Penn State men’s hockey returned from the NCAA Tournament Regionals in Albany, New York, falling short of its goal to return to the Frozen Four for the second straight season.

After reaching that height for the first time in program history during the 2025-26 campaign, the Nittany Lions entered the season looking like a team that was in place to take the next step. And in a lot of ways, they did.

A new NCAA rule change opened the door for players from Canadian major junior leagues to come to college hockey, and Penn State took full advantage. Gavin McKenna and Jackson Smith headlined a loaded incoming group, adding to a roster that already had experience and expectations that hadn’t existed before.

Penn State opened the season on the road at Arizona State and quickly got to work.

The Nittany Lions rallied for a 6-3 win in the opener behind a five-point night from Charlie Cerrato and a hat trick from Matt DiMarsico. A night later, they completed the sweep with a four-goal third-period comeback, with McKenna scoring his first collegiate goal to seal the deal.

Penn State then split a high-scoring series with Clarkson, dropping the opener despite a four-goal game from JJ Wiebusch before bouncing back with a 5-2 win.

The Nittany Lions then swept LIU, highlighted by an Aiden Fink overtime winner, and did the same to Stonehill, needing a late third-period rally to take the opener before securing the series the next night.

Penn State rallied from a 2-0 deficit to beat Ohio State in its conference opener, then completed the sweep the following night to improve to 9-1-0 on the season.

But Big Ten play brought about a bigger challenge. Penn State went on the road to face No. 1 Michigan State and was swept. The series included a 36-shot game that still ended in a 3-0 Nittany Lion loss.

It didn’t get any easier the following weekend as Penn State was run out of the building by No. 2 Michigan in a 7-1 loss that prompted a players-only meeting. The Nittany Lions bounced back with a 4-2 win to secure a split, snapping the three-game losing streak.

The up-and-down stretch continued against Minnesota, where Penn State jumped out to a two-goal lead before giving up three goals in under seven minutes in a 3-2 loss, but responded with a 2-1 win the next night.

Penn State returned from a long break that included World Juniors, with McKenna temporarily away from the team. The Nittany Lions were shut out by RIT 1-0, but bounced back in a big way with a 7-3 win behind Jarod Crespo’s first career hat trick.

At the same time, the lineup had already started to take hits, as the team dealt with stretches without Cerrato and Braedon Ford, forcing Penn State to consistently adjust its lines.

From there, Penn State started to play its best hockey of the season.

Back at Pegula, the Nittany Lions swept Notre Dame, highlighted by a hat trick from DiMarsico in a 4-1 win before finishing the job with a 6-3 victory behind McKenna’s first multi-goal game of the season.

Penn State then went on the road and dominated No. 5 Wisconsin, rallying from a 2-0 deficit behind hat tricks from Captain Dane Dowiak and McKenna in a 7-2 comeback win. The Nittany Lions followed it up with another comeback, getting 40 saves from Kevin Reidler and late goals from Wiebusch and Reese Laubach to complete the sweep.

After that series, Penn State looked like one of the best teams in the country.

The Nittany Lions kept it rolling, sweeping Minnesota at Pegula Ice Arena. Josh Fleming delivered a 27-save shutout in the first game, and Penn State followed it up with a 5-2 win to sweep the Golden Gophers for the first time since 2019.

During that stretch, everything was clicking. The offense was producing, the goaltending duo was locked in, and the newer guys started to pick up some slack.

Penn State then hosted one of the most anticipated weekends in program history, starting with a date with No. 2 Michigan State at Pegula. The Nittany Lions fell behind 4-1 after two periods before a late push made the game somewhat respectable, but still Penn State lost 6-3.

The following day, more than 74,000 fans packed into Beaver Stadium for one of the most historic games in college hockey. It was a milestone moment for the program. Penn State went back and forth in an instant classic. The Nittany Lions held a third-period lead, but the Spartans forced overtime and eventually won 5-4 in the extra frame. Even with the sweep, the stage and the moment showed just how far Penn State hockey had come.

Penn State then hit another high point in the season, exploding for an 11-4 win over Ohio State behind a record-setting eight-point night from McKenna. But in the middle of that performance, Nick Fasica went down with an injury that would end his season.

A night later, the Nittany Lions erased a multi-goal deficit before McKenna delivered the overtime game-winner to complete the sweep and cap off a 10-point weekend.

From there, things started to spiral out of control.

Penn State faced No. 2 Michigan in Ann Arbor, but came up short in the shootout. The bigger loss, though, was when Dowiak went down with an injury that eventually ruled him out for the season, leaving Penn State without its leader on and off the ice. It was the latest in a growing list of injuries that had completely shaken up the roster.

The following night, Penn State lost, and the team showed real struggles trying to keep up without the captain. The Nittany Lions went on the road and struggled against a weak Notre Dame team, picking up a point in the shootout in the first game and dropping the second game in overtime. And to cap off the regular season, Penn State was swept by No. 11 Wisconsin, allowing 12 goals across the two games.

The Nittany Lions opened postseason play with a solid 6-2 win against Minnesota in the Big Ten quarterfinals, but struggled to capitalize on the man advantage, going 0-for-6 on the power play and allowing a shorthanded goal in a 5-2 loss to Michigan that ended Penn State’s chances at a conference title.

Penn State then headed to Albany as a No. 3 seed and faced No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth in the regional semifinal. Penn State struck first, with Shea Van Olm opening the scoring, but Minnesota-Duluth responded with three unanswered goals, including the go-ahead tally with just over five minutes remaining to end Penn State’s season.

Still, inside the program, the view was different.

“This was a transformational year for the program,” head coach Guy Gadowsky said.

Between the expectations, the increased attention, and everything that followed, Penn State was forced to navigate something it hadn’t dealt with before.

“This has been a whirlwind of attention, eyeballs, expectations, all of it,” Gadowsky said.

And through it all, the group never folded.

“This could have gone south a number of times, and it didn’t,” he said. “They held it together, and they grinded it out.”

As for the players, the ending still stings, but that feeling is already turning into motivation.

“We’re going to be back,” Shea Van Olm said. “We have full belief in the group and our brotherhood.”