Penn State men's hockey takes down St. Lawrence in home opener

Penn State returned to Pegula on Friday night to take on the St. Lawrence Saints in the first of two in late October.

The energy was high pregame and that continued into the first four chaotic minutes of the first period. There were five shots on goal and three goals scored combined by both teams to start the game.

St. Lawrence ended up jumping to the 2-1 lead early in period number one off of goals by leading goal scorer Greg Lapointe and Tomas Mazura.

Danny Dzhaniyev had the lone goal for the Nittany Lions in the first frame which kept the game close early on.

It was the line of Nicholas DeGraves, Tyler Paquette and Alex Servagno that took some of the Saints' momentum away late in the first period.

“I think that’s how we generate our offense from checking, and when we were able to hunt pucks in transition fast, I thought we did a very good job,” Gadowsky said.

The puck was in Penn State’s offensive zone for a minute plus which resulted in a penalty on St. Lawrence, giving the Nittany Lions momentum heading into the locker room.

The sparks that flew near the tail end of the first period carried into the second frame right away.

Penn State came out with multiple point-blank chances in front of the net to attack netminder Mason Kucenski early on.

Most of the early chances did not find the back of the net until the top line came through huge with under thirty seconds to play to end the second frame.

Reese Laubach was able to net his third goal of the season, after two great passes from his linemates Ben Schoen and Aiden Fink.

The goal nodded the game up at 2-2 two periods through at Pegula. It was the third period that would decide the fate of both teams.

It’s worth mentioning as well the stellar play of Arsenii Sergeev who was able to settle down in a big way after the rocky start.

He had 14 saves off of 16 shots in the game total, not facing a ton of pressure as the game went on, but stopping what he had to. Including this Sportscenter Top 10-worthy save.

“The team loves that guy, and I think they really play hard for him and I think that’s a big part of his (Arsenii) success,” Gadowsky said.

The best part of the night, despite all the other good moments Penn State showed, was the game-winner from freshman forward Keaton Peters.

It was three freshmen in on the final goal as defenseman Cade Christenson gave a cross-ice feed to JJ Wiebusch who was able to dangle the puck through St. Lawrence defenders and pass it over to Peters.

“I think it was such a special feeling being able to do it in front of the Roar Zone, and I want to shout out to my linemate JJ (Wiebusch) who made a great play to me,” Peters said.

Peters and fellow freshman center Charlie Cerrato were both tremendous as well from the faceoff circle. Peters was 10-14 on the dot and Cerrato was just a bit better than him at 12-15.

As a team, they went 40-62 from the circle which is right around 65% on the night.

Penn State will look to replicate the final result tonight as they take on St. Lawrence in the second game of the series tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m.

Giustino Racchini is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, please email him at gar5448@psu.edu.