Penn State Hockey: Gadowsky Happy With Progress So Far

Men’s hockey coach Guy Gadowsky knows that Penn State faces a tough season against stiff competition every game. Even so, he’s happy with the progress that the 2-2 Nittany Lions have made so far this season.

With victories over American International and RIT, both on the road, Gadowsky spoke with the media Thursday about the season so far.

On the team adjusting to so many road games:

‘We’ll have a better idea as we go along, everything is new for some of these guys. But to have a freshman class come in and go on the road, I expect a quick learning curve, but it’s fun. They’re a good bunch of guys, and they’re having fun.’

Losing to Buffalo State but beating RIT:

‘When you know that RIT is going to have a sellout crowd, there is a tendency to look games against teams like Buffalo State over, and we did. It’s not bad, it’s not good, but hopefully we learned a lesson. We need to be ready to play at the drop of the puck. If you play in the NHL you can’t count on cheerleaders and pom-poms to get you going, and if you need them you go to the minor leagues. We’re counting on our guys being ready at the drop of the puck, especially with all these road games.

‘We learned that we respond well, which is good. When you have a low, to be able to turn around and win a game like that against RIT is good.’

The Powerplay:

‘We’re going to keep things the way they are right now, we won’t change anything strategically. We expect to turn it around.’

Feelings about being 2-2:

Absolutely I’m happy, it was tremendous for us to win at RIT in front of a great environment. You don’t know until the future but I think that winning at RIT was a tremendous win for us as a program and our confidence. We aren’t changing our goals in terms of the season, it has never been about wins or losses, just making progress forward. If we played really, really well and still didn’t win, we’ll be happy with the progress. Now that we’ve won a couple big games our focus isn’t just going to change. It’s going to be about building a foundation all year long and if we do a good job wins will be a byproduct of that. But we aren’t changing our focus, no way.

Goalies:

‘Last weekend we predetermined who would play, Friday, and Saturday. This weekend PJ Musico will start and we do not have a predetermined plan moving forward. I think he deserves to play. Scoff will play regardless, he’s a good goaltender, but right now we’re riding with PJ on Friday and we’ll see what happens.’

Penn State takes on Navy this Friday and Sacred Heart on Saturday. Both games are set for 7:05 p.m. starts, respectively.