Penn State thrills record crowd in 3-2 win over Notre Dame
The No. 6-ranked Penn State men’s hockey program rebounded after a tough loss to the hands of Notre Dame on Friday night, with a 3-2 victory in Saturday night’s contest thanks to some timely scoring.
Penn State moves to 18-7-1 on the season and 8-7-1 in Big Ten play.
How it happened
Penn State opened the first period with one of the sloppiest periods of hockey they have played this season.
The team struggled to control the puck, causing many lost opportunities. The Nittany Lions had two power-play opportunities in the first period, and in both chances, the Lions could not get anything set up. A mix of a good penalty kill from the Fighting Irish, off-target passing, and poor puck control killed both of Penn State’s power-play opportunities.
Penn State was called for three penalties in the period. Tyler Paquette was called for kneeing, Tyler Gratton was called for Interference, and Danny Dzhaniyev was called for roughing.
The Irish took advantage of the Paquette penalty as Trevor Janicke scored the fourth power-play goal against the Nittany Lion penalty kill unit in their last four games. This goal put the Irish up 1-0.
The Nittany Lions came out much crisper in the second period. This showed throughout the period, as the Nittany Lions were able to generate far more shots in this period.
After shooting the puck 15 times in the first period, the Lions came back and fired off 20 shots in the second period.
Simon Mack got the scoring started for the Nittany Lions with 16:48 to play, getting assists from Chase McLane and Dylan Lugris.
The Irish answered back three minutes later when Chayse Primeau scored his second goal of the weekend and put the Irish back on top, 2-1.
Christian Sarlo had a good chance on a wraparound shot when he was tripped up by a Notre Dame defenseman in front of an open net. The Nittany Lions were not awarded a penalty. Instead, the play kept going.
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After a tough bout, both teams thought this game would go into the second intermission with the Irish up one, but Connor MacEachern had different plans.
With 1:50 to go in the period, Connor McMenamin found MacEachern who buried the shot to knot this game up at two.
The third period was the closest of the game. Each team exchanged strong possessions, but no scoring came until Christian Sarlo put the Lions up 3-2 with assists from Lampa and Paquette.
A late push from the Irish with an extra attacker was held short by the Nittany Lion defense, as Penn State held on to win 3-2.
Takeaways
The penalty kill unit is still a spot of weakness for the Nittany Lions. They will need to adjust going forward to limit the power play goals given up.
In a must-win game, the late-game heroics from Sarlo, and even the Penn State Hockey bumping dancing on my own in the locker room after the late second-period heroics from MacEachern, came up huge for the Nittany Lions to take on sole possession of the second place in the Big Ten.
Coach Gadowsky always makes sure to share how impactful the crowd at Pegula Ice Arena is, and how they motivate the team. The crowd showed up tonight, breaking the previous attendance record (which was set last night), and were loud the entire game. In a game that was a nail bitter, the crowd played a huge role in Saturday night’s win.
