No. 8 Penn State hockey (8-2-0, 4-1-0 Big Ten) defeated Minnesota (4-5-2, 1-2-2 Big Ten) in dominant fashion in its first road game of the season on Friday night.

Penn State’s offense fired on all cylinders tonight, and it forced Minnesota to pull starting goalie Jack LaFontaine halfway through the third period in favor of backup Justin Close. Alex Limoges and Sam Sternschein led the scoring effort with two goals apiece, and center Evan Barratt was everywhere on the ice tonight, racking up three assists and constantly providing crisp feeds to his teammates all game. Liam Folkes, Kevin Wall, Aarne Talvitie, and Connor McMenamin also found the back of the net for the Nittany Lions Friday night.

Peyton Jones was a rock in net, making 25 saves and stopping mostly everything that came his way, thanks to Penn State’s bottlenecking defensive efforts.

How It Happened

Early offensive and defensive turnovers by the Gophers led to most of the first period being dominated by Penn State, which managed to register nine shots before the Gophers could muster up a single attempt five minutes into the period.

Minnesota’s defense did a good job at poking away Penn State centering passes and preventing them from getting any up-close shots. However, it could only hold off Penn State’s offensive attack for one period.

The Nittany Lions scored two quick goals in the first minute-and-a-half of the second period: one from Sam Sternschein 44 seconds in, and another from Kevin Wall, who scored his first career goal with a nasty dangle in front of the goal that was set up beautifully by Nate Sucese.

Five minutes into the second, Alex Limoges got on the board with a beautiful tap-in with help from Evan Barratt. Aarne Talvitie knocked down an errant airborne shot with his stick and batted the puck into the net with a backhand swing that would have been equally as impressive on a tennis court five minutes after that to blow the game open.

Directly following Talvitie’s goal, Minnesota finally got a goal of its own. But after a review, it was called back due to the scoring Gopher tapping the puck in while being in the crease. Minnesota then recorded a goal that actually counted with eight minutes left in the period, and the second ended with Penn State leading 4-1.

Penn State’s habit of scoring at the very start of the period continued into the third, with Liam Folkes scoring a breakaway goal 27 seconds into the period. He pulled off an impressive deke to get the puck by LaFontaine, who was pulled for Close immediately after following Folkes’ goal.

Four minutes into the third, the Nittany Lions’ top line came together for a beautiful tic-tac-toe goal, with quick passes from Barratt to Folkes and then to Limoges for the tap-in.

Penn State rounded out the game with Connor McMenamin’s first career goal and Sam Sternchein’s second goal of the game to put the icing on the cake.

Takeaways

• A pair of freshmen — Kevin Wall and Connor McMenamin — notched their first collegiate goals for Penn State on Friday night. Wall has been in and out of the lineup for most of this year, but McMenamin’s a regular on the Nittany Lions’ all-freshman line with Tyler Gratton and Connor MacEachern. He’s played really well on that unit for most of the year, and it’s great to see McMenamin get rewarded with a goal.
• Penn State was without its captain Brandon Biro, who was out with an undisclosed injury. While they missed their leader and the speed and dynamic Biro brings when he’s on the ice, the Nittany Lions didn’t falter in his absence.
• 6’8″ center Nikita Pavlychev left the ice with a leg injury late in the first after getting tangled up with a Gopher and taking a hard fall on the ice. Pavlychev had to be helped off the ice and looked like he wasn’t putting any pressure on his leg.

What’s Next

The Nittany Lions will return to 3M Arena at Mariucci tomorrow night for game two of their road series against Minnesota. Puck drop is slated for 8 p.m.