The college hockey season is a six-month-long debate, but Penn State has already crafted an impressive opening statement.
Averaging 5.17 goals per game through their first three series – six games, all wins – with all but three goals coming at even strength, the Nittany Lions are playing hockey that looks a lot more Penn State-ish than fans have seen in recent years.
That is by design, and all of this season-opening success goes back to lessons that COVID taught the Nittany Lions.
“It’s basically getting back to what we used to do, in a more personalized way,” said coach Guy Gadowsky.
During the 2020-21 season, every D-I team adhered to its own institution-specific guidelines for playing hockey during the pandemic, as well as to NCAA, Big Ten, and CDC rules. For teams in the Big Ten, that meant little in-person interaction among players as well as between coaching staffs and their teams.
For Gadowsky, especially, this was challenging.
Even as he was coaching that season, he mentioned how hampered he felt because he couldn’t spend time with his team, with his staff. Gadowsky was public about having to spend that season separated from his wife, Melissa, and their daughter, who went to the Canadian Maritimes because of health risks to Melissa during the early days of the pandemic without vaccines.
Everyone who knows Gadowsky knows just how personable he is. Being able to communicate – to participate in a community – is intrinsic to his coaching success. When COVID made the kind of coaching at which Gadowsky excels impossible, the Nittany Lions found themselves at a bit of a loss.
“I don’t think I’ll ever take the job that our whole staff does in a personal way for granted,” said Gadowksky. “I really think that was a big part of it. The little things that this staff does and the reason why we want to get really great people is that the personal touch that they have goes a long way. I will never take that for granted again.
“Another thing I’ll never take for granted again is the amount of work or how valuable it is for new players to learn through example from the older players. In COVID, we had to be in cohorts. They weren’t hanging out at the rink. They weren’t with each other off hours from the rink. The fact that we weren’t able to have guys together to learn from the leaders – I’m never going to take that for granted again either.
“Even though we did know how important those aspects were, I was still shocked at the magnitude and how quickly things could change without it.”
The effects on the program were immediate. In the 2018-19 season, the Nittany Lions were 22-15-2 overall and averaged an astonishing 4.54 goals per game. Penn State built on that and finished 2019-20 with the regular-season B1G title, 20-10-4 overall, outscoring opponents 121-88 in all games, and averaging 3.56 goals per game.
The numbers for what we now think of as “the COVID season” are a stark contrast: 10-12-0 overall, tied for fifth in B1G play, averaging 2.95 goals per game and outscored by opponents 81-65.
Last year, the Nittany lions again finished tied for fifth but showed some improvement, with a 17-20-1 record and scoring 3.08 goals per game.
“A lot of this work was done in the past two years,” said Gadowsky. “Our culture was just in a totally different place from what we’re used to. I give all of the players but the leaders specifically from last year credit. They were tasked with changing this culture, a number-one priority, and I think they really worked hard to do it.”
Defenseman Paul DeNaples returns for a fifth season and is serving as captain for the second year in a row. Senior forward Connor McMenamin is an assistant captain for the second straight year.
Some of the leadership that Gadowsky sought was imported this season. Two fifth-year forwards transferred into Penn State, Ashton Calder from North Dakota and Ture Linden from Rensselaer. Gadowsky said that his staff thought hard before deciding to bring in transfer players.
“We weren’t going to do it unless we got specific tools out of them, like having them here for specific reasons and specific strengths,” said Gadowsky. “Also, we really wanted a lot of leadership again. Where we were with our culture coming out of COVID, that was a very big priority for us.
“I think both these guys bring a lot of veteran maturity and that was something that was very important to us. They’ve made an impact off the ice as well as on the ice. They play that role. So far, we couldn’t be happier with them.”
Calder and Linden have each scored three goals.
The Nittany Lions opened their season with a home sweep of Canisius, a home-and-home sweep of Mercyhurst, and two wins at home last weekend against St. Thomas. After beating the Tommies 6-2 in that series opener, the Nittany Lions needed overtime to win the second game. It was the alternate captain, McMenamin, 4:40 in OT who scored his second goal of the season for the win.
“I think in college hockey, you’ve seen it over and over, anybody can beat anybody,” said Gadowsky. “It happens every year.
“Last year, Canisius beat us. It’s nice to see that the work that the team has done translates. Every game in college hockey is difficult. At the end of the year, we’ll have a very high strength of schedule whether we like it or not, so we’re happy to get off to a good start against anybody.”
The success of the early season, said Gadowsky, comes from “getting back to what we used to do, in a more personalized way.”
He added, “That job isn’t done, but what I think you’re seeing is that trend over to the ice, the work that everybody’s done off the ice. That’s what I think you’re seeing.”
This weekend, Penn State opens its Big Ten conference play with a road trip to Wisconsin.
