After facing an early 4-0 deficit in the first period on Saturday against Wisconsin, Penn State men’s hockey roared back to get within one goal after Aiden Fink sniped a puck past the Badgers’ goalie with just over half of the third period remaining. Pegula Ice Arena and the Roar Zone came alive, and the Nittany Lions seemed primed to once again come back from an early deficit to tie the game.

Then, disaster struck.

After an unassuming sequence at the Penn State end of the ice, Matt DiMarsico laid a late hit up against the boards and was sent to the penalty box for boarding. An official review was triggered, and the referees determined the DiMarsico hit worthy of a five-minute major penalty.

The major penalty came with just over eight minutes remaining in the period, meaning Penn State would not have an opportunity to play five-on-five hockey for much of the second half of the period as it searched for the tying goal. Twenty-eight seconds into the major, Wisconsin scored and didn’t look back en route to its 6-3 victory, clinching a sweep of the Nittany Lions.

“We played a lot tougher, a lot more chaos around the net, and would have loved to see what would have happened if we didn’t take that five minutes,” head coach Guy Gadowsky said postgame. “Sometimes, it’s tough to find that fine line between playing Penn State tough and taking penalties.”

Penalties, like the one DiMarsico took, have become an issue for Penn State as the team finds itself at the bottom of the Big Ten with one point, 11 points behind first-place Michigan State. In addition to the team taking five major penalties across its first nine games, Penn State ranks third in its conference in penalty minutes with 101, despite playing fewer games this season than its conference foes.

“It’s hard to say we have to be tough but don’t dare to take penalties,” Gadowsky said. “We always want to make sure we are on the right side of power plays, that’s different. We actually have had two penalties that were costly to us that were checking from behind and feel we can address in terms of technique.”

Gadowsky echoed his postgame sentiment on Monday, saying there’s a fine line between playing “Penn State tough” and not taking penalties while saying he and his coaching staff look at the types of penalties taken by his team as opposed to total minutes.

“To me, it’s much more important we look at which penalties are taken rather than the number of them,” Gadowsky said. “If they’re all lazy, retaliation, or selfish penalties, that’s a big, big issue. I wouldn’t say that is the case for us.”

With a weekend showdown against No. 5 Michigan and Colgate looming this week, Penn State will work to fine-tune this balance to help right the ship.

“We’re very happy with where we’re going in terms of playing tough and physical, and we want to continue that,” Gadowsky said. “We don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that, so it’s a very fine line.”