No. 17 Penn State to round out semester play at No. 6 Wisconsin

After a split against No. 10 Minnesota at Pegula Ice Arena, No. 17 Penn State will head north to take on No. 6 Wisconsin in Madison.

Head coach Guy Gadowsky said that his squad isn’t changing its mentality taking on a top 10 team on the road.

“How we’re going to do it is the same way we beat Michigan on Saturday night, we beat Minnesota on Saturday night and we had a sweep against Lindenwood, but it’s the same thing,” Gadowsky said.

“60 minutes is not a cliché; it’s the absolute truth.”

Danny Dzhaniyev totaled a goal and an assist against the Golden Gophers, and he leads the current team in points all-time against Wisconsin with four goals and three assists.

The Minnesota series saw Ryan Kirwan continue his resurgence, who went nine games without a goal after his hot start to the season until the Lindenwood series.

Since then, he’s had at least two points in every game, minus the first Minnesota game.

Against the Badgers, Kirwan has four goals and two assists in eight games.

With offensive production comes an awful injury for the Nittany Lions: Gadowsky announced Chase McLane will be out for the rest of the season with an undisclosed injury.

“Unfortunately, I feel terrible for him. He was coming around and playing some of the best hockey we’ve seen him play,” Gadowsky said.

With McLane out, new opportunities arise for new faces like Dane Dowiak to try his hand at center and in the faceoff circle.

“A big thing on our team is winning faceoffs, like Chase was a big faceoff guy we would rely on a lot… doing little things right when it’s winning faceoffs, being responsible with the puck itself,” Dowiak said.

Dowiak has goals in three straight series openers and will look to continue that streak on Dec. 8.

While mentioning the freshman, it would be remiss to disregard the Kid Line – Aiden Fink, Matt DiMarsico and Reese Laubach have accounted for 37% of Penn State goals against conference opponents this season.

Wisconsin native Noah Grannan got the start in the second game of the Minnesota series and is looking forward to heading back to his home state.

“These are going to be big ones. I got a lot of friends, a lot of family… it’s going to be really cool,” Grannan said.

In net for the Badgers, senior goaltender Kyle McClellan has been a brick wall for Wisconsin. He has the highest save percentage in the Big Ten at .934 and averages 1.74 goals-against average, which leads the nation.

Wisconsin is led by new head coach Mike Hastings, whose team has one home loss this season to Alaska Anchorage.

Important to note – Penn State also split with Alaska Anchorage.

Puck drop will be 8 p.m. on Dec. 8 and 7 p.m. on Dec. 9

Adrianna Gallucci is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact her, please email amg7989@psu.edu.