Penn State men’s hockey pulled off its biggest win of the season when the team upset No. 6 North Dakota 6-4 in Nashville two weeks ago. The team was cruising and ready to make some damage heading into the start of their Big Ten schedule. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

Penn State got swept in Columbus by Ohio State, losing 5-2 on Friday and 4-1 Saturday afternoon. The Nittany Lions struck first in both games and held leads going into the minutes of the second period, but the team collapsed late in both games.

Now, with Penn State’s biggest series of the series coming up against No. 2 Michigan at the end of the week, Guy Gadowsky is focused on learning and moving on from Penn State’s performance in Columbus last weekend.

“It doesn’t matter if we win or lose. The approach that week is always the same. To get better, take information we receive and work really hard to be better,” Gadowsky said Monday. “There’s been a few things we found out that we have to get better at.”

The Nittany Lions’ performance this weekend was almost unexpected given their dominance over North Dakota just two weeks ago. The team went from scoring six goals in a game to scoring only three goals all of last weekend.

Gadowsky says his team wasn’t able to close out the games the same way it did in Nashville and hopes that Penn State can learn from its mistakes.

“When we played in Nashville, we showed a lot of mental toughness and grit in being able to finish off the game,” Gadowsky said. “We implemented certain things that were team based that we didn’t do well in Ohio. Give them credit, but I do think there are things that we can control and do better from a team standpoint…It’s a good experience. You hope that you learn from your successes, and you better learn from your mistakes.”

The scoresheet doesn’t capture the full picture of both games, though. The Nittany Lions still played good hockey for the first half of each game, but junior forward Connor McMenamin thinks that an “inconsistency” in the team’s game is keeping it back.

“I thought we were good in spirits,” McMenamin said. “We had a couple of defensive lapses that we are watching video on and fixing, but I thought we did some good things as well, especially in the offensive zone. We just have a little inconsistency in our game, and we’re still trying to hone in our identity.”

Nevertheless, Gadowsky and his players recognize that this weekend’s upcoming series with Michigan is another great opportunity to improve Penn State’s resume learn more about its identity.

“This is a great weekend to receive information,” Gadowsky said. “It’s fun. Give Michigan credit. Coach Pearson and his staff have done a great job recruiting…I’m looking forward to it. From a coaching standpoint and for our staff, this is a great opportunity to learn a lot about ourselves. That’s really what I’m most excited about.”

No. 19 Penn State will kick off its two-game set with No. 2 Michigan on Thursday, November 11, at Pegula Ice Arena. Puck drop is slated for 8:30 p.m. on the Big Ten Network.