The first three weeks of the season have ultimately gone pretty well for Penn State men’s hockey. While it hasn’t been the show-stopping dominance that some people expected, nobody can complain about a 5-1-0 record that included a road sweep of then-ranked Arizona State.

There are positives all over, from their special teams dominance to the dynamic DiMarsico-Cerrato-Wiebusch line to the goaltending rounding into form, but no matter who you ask, everyone believes there’s another level to get to.

This weekend, the Nittany Lions will conclude a six-game, three-week homestand with a weekend series against Stonehill. After this series, they will begin conference play on the road, heading to Columbus to face off with Ohio State, starting Thursday, October 30.

It’s critical for Penn State to be firing on all cylinders as conference play begins, as five of the six other teams in the conference are currently ranked in the USCHO’s top 20. Despite their 5-1-0 record, the Nittany Lions have had to come back from three multi-goal deficits and only have one game where they haven’t trailed.

“We want to see a game that we can control,” head coach Guy Gadowsky said at Monday’s media availability. “The results are very important, but there’s also things we can control, where win or lose we have to do a better job of.”

Those early deficits were a major issue in three consecutive series. Despite Penn State routinely outshooting and outpossessing its opponents, it’s had early deficits in all but one of its last five games, snapping the streak in its shutout victory last Saturday against LIU.

“What we want to see is an identity that everyone’s bought into, so win or lose, we want to be able to see our identity and what’s important to us. We’ve seen it in glimpses, but we’ve also gotten away from our game at times,” Gadowsky said.

Their identity in the early going has not only been one of resilience, but one of special teams dominance. Despite LIU’s strong penalty kill performance last weekend, Penn State remains seventh in the nation with a 28.1 power play percentage while maintaining a remarkable 93.5 penalty kill percentage, sitting fourth in the nation (both min. 15 PP/PKs).

“The biggest thing for us is we get to go against, probably, one of the most skilled power plays [in the nation] every week at practice,” defenseman Nick Fascia said on Monday about the penalty kill’s strong start. “We’ve been doing a great job just talking, and more than anything, it’s just hard work, right? We have four guys working hard, and I’ll take our four guys against any power play.”

Gadowsky has talked about trying to get the team in a rhythm ahead of conference play. Penn State has spent more time away from the 5-on-5 than any other team in the nation, with the Nittany Lions having already been involved in 63 combined power plays and penalty kills this season. After two straight series full of chippiness, he wants a cleaner affair against Stonehill to get everyone in a rhythm.

“If you’re trying to manage shifts and get everybody involved, as soon as you bring all these penalties into play, there are a number of players that can get out of rhythm. I know as a coach, part of your job is to make sure everybody’s in the game and feeling good, and it’s been hard to do so right now,” Gadowsky said.

Stonehill has gotten off to a poor start to the season, so with the importance of the start of Big Ten play following, it can be easy to look over them. Still, for a team that knows they have another gear, this series will be crucial in fine-tuning the things that haven’t looked as good as they’ve wanted them to be.

“This is a really important weekend for us to make sure we’re playing the right way, said freshman forward Luke Misa. “Playing with a lot of speed, playing to our kind of game, and winning these two and rolling into a lot of big games coming up.”

“We’ve done a good job so far, but I think collectively we know we have another level to get to,” said Fascia. “Right now, we’re just building and preparing ourselves for what we have ahead.”

“We want to see results and we want to see a real semblance of a confident identity that we know we can take into Big Ten play,” said Gadowsky.