Penn State men’s hockey coach Guy Gadowsky doesn’t like talking about rankings, standings, and all of the things that are somewhat secondary to the challenges of building a program.
But Penn State is playing itself into a required conversation.
Having opened the season at 9-4-1 the Nittany Lions find themselves sitting atop the Big Ten standings at 3-1 in the league. This mark largely aided by a road sweep over a young 1-10-1 Wisconsin squad. Even if the schedule has been somewhat favorable to open conference play Penn State still has a win over No. 4 UMass-Lowell and a road win over Michigan to back up a strong opening record with equally strong wins.
For Gadowsky though it isn’t as much about winning as it is playing the right way. Penn State’s success measured by the ability to put a consistent product on the ice each and every night. The wins will come with time, the quality play will come with hard work, effort, and focus on the little things, not so much simply feeling relevant.
“Its four games,” Gadowsky said inside Pegula Ice Arena on Wednesday. “We have a long ways from (relevancy), we’ve had a good start and that’s nice and we’re felling better about how we started the season performance wise. But if we don’t keep that up and keep improving then the results are going to start going the other way.”
“So right now we’re just focused on our performance. It’s just way too early for us to start thinking that we’re relevant or not.”
Even so there is a little doubt the program has taken a step forward this season. The 9 wins passes last season’s win total with months of play left to go. Wins on the road and a Big Ten sweep both noteworthy achievements for a program quickly running out of “firsts.”
Individually the results have been better as well. After a season of adjusting to the rigors of Big Ten and Division I play a largely unchanged Nittany Lion roster has found success much like it had at the club level.
- Forward Taylor Holstrom held the national lead in points for much of the early season. He now sits in 13th nationally, 7 points out of the first but with three fewer games under his belt thanks to bumps and bruises. Holstrom is 5th in the nation with 14 assists, 3 behind the nation’s leader.
- Junior Casey Bailey is 6th in the nation in goal scoring with 10 to his name, only 3 behind the national leader.
- As a team Penn State is 7th in the nation in total offense averaging just under 4 goals a game while giving up just over 2 goals a game on average. On the man advantage Penn State is 5th in the nation with a 26.6% success rate.
Penn State’s upcoming schedule will give fans a better idea how the second half of the season could go. The Nittany Lions will play on the road against Robert Morris and Colgate or Western Michigan at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh before returning home to continue Big Ten play.
From there it will be a home series against Ohio State, Michigan State and Northern Michigan. If the Nittany Lions can come out of those games heading into the final full two months of Big Ten play with a favorable result it might be time for Gadowsky and company to acknowledge they might just have something special on their hands.
A lot of hockey is yet to be played this season, but things are certainly getting interesting as Penn State heads into the bulk of the conference schedule.
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