Two years ago, the Nittany Lions were an overtime goal away from a trip to the Frozen Four.
After beating Colgate 8-0 in the first game of the 2023 Midwest Regional semifinal, Penn State fell to Michigan 52 seconds into overtime of the regional title game.
Last season, Penn State finished sixth in the Big Ten with seven conference wins and 15 overall. In this year’s B1G preseason coaches poll, the Nittany Lions were picked to finish sixth.
Guy Gadowsky has no problem with that assessment.
“Because of where we finished last year, I think it’s fair,” said Gadowsky, now in his 13th season at Penn State. “I’m not sure we have anything to prove to anybody else, but we certainly do to ourselves. There are aspects of our game last year that we think justify why we finished sixth. We need to do a much better job of keeping the pucks out of our net.”
The Nittany Lions began this season with a pair of wins in Alaska, where Gadowsky began his collegiate coaching career in 1999, and lost 3-2 on the road to Quinnipiac Oct. 12.
“What we found out in Alaska is that the guys travel really well,” said Gadowsky. “The staff did a good job in preparing the guys for what they’re going to face with travel and how they’ll have to acclimate … especially coming back and then traveling to Quinnipiac.
“I don’t like our start at all in Quinnipiac.”
Against the Bobcats, the Nittany Lions allowed three five-on-five goals through the first two periods, during which they were uncharacteristically outshot 18-12, limited to just three shots on goal in their opening stanza.
In the first minute of the third period, Ben Schoen – who sat out the 2023-24 season because of injury – scored his first goal of the season to make it a 3-1 game. Danny Dzhaniyev scored his second of the year five minutes later to bring the Nittany Lions within a goal. Aiden Fink, a second-team Big Ten preseason honoree, had the first assist on each of those goals. In that third period, Penn State held Quinnipiac to just four shots on net.
“We’re not going to find our total identity in two weekends,” said Gadowsky. “I think we made a couple steps in the right direction, or at least we found that we could have some confidence from the games we played. Obviously, there’s other areas we have to work on. We’re not going to be a finished product any time soon.”
That identity – the gritty, shoot-from-anywhere, up-and-down-the-ice style that has been a hallmark of the Penn State team since its inception – may be something that the Nittany Lions have struggled with in recent years, but there is always a sense that Penn State is never out of the mix.
In spite of having finished sixth in the Big Ten conference standings in 2022-23, Penn State had 22 overall wins and finished eighth in the Pairwise to advance to the 2023 Midwest Regional, and the Nittany Lions’ run ended that year when three future NHL players — Mackie Samoskevich, Dylan Duke and Seamus Casey – combined for Michigan’s game-winning goal.
Last year’s sixth-place B1G finish didn’t lead to an NCAA berth, but the Nittany Lions did have win or ties against everyone ahead of them in the Big Ten standings except for Wisconsin. While Gadowsky sees the need for improvement from last year in several aspects of Penn State’s game, he also recognizes that the Nittany Lions are playing in arguably the toughest conference in Division I hockey.
“Last year, I think every single team finished in the top half of the PairWise,” said Gawdowsky. “It’s like that every year. They’re all excellent teams. They are. Those that can predict try to figure out which one of those excellent teams are going to be the very best. That’s a different story, but one thing I can guarantee is that they’re all going to be very, very good.”
Four Big Ten teams earned spots in the 2024 NCAA tournament, and the three that didn’t – Notre Dame (22), Penn State (23), Ohio State (26) – finished in the top half of the PairWise, just as Gadowsky said. That can, of course, be attributed to the conference’s small size of just seven teams, but Gadowsky’s point is a valid one. From top to bottom, B1G Hockey is a league that has competed at a high level for several seasons.
“If you look at the interconference records in the Big Ten,” said Gadowsky, “haven’t we had the highest winning percentage for two seasons in a row that’s ever been recorded? I think the Big Ten is in great shape, absolutely great shape. That’s a tough stat to argue with.”
The 2017-18 season is the first that the Big Ten registered the top nonconference win percentage (.694) among all D-I leagues, and the Big Ten has led all conferences the past three seasons, with win percentages over .700 in 2022-23 (.715) and 2023-24 (.731).
That nonconference success hasn’t translated into a national championship for the Big Ten yet but not for lack of trying. Since the league’s first year of play in 2013-14, four teams – Michigan, Minnesota, Notre Dame, Ohio State – have combined for nine Frozen Four appearances. Notre Dame, it should be noted, joined the league in 2017-18.
The seven-team league has 28 total NCAA tournament appearances, including Penn State’s in 2023, after having finished sixth in the conference.
“I welcome anybody else to take on our last-place team,” said Gadowsky.
This weekend, the Nittany Lions host St. Lawrence for two games. The Saints enter the weekend with a 4-2-0 record, having most recently blanked Ferris State 8-0. Gadowsky anticipates challenging games for the Nittany Lions’ first home stand of the season, and while Penn State is still coming together as a team, Gadowsky is encouraged early on.
“We’re definitely getting back to more of the roots you’ve seen in the past” said Gadowsky. “We’re definitely a grittier, tougher team and I like that. It fits Penn State very well.”
