ST. LOUIS — Penn State men’s hockey fell to Boston University 3-1 on Thursday, April 10, in the program’s first ever Frozen Four appearance.
Penn State opened the season 0-9 in Big Ten play, looking destined for a rebuilding year with one of the younger teams in the conference. The Nittany Lions didn’t let their slow start deter them, though, and they had as memorable of a second half of the season as they could have.
Winning 15 of their last 20 games, Penn State snuck up the PairWise eventually landing in the 12 spot, good enough to make the NCAA tournament. With the regionals in Allentown, Penn State used the home ice feel to take down UConn and then Maine in overtime to make it to the Frozen Four.
Unfortunately for the Nittany Lions, they ran into another team, Boston University that was just as hot. After Mikhail Yegorov joined the Terriers in the middle of the season from the Omaha Lancers, they hardly lost.
The game started slow with neither team scoring in the first period. In the second period, Boston got a lucky break as Penn State goalie Arsenii Sergeev lost the puck after making a save leaving an easy rebound opportunity for the Terriers to make it 1-0.
A few minutes later, Boston doubled its lead from a well played 2-1 that Cole Eiserman finished. From there Penn State was playing chase and could not catch up. Despite a goal in the third period from Nicholas DeGraves, the Nittany Lions never found the tying goal.
Penn State moved to 4-4 all-time in the NCAA Tournament games with the loss.
The future is bright in Hockey Valley, though, with many of the team’s top producers freshmen or sophomores. Expect the team to come out of the gates flying in the 2025-26 season.
