Penn State men’s hockey held its annual media day on late Wednesday afternoon. Here are a few news and notes items to get you prepared for the upcoming season.
TV Schedule:
he Penn State men’s hockey team finalized its 2015-16 schedule on Wednesday with the announcement of at least 12 televised games
The Nittany Lions will appear on television for 11 regular-season contests beginning with Jan. 8 at home against Minnesota (6:30 p.m.) on Big Ten Network and BTN2Go. That is the beginning of at least six games on BTN.
The following weekend, both home games against Wisconsin will be aired nationally with Jan. 15 at 6:30 p.m. on BTN and Jan. 16 broadcast by ESPNU at 6 p.m.
The Big Ten Super Saturday Hoops & Hockey contest between the Nittany Lions and Michigan Wolverines will take place at 7 p.m. on Jan. 30 with BTN airing the coverage. Preceding the hockey game will be a men’s basketball game between the two schools at Noon inside Madison Square Garden.
Both of Penn State’s games at Minnesota will receive television coverage with the Feb. 5 game shown on BTN (8 p.m. ET), while the next night will take place on Fox Sports North as part of Hockey Day in Minnesota at 5 p.m. ET.
The final home series of the year will have both games air nationally when the Nittany Lions host Ohio State Feb. 19-20during THON Weekend. Friday’s game will air at 6:30 p.m. on BTN and Saturday’s contest will be shown on ESPNU at 3 p.m.
The remaining three regular-season televised contests will take place at Wisconsin (March 5 at 8 p.m. ET on American Sports Network) and at Michigan (March 11-12 at 7:30 p.m., both on Comcast Network 900). All games will be simulcast on BTN2Go for Big Ten Network subscribers.
The entirety of the 2016 Big Ten Tournament will be carried by Big Ten Network and BTN2Go. This year’s tournament will be held in St. Paul, Minnesota at Xcel Energy Center.
All times and dates are subject to change and additional television games may be announced. Penn State will announce its home streaming schedule at a later date. As announced in August, all games, home and away, will have free live audio via GoPSUnow, supported on computers, mobile phones and tablets.
Captains:
Penn State hockey will have a new set of captains this year with senior David Glen taking over the top spot and David Thompson and Luke Juha following his lead as assistants. Guy Gadowksy had this to say about Glen’s leadership and what he brings to the table as the program’s third ever captain.
“He was a unanimous choice for sure as well as the coaching staff. No. 1 you want someone who represents your program and your university. The way he plays, you know he has the overtime game winner in our first Division I win and he’s also a guy who very quickly gave up playing games to donate bone marrow for someone in need. And that’s the kind of person we need. He’s an excellent student and selfless for the greater cause and the community or anyone who needs it. I’m proud to call him our captain at anytime, he fits us great.”
Goalies:
The Nittany Lions return goaltenders Matthew Skoff and Eamon McAdam this season as well as the addition of freshman net minder Christ Funkey. Scoff holds the program record with 656 saves in a season and three consecutive years of 17+ start campaigns. McAdam holds a single season program record with a 5-4-1 mark in 2014-15. Both will look to hold down the starting spot this season.
“Obviously we return two guys who have both shown their both very capable in this league,” Gadowksy said. “I’m very happy to say both of them have come in, in tremendous shape, I believe McAdam came in third on our testing for the entire team which is phenomenal. So we feel very good about the work that both goaltenders put in over the summer.They both will have an opportunity to start at the start of the season and both play a lot of games and we’ll see what happens after that. They both could be doing fantastic and continue to split time and continue to go from there, one of them might have more success and get more starts than the other and maybe get more starts. But to start the season they’ll get plenty of opportunity.”
Defense:
Penn State’s defense will look a little different this year with more speed and less size. Something that was not a mistake on the recruiting trail. Either way Penn State will look to replace former captain and Nittany Lion graduate Patrick Koudys who was a powerful presence on the back end. Now the emphasis will be speed and offense out of the defense.
“I think the offense that we’ve shown has been pretty exceptional for such a young program,” Gadowsky said. “And the defensemen we brought in all have very good offensive instincts. Very very very good. And that’s not by accident. It’s something that we believe that if we want to take steps that we have to be more offensively creative from the backend. I’ve been on the ice with them only a couple of times now but that creatively and that skill shines through. I think you’ll see with the guys we brought in that we’re moving towards moving pucks a lot faster.”
Goodwin:
Penn State forward David Goodwin returns this season the lone remaining member of the Nittany Lions’ top line. One of the best returning offensive threats in the Big Ten, Penn State will look to Goodwin and many other players for offense this year. Goodwin had 15 goals and 19 assists in 2014-15.
“There are obviously guys that stand out when it comes to replacing the offense that we lost,” Gadowsky says. “And David Goodwin is actually the highest scoring returning player in the Big Ten. So not only will we be looking towards him everyone else in the Big Ten will be looking towards him. What we’re looking for is to find synergy with someone else because last year he had synergy with two guys who we lost, Casey and Taylor. He had a lot of his success he didn’t necessarily receive enough credit for the success of that line but he did have success because of chemistry. So our challenge is finding another line that can have the same kind or similar chemistry with him.”
Injuries:
Penn State is fairly healthy headed into the season but will be without forward Eric Scheid for up to six weeks after sustaining a lower body injury. Sheid, one of Penn State’s most explosive players had 14 goals and 15 assists in 2014-15.
