Penn State men’s hockey looks toward postseason while still battling injuries
With two weekends left in the regular season, the Penn State men’s hockey team would like to be piling up points and polishing its plan for postseason play.
Instead, it’s still battling injuries and hoping that its eventual plan includes a few more healthy players. It does want to pile and polish, if possible, though.
Penn State, ranked fifth nationally, sits third in the Big Ten Conference standings. It has guaranteed itself a home game in the quarterfinals of the conference playoffs — that single game will be played March 11 — and sits fifth in the NCAA Percentage Index (NPI), which determines the 16-team field for the NCAA Tournament.
A couple of victories on the road this weekend at Notre Dame would earn points in the conference standings, but even a sweep in South Bend and a sweep next week at home against Wisconsin, would likely not change the team’s quarterfinal schedule.
Some victories might mean more in terms of polish, though, and maybe Penn State could close the NPI gap between itself and defending national champion Western Michigan, which sits fourth. Western’s remaining regular season series is this weekend against third-ranked North Dakota, which is third in the NPI. So, losses for the defending champions would still be quality performances according to NPI metrics.
That leaves Penn State looking in the mirror — and more likely looking to the training room.
Defenseman Nick Fascia will be out this weekend. Forward Ben Schoen will return after missing the second game of last weekend’s home series sweep over Ohio State.
Still, a big handful of important players remain out, including forward Charlie Cerrato, who could be on schedule to return for the last series of the season or, more likely, for the playoffs. There’s a chance forward Braedon Ford could return for the Notre Dame series, but the team might lead into caution and patience instead of rushing anyone back.
A shorter bench has meant shorter shifts and several players have responded to the opportunities.
Freshman forward Gavin McKenna produced 10 points with two goals and eight assists against Ohio State. With 43 points, he leads all Big Ten freshmen and ranks second nationally.
Fellow freshman Shea Van Olm scored two goals in the first game against Ohio State weekend and proven veterans like Matt DiMarsico, Aiden Fink, Reese Laubach and JJ Wiebusch have provided necessary and steady production while the team has been shorthanded.
With at least a half dozen more games guaranteed this season (four in the regular season, one in the conference playoffs and one in the NCAA Tournament), Penn State has 20 victories. The school record is 25, set in 2016-17. This is the second-consecutive season Penn State has reached the plateau and the seventh time in program history.
No. 5 Penn State (20-9-1, 12-7-1 Big Ten) at Notre Dame (6-22-4, 2-17-1)
Series: 7:05 p.m. Friday, 6 p.m. Saturday Audio/Radio: GoPSusports.com, 103.7 FM, 104.3 FM
Streaming/TV: Peacock (both days)
Notable: Notre Dame leads the all-time series 21-14-6, but Penn State won the teams’ two previous meetings this season — outscoring the Fighting Irish 10-4 during two games in South Bend in mid-January. … Penn State continues to lead the nation, by a comfortable margin, in penalty minutes (600, Holy Cross is second at 537). Penn State also has the best penalty-kill percentage (84.7) in the conference.