The good, bad and ugly from Game 1 vs. Michigan

It wasn’t pretty, but No. 5 seeded Penn State found a way to take down the No. 4 seed Michigan Wolverines in a 6-5 overtime thriller to take a 1-0 series lead.

The Nittany Lions now find themselves one win away from advancing to the Big Ten Semifinals and securing a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

Here’s a look at the good, the bad and the ugly from a high-stress opening contest from Yost Ice Arena.

The good: Offense

It’s no secret that both Penn State and Michigan love to shoot the puck, and in turn, score goals.

The first four meetings between these two squads in the regular season saw a combined 46 goals, averaging 11.5 tallies per game.

Game 1 of the Big Ten Quarterfinals was no different, but this time the Nittany Lions could keep up with the Wolverines’ offense.

Peppering Logan Stein with 36 shots against, Guy Gadowsky’s squad found twine six times, and never once trailed in the contest.

It was a night of program-bests for Penn State, as Aiden Fink set a new single-season record with 51 points after a record-tying four-assist night.

Alongside Fink, Jimmy Dowd Jr. passed Cole Hults for the most assists by a defenseman in Penn State history after tallying an apple in the contest as well.

With the first-ever postseason hat trick in Penn State history from JJ Wiebusch, capped off with a highlight-reel goal, the Nittany Lions proved they can play in both a barnburner or a defensive showdown when necessary.

The bad: Faceoffs

For nearly three months during the regular season, Penn State was the top faceoff team in the nation.

Since February, however, the Nittany Lions have dropped to eighth in the nation, winning at a 54.4% clip, and last night wasn’t much better.

Penn State won just 25-of-63 faceoffs against Michigan in Game 1, for a measly 39.7% win rate.

A particularly off day for Charlie Cerrato, who came into the series winning over 58% of draws.

The freshman struggled mightily between the dots, going 8-for-24 in the circle, allowing Michigan to dictate the pace of play, specifically in the middle frame.

There is a silver lining for Gadowsky’s squad, however: the Nittany Lions are 9-1-0 this season when losing the faceoff battle.

Despite that impressive stat, controlling possession is a must when playing the high-flying offense of the Wolverines, and the Nittany Lions need to start controlling possession by controlling faceoffs throughout the rest of this series.

The ugly: Arsenii Sergeev

Nobody is perfect, and last night proved that for the stellar Sergeev.

Sergeev gave up five goals on 26 shots, and there were at least two or three he would probably like to have back.

The biggest problem for the 6-foot-5 netminder was the timing of the goals he gave up: twice during the Game 1 tilt, the Russian puck stopper surrendered a goal within 20 seconds of a Nittany Lion goal, erasing a massive chunk of momentum gained.

The first one came off the stick of Mark Estapa just 16 seconds after Penn State scored the opening goal, as the initial shot leaked through Sergeev and Estapa potted it into the yawning cage.

The second one was arguably the worst one to give up, as it came just nine seconds after Wiebusch scored twice in three minutes to give Penn State a multi-goal lead late in the third.

It started a snowball effect that led to the second multi-goal blown lead in the contest for the Nittany Lions when Jackson Hallum tied it up with 4:28 left in the frame.

In the last two bouts at Yost Ice Arena, Sergeev has given up 12 goals on 67 shots, good for a .821 save percentage.

A rare off-night for the man who played a huge part in Penn State’s second-half success, but for the Nittany Lions’ sake, they’d hope the recent Yost Ice Arena trend doesn’t continue throughout the remainder of this do-or-die series.

Joshua Bartosik is a fourth-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jsb6137@psu.edu.