With 10 games remaining the regular season, Penn State hockey finds itself in the middle of the Big Ten title race with only one regret: it could still be leading that race.
Of course the Nittany Lions undoubtedly knew that winning a tight seven-team conference wasn’t going to be without its ups and downs. Penn State entered the season the favorite to win the Big Ten, but nobody expected that to be a wire-to-wire affair.
Nevertheless, following a loss and tie to Michigan this past weekend at Pegula ice Arena there was a lingering sense that maybe this team isn’t as far along as it may have seemed. For players and coaching staff alike, it’s an alarming feeling so late in the season. Also true, the season is far from over and the Nittany Lions can minimize the damage done with a much stronger performance this weekend in East Lansing against Michigan State.
The question of course, can they actually do it.
‘Saturday was a grasping for straws. It was,’ Coach Guy Gadowsky said of a completely reshuffled lineup this past Saturday. ‘It was a response. We were so embarrassed by the result [on Friday] and a lot of things that I gotta be honest that wasn’t a well thought out change it was: I don’t like anything, everybody’s too comfortable we’re not competing. Here you go. That’s really what it was.’
While the result didn’t pan out, Penn State looked the better team for the majority of the game, two odd bounces leading to two Michigan goals in the process. A reminder that how you look only part of the process of putting the puck in the net.
It’s a lesson Penn State learned all too well in an earlier season meeting against the Spartans. The Nittany Lions won on the second night of the series, but failed to score on the first despite getting 48 shots on goal while only giving up 22. All the same, Michigan State skated away with a 2-0 victory.
The good news for the Nittany Lions, over the years they’ve played their best hockey with their backs up against the wall. At 26 points in the standings so far, they’re just a point behind Ohio State for first place in the league. With five weekend series to go, Penn State will host Notre Dame next week before back-to-back road series against Ohio State and Wisconsin. The regular season will close out against Minnesota at Pegula Ice Arena.
The bad news, Penn State is 2-2-1 over its past five Big Ten games and has not quite looked the world-beaters it is capable of. The Nittany Lions are better at nearly everything in the defensive end this season but have struggled to score at their usual rate. Then again, Penn State’s historically potent offense may have set its own bar too high to constantly reach.
All the same the Nittany Lions need results and they’ll need them soon if they want to take home some hardware, and at No. 9 in the PairWise, a few results to keep from slipping onto the NCAA Tournament bubble.
When it’s all said and done there’s still time, and 30 points up for grabs in the standings. It won’t all come down to this weekend, but the Nittany Lions won’t want more weekends of ‘What if’ when they look back on their resume, and final place in the conference standings.
‘I thought we were closer to putting it all together, than we appeared to be this past weekend,’ Gadowsky said. ‘That’s why there are peaks and valleys in every season. I guess the answer would be, yes I’m a little surprised [that they aren’t better at this point of the year] I thought we were closer to achieving that, than this weekend showed we were, but I’m still very optimistic that this group will figure it out.’
Time will tell.
