{"id":136691,"date":"2022-10-26T14:00:35","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T19:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/?p=136691"},"modified":"2022-10-25T22:50:23","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T03:50:23","slug":"this-week-in-big-ten-hockey-penn-state-firing-on-all-cylinders-as-nittany-lions-finding-way-back-to-scoring-in-bunches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2022\/10\/26\/this-week-in-big-ten-hockey-penn-state-firing-on-all-cylinders-as-nittany-lions-finding-way-back-to-scoring-in-bunches\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in Big Ten Hockey: Penn State firing on all cylinders as Nittany Lions finding way back to scoring in bunches"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The Penn State offense has been on fire to start the 2022-23 season (photo: Ed Mailliard).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The college hockey season is a six-month-long debate, but Penn State has already crafted an impressive opening statement.<\/p>\n

Averaging 5.17 goals per game through their first three series \u2013 six games, all wins \u2013 with all but three goals coming at even strength, the Nittany Lions are playing hockey that looks a lot more Penn State-ish than fans have seen in recent years.<\/p>\n

That is by design, and all of this season-opening success goes back to lessons that COVID taught the Nittany Lions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically getting back to what we used to do, in a more personalized way,\u201d said coach Guy Gadowsky.<\/p>\n

During the 2020-21 season, every D-I team adhered to its own institution-specific guidelines for playing hockey during the pandemic, as well as to NCAA, Big Ten, and CDC rules. For teams in the Big Ten, that meant little in-person interaction among players as well as between coaching staffs and their teams.<\/p>\n

For Gadowsky, especially, this was challenging.<\/p>\n

Even as he was coaching that season, he mentioned how hampered he felt because he couldn\u2019t spend time with his team, with his staff. Gadowsky was public about having to spend that season separated from his wife, Melissa, and their daughter, who went to the Canadian Maritimes because of health risks to Melissa during the early days of the pandemic without vaccines.<\/p>\n

Everyone who knows Gadowsky knows just how personable he is. Being able to communicate \u2013 to participate in a community \u2013 is intrinsic to his coaching success. When COVID made the kind of coaching at which Gadowsky excels impossible, the Nittany Lions found themselves at a bit of a loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever take the job that our whole staff does in a personal way for granted,\u201d said Gadowksky. \u201cI really think that was a big part of it. The little things that this staff does and the reason why we want to get really great people is that the personal touch that they have goes a long way. I will never take that for granted again.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother thing I\u2019ll never take for granted again is the amount of work or how valuable it is for new players to learn through example from the older players. In COVID, we had to be in cohorts. They weren\u2019t hanging out at the rink. They weren\u2019t with each other off hours from the rink. The fact that we weren\u2019t able to have guys together to learn from the leaders \u2013 I\u2019m never going to take that for granted again either.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though we did know how important those aspects were, I was still shocked at the magnitude and how quickly things could change without it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The effects on the program were immediate. In the 2018-19 season, the Nittany Lions were 22-15-2 overall and averaged an astonishing 4.54 goals per game. Penn State built on that and finished 2019-20 with the regular-season B1G title, 20-10-4 overall, outscoring opponents 121-88 in all games, and averaging 3.56 goals per game.<\/p>\n

The numbers for what we now think of as \u201cthe COVID season\u201d are a stark contrast: 10-12-0 overall, tied for fifth in B1G play, averaging 2.95 goals per game and outscored by opponents 81-65.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Nittany lions again finished tied for fifth but showed some improvement, with a 17-20-1 record and scoring 3.08 goals per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of this work was done in the past two years,\u201d said Gadowsky. \u201cOur culture was just in a totally different place from what we\u2019re used to. I give all of the players but the leaders specifically from last year credit. They were tasked with changing this culture, a number-one priority, and I think they really worked hard to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defenseman Paul DeNaples returns for a fifth season and is serving as captain for the second year in a row. Senior forward Connor McMenamin is an assistant captain for the second straight year.<\/p>\n

Some of the leadership that Gadowsky sought was imported this season. Two fifth-year forwards transferred into Penn State, Ashton Calder from North Dakota and Ture Linden from Rensselaer. Gadowsky said that his staff thought hard before deciding to bring in transfer players.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t going to do it unless we got specific tools out of them, like having them here for specific reasons and specific strengths,\u201d said Gadowsky. \u201cAlso, we really wanted a lot of leadership again. Where we were with our culture coming out of COVID, that was a very big priority for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think both these guys bring a lot of veteran maturity and that was something that was very important to us. They\u2019ve made an impact off the ice as well as on the ice. They play that role. So far, we couldn\u2019t be happier with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calder and Linden have each scored three goals.<\/p>\n

The Nittany Lions opened their season with a home sweep of Canisius, a home-and-home sweep of Mercyhurst, and two wins at home last weekend against St. Thomas. After beating the Tommies 6-2 in that series opener, the Nittany Lions needed overtime to win the second game. It was the alternate captain, McMenamin, 4:40 in OT who scored his second goal of the season for the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in college hockey, you\u2019ve seen it over and over, anybody can beat anybody,\u201d said Gadowsky. \u201cIt happens every year.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, Canisius beat us. It\u2019s nice to see that the work that the team has done translates. Every game in college hockey is difficult. At the end of the year, we\u2019ll have a very high strength of schedule whether we like it or not, so we\u2019re happy to get off to a good start against anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

The success of the early season, said Gadowsky, comes from \u201cgetting back to what we used to do, in a more personalized way.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cThat job isn\u2019t done, but what I think you\u2019re seeing is that trend over to the ice, the work that everybody\u2019s done off the ice. That\u2019s what I think you\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

This weekend, Penn State opens its Big Ten conference play with a road trip to Wisconsin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The college hockey season is a six-month-long debate, but Penn State has already crafted an impressive opening statement. Averaging 5.17 goals per game through their first three series \u2013 six games, all wins \u2013 with all but three goals coming at even strength, the Nittany Lions are playing hockey that looks a lot more Penn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":136692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[802],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis Week in Big Ten Hockey: Penn State firing on all cylinders as Nittany Lions finding way back to scoring in bunches - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The college hockey season is a six-month-long debate, but Penn State has already crafted an impressive opening statement. 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