Nittany Lions trying to regain focus on ice

Penn State men’s hockey coach Guy Gadowsky admitted his team was distracted last weekend.

The Nittany Lions skated away with a weekend series split at Wisconsin but they also had an eye on the scoreboard, worrying about conference standings and national rankings.

For a coach who makes it an almost weekly practice in his media sessions to not look ahead, worry about what other teams are doing or get distracted, it was a disappointment.

Kenny Brooks had given the team a 1-0 lead 4:59 into Saturday’s game, and the next 30 minutes saw Penn State lose focus.

“After that goal,” Gadowsky said at his weekly media session on Monday, “it was a sense of, ‘What’s happening next weekend? What’s Michigan doing in the Pairwise?’ We got off being in the present.”

The night before, the No. 14 Nittany Lions had beaten the Badgers 2-1, while Michigan lost 7-4 to Ohio State. It left the Wolverines three points ahead of Penn State in the Big Ten standings, and the Lions visit Ann Arbor on Friday and Saturday to close the regular season.

A win Saturday over the Badgers would have meant all Penn State would need this coming weekend is a series split to earn the No. 2 spot in the conference, and a first-round bye in the Big Ten tournament the following weekend.

But following the goal from Brooks, Wisconsin scored four straight. It was the first time all season Penn State lost after scoring the game’s first goal.

“It’s tough at times to stay in the moment and focus on the task at hand,” junior forward David Goodwin said. “At this point in the season it’s a complete necessity and it needs to be nipped in the butt.”

The Badgers had odd-man rushes, and took advantage of a number of defensive breakdowns for point-blank shots on goalie Eamon McAdam.

“For a period-and-a-half we had a lot of (mental) passengers and it cost us,” said Gadowsky, whose team also may have been assuming a win after taking the last seven meetings in a row, and holds a 20-10-5 record while Wisconsin is 7-17-8.

Once the score was 4-1, McAdam was pulled in favor of Chris Funkey, and the team responded, outshooting the Badgers 21-2 in the third period. They got two goals but couldn’t tie it, falling 4-3.

The next day, Ohio State beat Michigan again, and the Nittany Lions are still three points behind. They remain No. 14 in the weekly national U.S. College Hockey Online poll, but dropped to 17th in the Pairwise rankings, a statistical indicator of where they stand in making the 16-team NCAA field. They are tied with Minnesota in that ranking.

Michigan is tied for No. 8.

“We’re going to try and focus on that momentum we had in the third,” junior defenseman David Thompson said, “and carry that into Friday night.”

Pedrie missing

Penn State suffered a big loss before leaving for Madison last weekend. In a light practice Thursday before the team hopped on the bus to the airport, Vince Pedrie was injured and may miss the rest of the season, postseason included.

“A real freak accident,” Gadowsky said. “He was just coming to the bench and caught an edge, rolled his ankle and is out for the year.”

Pedrie is one of the team’s top men at both ends of the ice, not only a defensive stalwart but a triggerman on the power play unit. Even after missing both weekend games he leads the team in 118 shots attempted for the season.

“That hurts,” Thompson said. “His offensive ability, and his ability on the power play is something that we clearly missed this weekend. We weren’t, obviously, putting up the goals and as many shots as we would have liked.”

Sticking with McAdam

Despite last Saturday’s loss, Gadowsky said McAdam will remain the starting goalie Friday. The junior made a number of big saves to keep the game close, and he was pulled more as a message to the rest of the team than for anything McAdam did.

“We needed something,” Gadowsky said. “We needed a rallying point. Really that was it. It was solely for that.”

The coach thought the move was the team’s best chance at a comeback.

“It was definitely an eye-opening decision by the coaches,” Goodwin said. “I think the guys responded well.”

McAdam made just nine saves before leaving, just one in 5:32 of time in the second period. Funkey turned back all 13 shots he faced, including a couple of breakaways and 2 on 1 breaks.

“A ton of credit to Chris, he played phenomenal,” Goodwin said. “It could have easily been 7-, 8-1 pretty quick there.”

What day is it?

Here is a statistical oddity: The Nittany Lions are 7-2 in the opening game of conference weekends this season, and 3-5-1 in the second game. Gadowsky called it a coincidence, pointing out last season the team mostly reversed that scenario on both nights.

This story was originally published March 7, 2016 at 4:25 PM with the headline "Nittany Lions trying to regain focus on ice."