This weekend is the first full slate of Big Ten play, with three conference series plus a home-and-home tilt between Minnesota and Minnesota Duluth.
Since the start of the season, Big Ten teams have played a total of 43 nonconference games with a 29-12-2 record for the best win percentage in interleague play – barely. At .698, the Big Ten holds a slight edge over Hockey East (.693) and slightly bigger advantage over the NCHC (.678). There are plenty of nonconference games mixed with league play between now and mid-January, but after that it’s nothing but B1G Hockey until the end of the season.
And if the first two conference series already played this season are any indication, it will be nothing but a big battle until someone somehow captures the regular-season crown.
To open Big Ten play Oct. 20, Michigan punished Ohio State in a home 7-1 win, but the Buckeyes rebounded at Yost Ice Arena the following night with a 2-2 tie and extra shootout point.
Last weekend, Wisconsin swept Minnesota on the road to end an impressive October for the Badgers. The series marked the first time Wisconsin swept a No. 1 team since February 2014, which coincidentally were also wins over Minnesota. The sweep catapulted Wisconsin from No. 14 to No. 5 in the USCHO.com Men’s D-I Poll and dropped the Golden Gophers from No. 1 to No. 6. The Badgers also received first-place votes in the poll for the first time since 2013.
On top of that, Wisconsin’s 7-1-0 start to the season is their best first eight games since 2000-01, when they also opened with seven wins and a loss. And their five road wins total the number of away wins they’ve had in the past two seasons combined.
When asked about whether he’s noticed any of the buzz surrounding Wisconsin’s fast start, Mike Hastings quipped, “Yeah, my daughter’s excited about watching us play, so that’s a step.”
Hastings said that the Badgers aren’t invested in what others are saying about the start of the season, and he credits the leadership in the locker room for keeping the team grounded.
“You recognize where we’re at,” said Hastings, “but I think one of the reasons why we’re where we’re at is because we haven’t worried about the things that we don’t get to control.”
No. 5 Wisconsin hosts No. 4 Michigan this weekend, No. 11 Michigan State travels to No. 13 Ohio State and No. 17 Penn State faces off at home against Notre Dame to start it all on Thursday night.
At 5-2-0 overall heading into conference play, the Nittany Lions are still very much a work in progress. Both of their losses have come at home after six total home losses in 2022-23. In both losses, Penn State allowed six goals, having lost to American International 6-4 Oct. 24 and Alaska Anchorage 6-5 last Saturday night.
In that loss, the Nittany Lions held a 2-1 lead before the first period was 10 minutes old before allowing three goals in the second half of the first, including Matt Allen’s goal at 19:55 to give the Seawolves a 4-2 lead after one.
“I do think in that specific loss we acted very much like the immature team,” said Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky. “Like very much. I’m not sure that the staff expected to see that, but we saw it coming.”
Penn State isn’t an especially young team, but the Nittany Lions are transitioning players into new roles after losing a ton of goals and some leadership following last season.
“We’ve learned that we do have a lot of players that haven’t played in those major roles before because we had some guys that were in this program a long time,” said Gadowsky, “and those guys were very solidified in those roles.”
Even so, Gadowsky’s not put off by the growing pains that his team may be facing.
“There’s been a lot of really interesting discussions with our staff about certain aspects that we just didn’t expect or took for granted, things that may have been handled by experience in the past,” said Gadowsky. “It seems like every period we’ve learned something significant – whether it’s ‘Hey, this is better than we thought’ or ‘We didn’t expect to have to work on this’.
“That’s the exciting part about a season. You see which players take advantage of new opportunities.”
In every game except for their two losses, the Nittany Lions have limited opponents to two or fewer goals. Gadowsky said that defensive play, led by senior and captain Christian Berger, Berger’s classmate Jimmy Dowd, Jr., and graduate transfer Tanner Paloscik, is particularly solid.
“It’s really interesting because this is as close to our identity as we’ve ever had the D core,” said Gadowsky. “Every one of them has an offensive flair, but there’s a strength and a grit to them as well.” Five of Penn State’s 25 goals have come from the blue line.
“I think that’s one of the things we’re excited about,” said Gadowsky, “and one of the things early that’s been a real benefit in some of the wins we’ve had.”
Ahead of Notre Dame and the beginning of the Big Ten season, Gadowsky said that Penn State’s sole focus is Penn State.
“We’re coming off a weekend that is so clearly well-defined in what we need to do,” said Gadowsky. “They’re obviously a great program and provide a very different identity from ourselves, so later on in the season it’ll be a little more fun to look at them and try to strategize, but right now we are so inexperienced in certain roles and have a lot of work to do ourselves. This week is all about us.”
At the start of full Big Ten play, Gadowsky sees the conference as continuing to come into its own, poised to follow up an excellent 2022-23 campaign with more of the same.
“Last year was just so unbelievably heightened,” said Gadowsky, whose Nittany Lions finished tied with Michigan State for sixth place but were still only four points behind second-place Michigan.
“Every period was so heightened because every team was just so, so, so good. I think teams are forced to develop quickly. In league play, you don’t have any easy periods off. You’re fighting for your life every period.”
Last year’s Nittany Lions – picked to finish sixth in the 2022 Big Ten coaches’ preseason poll – were, as Gadowsky put it, one goal away from a Frozen Four appearance. Penn State lost the Allentown Regional 2-1 in overtime to Michigan.
That’s why – like Mike Hastings – Guy Gadowsky doesn’t pay much attention to polls. This year, the Nittany Lions were again picked sixth in a seven-team league.
“We’ve never looked at that,” said Gadowsky. “In this league, everybody is really, really good. That’s the way it is. You look at our league, and so what teams are fair to pick at the bottom of our league?
“Preseason polls are just polls. It’s up to you to see how much you can improve.”
