Penn State hockey beat Michigan State 3-1 on Saturday afternoon for its first series sweep of the season and seventh win in nine games after starting the season 0-5. The Nittany Lions are now 7-7 on the year with 14 regular season contests remaining.
The victory was also the Nittany Lions’ seventh in the past 10 victories [a mark which includes the last three games of the 2019-20 season] that featured Penn State scoring three or fewer goals.
For a program that has made its mark in the college hockey world with high octane offense and overpowering goalscoring, the Nittany Lions recent ability to close out the tighter contests is an interesting narrative shift. Not to mention the implication that Penn State’s defense, a long time weak point, has also found improvements along the way as well.
Of course there is the other side of this coin, Penn State starting the season at 0-5 was not a data point in favor of a low scoring attack – albeit a young team in a strange pandemic year struggling against a handful of the Big Ten’s veteran programs is a likely culprit to some degree. Additionally a Nittany Lion team without many of its all-time goal scorers should not be all that surprised that victories have come by the virtue of lower scoring games.
Nevertheless as Penn State won in regulation Saturday it did so for the fourth-straight game at home, but the first of the four not to head to overtime. A victory in its own right.
“I think there’s big value in that,” Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky said of getting wins in regulation. “And to get those experiences. If you look down the line at what’s going to happen later [in the schedule.] I think you need experiences like this. Both, you know, hopefully a lot to learn from successes, but it happens absolutely value them.”
With Friday night was a game of bounces, Penn State made one last entry in that department to open the scoring 4:45 into regulation as Evan Bell snuck a bouncing puck into the back of the net. The Spartans would even the score late in the first period to tie the affair heading into the intermission.
But from there it was all Nittany Lions. While not as offensively potent as their predecessors, Penn State out-shot Michigan State 13-4 in the middle period, Aarne Talvitie punching home a power play tally after an extended period in the offensive zone.
Kevin Wall added his sixth of the year late in the second period to push the Nittany Lions ahead by two, all they would need to close out the game.
Oskar Autio was solid yet again during his fourth-straight start, the only tally to get past him a shot in close, making 21 saves the rest of the evening for his latest victory in net.
Penn State is home for each of the next two series, with each coming slated for Thursday/Friday meetings. Next week against Wisconsin and then Notre Dame. In total Penn State will play seven games before playing on a Saturday again.
