Penn State Men’s Hockey Riding Special Teams Dominance To Early Success
Four games represent under one-eighth of a college hockey regular season. Nothing from a quartet of games across two weeks against two non-conference opponents is necessarily indicative of things to come.
That said, if Penn State men’s hockey has one strength that they believe will carry over as the road gets tougher in Big Ten play, it’s their dominance on special teams.
As of October 14, Penn State ranks second in the nation in penalty kill percentage at 95.2% and sixth in the nation in power play percentage at 31.6% (min. 10 PP/PKs). While they did drop a game to unranked Clarkson on Thursday, their special teams remain on par and even exceeding some of their contemporaries in the top 10 in the USCHO poll.
Numbers like these are especially notable on their own, but speak volumes when you consider how the individual moments with these units have swung multiple games so far.
“I think that the PK has been really, really big for us,” said head coach Guy Gadowsky to the media on Monday. “We’ve gained momentum, and we’ve also gained confidence out of those PK situations. Five-minute major was a great example.”
In Friday’s series finale against Clarkson, Penn State fell behind 2-0 in the first period, but began to rally back with a JJ Wiebusch power play goal. Shortly after, however, Ben Schoen was sent to the penalty box for a five-minute boarding major.
This could’ve completely crushed the team, especially with the fact that power plays off major penalties do not end early if a goal is scored. It was five minutes where Clarkson could’ve flipped the momentum and turned Pegula Ice Arena into a morgue.
Instead, an emphatic kill by the Nittany Lions saw Clarkson limited to six shot attempts, but just three that got through to freshman goaltender Josh Fleming. Much of the power play was spent with Clarkson either retrieving the puck out of the zone or passing around the perimeter. With each clear, the crowd grew louder, especially after a controversial no-call when Aiden Fink was taken down in the crease trying to score shorthanded.
It all culminated with a missed pass as the penalty expired that trickled to the blue line, where Schoen burst out of the box and picked it up to spring a two-on-one, and he sniped a shot over the left shoulder of Shane Soderwall to tie the game.
Carter Schade took a penalty during the goal celebration, so the team had to go right back on the kill. That didn’t seem to faze them. Nick Fascia blocked a shot midway through the power play, and the ultra-aggressive Nittany Lions sprung another odd-man rush, this time converting a shorthanded goal as Reese Laubach fed captain Dane Dowiak for the go-ahead goal.
In just over a minute, Penn State’s penalty kill had completely swung the momentum of the game, as the Nittany Lions would soar to a 5-2 victory to secure a split. But it wasn’t the first time that Penn State’s dominant penalty kill swung the momentum in a game.
Back on October 4 in the team’s opening series against Arizona State, they rallied back from a two-goal deficit to tie the game in the third period, only to take two penalties in a span of 53 seconds to give the Sun Devils an extended five-on-three. In a crucial moment in the game, the Nittany Lions surrendered just one shot before the first penalty expired, before Kevin Reidler made save after save to finish the kill in the midst of his brilliant 45-save performance.
“It’s all about trying to stay focused mentally, I think that’s 90% of the job that I’m doing,” said Reidler about killing off that five-on-three. “So many blocked shots. At the end, we were just playing for each other, and that’s the most important thing.”
But with all the justified praise that the penalty kill has gotten, Penn State is also boasting one of the most talented and productive power play units in the nation, made up of Fink, Wiebusch, Gavin McKenna, Jackson Smith, and Charlie Cerrato.
Nobody will ever forget McKenna introducing himself to the college hockey world with his game-winning goal on the power play in the very same period of the crucial five-on-three penalty kill.
That one-timer will be a feature of the power play all season, but the freshman phenom has taken the role of “quarterbacking” the talented unit, and his coach has been impressed with his poise.
“He sees the ice in a very special way,” said Gadowsky. “He’s able to find every lane, manipulate time and space. He’s obviously a big part of the power play, looking very good.”
Wiebusch, specifically, has been one of the best on the power play in the nation. After his five-goal series against Clarkson, he’s tied for the national lead with three power-play goals and has stood out as being able to create the best chances on the team so far. Despite potentially being lost in the shuffle with all the imported talent, his coach has been impressed with how he’s stood out.
“He has a knack,” he said. “He has a knack for finishing, he has a knack for getting open.” Wiebusch became the first player in program history to score four goals in a game on Thursday night.
The men’s hockey team is back in action against non-conference foe Long Island on Friday, October 17, at 7:30 p.m. The game will be broadcast on Big Ten Plus.
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