Last weekend, the only hockey game that was played at Pegula Ice Arena was the second annual Penn State Sled Hockey Classic — a charity scrimmage between Penn State men’s hockey players and the State College Coyotes. Now that the fun and successful event is in the books, all focus has shifted toward the Nittany Lions’ remaining schedule.

Penn State has eight more regular-season games on its schedule before the Big Ten Tournament, beginning with a trip to Minneapolis to face Minnesota this weekend. Every game is as important as ever if the Nittany Lions are to return to the NCAA Tournament given their 12-11-3 overall record.

Fortunately for Penn State, though, there couldn’t have been a more convenient time than now to come off a bye week. It solved many of its problems by sweeping Ohio State before the break, which snapped a losing streak that spanned four total games and six conference matchups.

Penn State used the bye week as a chance to rest, practice, and ultimately prepare for the rest of the season. Senior defenseman and captain Christian Berger said he believed the break helped some players get healthier and take the time to get into healthier mindsets.

Guy Gadowsky had similar thoughts to Berger’s. Both mentioned the Sled Hockey Classic as something that had a positive effect on the team, while simultaneously practicing, resting, and preparing for the upcoming stretch.

“It depends on the timing. Some people say there are bad times to have breaks, and some there are good times,” Gadowsky said. “And a lot of it depends on individuals and how they’re feeling. I think the fact that we were able to have such a great event with the sled hockey classic, I would take that anytime. We had some work to do. Hopefully, we got better, and hopefully, we had some guys that had some bumps and bruises were able to heal as well.”

Sweeping the Buckeyes gave the team a much-needed morale boost and something to build on as Penn State seemed to have regained some confidence. Goaltender Liam Souliere was no exception, and his performance in the series gave him another reminder of just how important confidence is.

“That confidence is earned. It’s hard to get. I lived it this year a little bit trying to find it, and you don’t want to take it for granted,” Souliere said. “You’ve just got to get back into that workspace and you don’t let the distractions bother you. It’s just a ‘one step at a time’ kind of mentality.”

Souliere’s ride has some parallels to the one the team as a whole has been on as there’ve been many ups and downs this season. During the team’s skid, Gadowsky specifically called on the goaltending to improve. That, along with the team appearing to regain its identity against Notre Dame, has helped the group get back to a better position moving forward.

After their series against the Golden Gophers, the Nittany Lions play Michigan, Wisconsin, and then the Buckeyes again in Columbus to close out the regular season. Penn State is far behind each of those teams except Ohio State by sitting at No. 23 in the PairWise rankings, so it’ll be an uphill battle if it is to make the NCAA Tournament again. But if the team does have its identity back and the Ohio State series was the start of a return to winning ways, nothing is out of the question for Penn State.