Penn State hockey hasn’t had any issues finding the back of the net this season.

The No. 11 Nittany Lions have used a well-balanced offensive attack to rip apart opposing defenses, averaging a nation’s best 4.86 goals per game, including a Big Ten-best 4.25 goals in conference play. There isn’t a team that can match that output, with no others averaging more than four goals per game.

The team’s offensive prowess hasn’t given it much leeway in games, though. The Nittany Lions are among the worst in goals against average and have conceded just as many goals as they’ve scored against Big Ten foes through six series.

Penn State’s inability to keep the puck out of its own net is a big reason the team holds a mediocre 5-6-1 record in conference play. While the Big Ten conference is one of the most competitive in college hockey, head coach Guy Gadowsky believes his team needs to find a way to lock down in its own zone to be successful.

That doesn’t necessarily have to do with tactics.

“I don’t think it’s a systematic thing,” Gadowsky said. “If you look at systematic breakdowns, the indicators of those are whether or not everybody can get on the same page, meaning possibly it’s too complicated. If you don’t have the skill set or habits to execute and that isn’t the case with us. Or the third one is if you execute your system and you still get outnumbered and that’s not the case at all.”

If the defensive issues aren’t system-related, and the team has the necessary skill to execute its defensive schemes, then what exactly is the problem? Gadowsky believes it has to do with his team’s mindset.

“Where I have really lacked is maintaining the mentality that you need. We really monitor the offensive mentality really well and I think I have done a really poor job monitoring the defensive mentality,” he said. “I think that’s coaching staff, I think that’s leadership, I think that’s individual responsibility.”

According to Gadowsky, the onus to identify and execute that change falls first on to the coaching staff, then the team’s veterans.

“The way you present an idea is important. It has to be very clear and concise and really well defined,” Gadowsky said. “But after that, I think that you need leadership to be really consistent in that area. If your leadership isn’t, I think it gives everybody a little bit of a green light not to be.”

The Nittany Lions have the offensive fire power to score with any team in the country. But until they clean things up in their own zone, they’ll continue to suffer inconsistent results. Luckily for Gadowsky and Penn State, there’s plenty of time left to sort out issues before the postseason begins in March.