Penn State’s hot start to the season came to a screeching halt last weekend when the Nittany Lions dropped a pair of games at Michigan State, their first time being swept this season.
Defeating the No. 1-ranked Spartans on the road is no easy task, but for a team as talented as then-No. 3 Penn State, being outscored 7-1 is still a disappointing outcome, which head coach Guy Gadowsky acknowledged during his weekly press conference on Monday evening.
“We made sure we digested all the information video that we have,” Gadowsky said. “We did that. And there’s a few lessons to take from it. Some of it is systematic, and some of it is consistency-based that we’ve shown that we could be pretty good in certain areas in the past. And when we’re consistent, we do a lot of things well. I can’t tell you exactly what they are from a systematic standpoint, but I think when we’re consistent we do a lot of things well.”
He didn’t get into specifics but said the team is still reviewing film from the series, which is deeper into the week than they’d normally get to break down previous matchups before switching focus to the upcoming opponent.
Gadowsky said Penn State hasn’t begun film review yet for No. 2 Michigan, which will visit Pegula Ice Arena for a series this weekend.
Goaltender Kevin Reidler, who manned the net for Friday night’s 2-1 overtime loss but not Saturday’s 5-0 defeat, said playing high-level competition can be beneficial for identifying weak points. The Nittany Lions still have 10 remaining games against currently ranked opponents, as well as two more games against Ohio State, which is atop the “others receiving votes” category as the de facto No. 21 team in the nation.
“I think every time you play good players, there’s always things that you can look at,” Reidler said. “For me personally, I’m gonna have to look at video tomorrow and see what I can do better. But you know, I thought personally, I played a good game against a good team, and it gives me confidence.”
Gadowsky said the team had begun taking certain elements for granted and it came back to bite them against Michigan State, but he opted not to elaborate further. The Nittany Lions were critiqued for a relatively soft nonconference schedule, which may have created a level of complacency in some areas of the team’s game, though it wasn’t for lack of effort.
“In many aspects, we worked really hard, but not as smart, and we have to be more consistent with our structure,” Gadowsky said. “That’s what it is… I think there’s guys that really want to work hard and grit, and then I think, at times, we were just working chasing pucks instead of playing smart.”
Gadowsky said the team will dive into the numbers from its first back-to-back losses since Dec. 5-6 of last season and adjust the practice plan accordingly.
“We don’t just practice to practice; we practice based on the information we get,” Gadowsky said. “Win or lose, we take the analytics that are important to us that we look at and learn how to get better at each one. This was Saturday night specifically, we received a lot of information on things that we have to address.”
However, Gadowsky isn’t worried about the losses snowballing despite playing an uptick in competition level throughout Big Ten play, citing last year’s resiliency and the lessons learned about battling through adversity.
The Nittany Lions started 0-8 in conference play before rebounding and finishing 9-11-4 in Big Ten action, leading to a run to the Frozen Four. They’re determined not to let that rough start happen again by catching mistakes early and making the necessary adjustments to bounce back.
“We learned how to come through adversity, we really did, so I do think that the experience that we had last year will absolutely help us come out of this.”
