Penn State men’s hockey team confident facing familiar tournament challenge

Sure, the situation and surroundings are similar but the reason the Penn State hockey team has confidence entering Big Ten Tournament has little to do with what it did last year.

As the 10th-ranked Nittany Lions return to Columbus, Ohio, for a best-of-three quarterfinal series against No. 9 Ohio State beginning Friday, winning a quarterfinal series on the road last season against the Buckeyes — and becoming the first conference team to do so — does not really matter.

That’s all so 12 months ago.

This season Penn State reached the 20-victory plateau for the fifth time in the program’s 11-year history. And, with the NCAA Tournament a couple weeks away, Penn State ranks eight in the Division I PairWise rankings that approximate the selection process for the 16-team national tournament.

“We’re an excellent team, we absolutely deserve to be where we are in the PairWise and there are a lot of reasons for us to believe we can go on the road and win,” Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky said. “We’re drawing on a lot of positive experiences we had during the year. It’s not necessarily drawing from last year. It’s drawing on this year.”

Penn State has made the most of its postseason opportunities in Columbus, though. It has a 3-1 record in tournament games at Ohio State since 2019. Along with two games in last year’s quarterfinal series, Penn State won a single-game semifinal in 2019.

In the week leading to this series, Penn State planned for as much playoff hockey as necessary to advance. So, instead of hard, heavy practices, the team focused a bit more on conditioning.

“We’re certainly not going into the games to conserve any energy whatsoever. It’s not that we are preparing for a different tempo by any means,” Gadowsky said. “We’re taking the load off now to have a little gas in the tank if we need it.”

What Penn State really needs would be a bit more productivity from its special teams. It has the least-productive power play in the conference (getting only 18 goals on 116 attempts, .155) and a similarly ranked penalty-kill unit (stopping opponents just 74.7% of the time).

Ohio State has the Big Ten’s best penalty kill, stopping 89.4% of opponent opportunities.

Still, Penn State believes it has done everything but put the puck in the net on some recent power plays. So, by that logic, things could change as soon as this weekend.

“What has happened in the past with special teams is in the past. You can get on a roll at any time and that’s what we’re hoping,” Gadowsky said. “If we keep playing the way we should, that just might happen.”

Big Ten Tournament Quarterfinal Series

No. 10 Penn State (20-13-1) at No. 9 Ohio State (18-13-3)

Series: 7 p.m. Friday, 5 p.m. Saturday, 5 p.m. Sunday (if necessary)

Radio/TV: GoPSUsports.com

Notable: Ohio State leads the series, 23-17-4 with a 12-10-2 advantage on its home ice. … Penn State has a 3-1 record in tournament games at Ohio State since 2019 — winning the best-of-three quarterfinal series last season and getting the victory in a single-game semifinal in 2019. … Ohio State’s Jake Wise (795) and Penn State’s Ture Linden (661) have taken more faceoffs than any other players in the Big Ten Conference. … A high-scoring game would benefit Penn State, which has a 99-1-2 record when scoring five or more goals.