.
Not only were the Nittany Lions able to generate sustainable offense, they tightened things up on the defensive end and made life easy for goaltender Peyton Jones, who stopped 14 of the 15 shots he faced.
“That was a really tough game for Peyton,” said Gadowsky. “We didn’t give up a ton but we gave up some really big chances. He didn’t see a lot of volume but he needed to make some huge saves.”
With plenty of work to do to in order to make the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row, the Nittany Lions came out with a sense of urgency and dominated the opening ten minutes of the game. An intense and constant fore-check created numerous Minnesota defensive zone turnovers that led to quality scoring chances for Penn State.
“The conversation a few weeks ago was that this was playoffs and it’s crunch time,” said James Robinson. “That was our mindset a few weeks ago but obviously it being where it is now its amplified even more.”
Robinson opened the scoring and gave Penn State a 1-0 at the 8:13 mark, after he deflected a Kris Myllari slap shot past Robson. This was Robinson’s first goal since November.
Minnesota (19-14-2, 10-11-2-1) struggled to generate offense the entire night and failed to record a shot on net until well over halfway through the first period, however, it managed to even the score at 12:22 of the first and head to the locker rooms tied at 1-1. Casey Mittelstadt provided the lone Gopher goal of the night, as he created a screen in front of Jones and tipped a low wrist shot into the open net.
The second period was more of the same from the Nittany Lions, as they brought a tremendous amount of energy to both ends of the ice and were finishing their checks at every opportunity.
Penn State regained the lead, a lead it wouldn’t surrender again, following a Trevor Hamilton tally with just over nine minutes remaining in the second period and never looked back.
The floodgates opened in the third period as the Nittany Lions began to gain complete control of the game. Liam Folkes and Evan Barrett each scored to give Penn State a comfortable three-goal lead, while Alex Limoges added another with 3:08 left in the contest to put the game out of reach and secure Gadowsky’s 100th career win with the Nittany Lions.
