Penn State men’s hockey welcomes AIC for home opener

The Penn State Nittany Lions are off to another strong start to a season. With three non-conference road wins in the books, Penn State is up to No. 12 in the USCHO poll.

This weekend Penn State will play its first home series of the year when it takes on AIC Friday and Saturday.

Last season the Nittany Lions went 13-7 at Pegula Ice Arena and 8-0 in-home non-conference games.

Penn State will look to carry over that home-cooking into their matchup with AIC.

The Yellow Jackets have dropped their first three games, against two of college hockey’s top programs in UMass and Quinnipiac.

AIC has been outscored 16-5 in those games. Meanwhile, Penn State is outscoring opponents 11-5.

Despite the struggles of AIC, Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky is not taking the non-conference slate lightly.

“Actually, you can argue that the non-conference games are even more important than [Big Ten] games,” Gadowsky said.

Gadowsky went on to talk about how NCAA tournament bids are primarily determined by calculations and pairwise rankings.

“There shouldn't be any thought that these are lead-up games or exhibition games to league play because, in hockey, that's not accurate,” Gadowsky said. “These are very important.”

The Nittany Lions know just how important the non-conference slate is.

Going undefeated in out-of-conference competition propelled Penn State into the NCAA tournament despite an under .500 Big Ten record and a first-round exit in the Big Ten tournament.

Not only are the Nittany Lions continuing the success they had in last year’s early run of games, but also looking to improve, especially on special teams.

Coach Gadowsky said before the season started that his team worked on the power play more than ever during the summer. The Nittany Lions were successful on only 16% of power plays in the 2022-23 season while allowing opponents to convert on 23.8% of attempts.

If you go back to the 2019-20 season, Penn State was converting on an impressive 27.1% clip. Opponents were scoring just 12.6% of the time.

That is a high mark to shoot for, but the Nittany Lion power play has scored once in each of the first three games, going 3-13 overall.

Forward Carson Dyck said that you can’t score every time on the power play, but there are small victories to be had.

“As long as you're creating momentum and pushing our team forward after the power play or during the power play, I think that's huge,” Dyck said. “And I think our power has done a really good job of that.”

AIC has allowed four goals while shorthanded on just 10 penalty kills in its first three games. The Yellow Jackets are 0-15 on their own power play opportunities.

This weekend should provide another opportunity for the Nittany Lions to show off their improved special teams and collect a pair of crucial non-conference victories.

You can catch all the action on CommRadio here. Coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. on Friday and 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Maclain Young is a fourth-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email macyoung21@gmail.com.