UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The eighth-ranked Penn State Nittany Lions host in-state foe Robert Morris on Friday evening before traveling to Pittsburgh the following night for their first road contest of the 2018-19 season. Puck drop each night is scheduled for 7 p.m.
FOLLOW THE ACTION
Dates: Friday, November 9 | Saturday, November 10
Place: Pegula Ice Arena | Colonials Arena
Time: 7 p.m. (Both nights)
Tickets: Friday
Watch: Friday FREE LionVision | Saturday ($)
Listen: Friday | Saturday
Live Stats: Friday | Saturday
Game Notes: Penn State
THIS WEEK'S MATCHUP
- Penn State and Robert Morris will meet for the 9th and 10th time this weekend as the two in-state foes play a home-and-home series.
- The all-time series is tied as each side has won four times, however, Penn State is 2-0-0 all-time in the two venues that will be used this weekend as the series opener on Friday will be played at Pegula Ice Arena where PSU secured a 7-4 victory last season and Saturday's contest will take place at Colonials Arena, formerly 84 Lumber Arena, where the Nittany Lions picked up a 5-4 victory back in 2013. Five of the meetings have been played at PPG Paints Arena, formerly CONSOL Energy Center, the home of the Pittsburgh Penguins while the first-ever matchup took place at Greenberg Ice Pavilion in 2012.
- Penn State swept the season series last year with a 5-2 victory at PPG Paints and a 7-4 win at Pegula Ice Arena as the two teams once again played a home-and-home series.
- Last season both Denis Smirnov and Nate Sucese scored twice in the series finale at Pegula and three times during the two games while Smirnov added a pair of assists for five total points and Sucese registered one helper for four points.
- Peyton Jones started both games between the pipes for the Nittany Lions stopping 61-of-67 shots for a .910 save percentage in the two victories.
SCOUTING ROBERT MORRIS
- Robert Morris enters the weekend at 3-4-1 on the year after splitting an Atlantic Hockey series last weekend against Niagara. Like Penn State, the Colonials have played seven of their eight games at home to begin the season and dropped their lone road game to Bowling Green, 6-0. At home Bobby Mo is 3-3-1.
- RMU returns four of its top six scorers from last season, but are without the services of leading point getter Brady Ferguson who paced the team with 18 goals and 31 assists for 49 points. Ferguson finished his career with 66 goals and 101 assists for 167 points, which led all active players at the end of last season.
- The Colonials do return second leading scorer Alex Tonge who produced 44 points in 2017-18 on 17 goals and 27 assists. Tonge's 105 career points are good for eighth among active players. RMU also returns double-digit goal scorers Luke Lynch and Michael Louria who recorded 17 and 14, respectively, last season.
- So far this season the Colonials are averaging just 2.00 goals per game and are led by Tonge with just six points on two goals and four assists. Freshman Nick Lalonde leads the team with three goals.
- Back between the pipes for his junior season is Francis Marotte after compiling at 17-15-3 record with a .917 save percentage and a 2.56 goals against average last season. Marotte has started all eight games so far this season and boasts a .908 save percentage and a 2.67 goals against average.
- Robert Morris hasn't started games particularly fast this season as they are being doubled up in the opening period 8-4 through the first eight games. RMU has also only converted on 6-of-45 power-play chances (13.3 percent) to rank 49th in the nation while its PK ranks 20th at 83.3 percent (35-for-42).
WALK THE LINE
- Penn State's most productive forward line so far this season has been the one of sophomore's Alex Limoges and Evan Barratt paired with junior Liam Folkes. In seven games this season the line has combined to score 11 goals while adding 17 assists for 28 points.
- Dating back to the end of the 2017-18 campaign the line has registered 22 goals while adding 26 assists for 48 points in their last 14 games.
- During that time the trio has distributed the scoring evenly with Limoges scoring nine goals while adding nine assists for 18 points, Barratt has lit the lamp seven times with eight assists for 15 points and Folkes has scored six goals while adding nine assists for 15 points. Penn State has gone 11-3-0 over its last 14 games dating back to the end of last season.
- Overall in 35 career games together the Limoges - Barratt - Folkes combination has registered 38 goals and 41 assists for 79 points while the Nittany Lions have a 19-11-5 record when the trio is paired together.
PEYTON'S PAINT
- Junior Peyton Jones already holds every Penn State single-season goaltending record and after becoming the all-time leader in games started by a goaltender following the Princeton game, he added another all-time record last weekend against ASU.
- Jones became the all-time leader in minutes played by a goaltender at Penn State as he has now served 4448:07 between the pipes for the Blue and White.
- His 43 victories are already a Nittany Lion career record while the junior is just three appearances and 123 saves away from two more Penn State career standards. One more shutout would also give Jones solo possession of that Nittany Lion career milestone.
FUNKEY COLD MEDINA
- Senior Chris Funkey made his third start of the season last Friday securing his third-straight victory improving to 3-0-0 on the year. Funkey entered the season with just three career wins as he has now doubled his total and stands at 6-4-1 overall in 17 career appearances with nine starts.
TWO-WAY HOCKEY
- Early in the season Penn State has excelled on both ends of the ice averaging 4.86 goals per game while only allowing 2.57 goals on the defensive end ranking them first and second in the Big Ten, respectively. The Nittany Lion offense leads the entire nation in goals per game as well as points per game, averaging 13.57.
- Penn State is also leading the nation in shots per game (42.57) and blocked shots per game (21.71) while its .626 faceoff percentage is also tops in the country.
- Junior Kris Myllari's 33 blocked shots and 4.71 blocks per game are both tops in the nation while senior Ludvig Larsson's .736 faceoff percentage is the best mark in the country.
BALANCED ATTACK
- Penn State ranks third in the nation with 34 goals through the first seven games while nine of 14 players who have scored already have multiple goals.
- Of those nine, eight have at least three goals, which is the most players on a single team in the country with at least three goals.
CHASE-ING RECORDS
- Senior captain Chase Berger continues to make his way up the all-time games played list at Penn State where he now sits tied for sixth with 122 games under his belt.
- Berger became just the fourth player in program history to hit the 40 career goals mark a few weeks ago and he is also now just four points shy of becoming the third Nittany Lion to reach 100 points.
- The senior's 96 career points rank third in the Big Ten and ninth in the nation among active players.
BLUE STREAK
- Penn State currently has three players riding career-long point streaks as Barratt, Limoges and junior Nikita Pavlychev have each registered at least one point in six-straight games. No surprise the three rank first, second and third on the team in scoring.
- During this streak Limoges has four multi-point games in his last five while Barratt has three multi-point efforts in his last five games.
- After missing a few games with an injury to open the season, junior Denis Smirnov is back to his scoring ways and is currently on a four-game point streak.
- Freshman Aarne Talvitie saw his career-best five-game point streak snapped last Saturday.
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
- We're leaving together, win or lose, but heading into last weekend the Nittany Lions hadn't trailed entering the third period all season. In both games against Arizona State, however, Penn State found itself behind to begin the final 20 minutes.
- The Nittany Lions roared back both nights scoring three third period goals to earn the 6-5 victory on Friday before lighting the lamp twice in the third to force overtime on Saturday.
- So far this season Penn State is outscoring its opponents, 16-4, over the final period with only two of those tallies being of the empty net variety.
60 PERCENT OF THE TIME IT WORKS EVERY TIME
- Last Saturday marked the 100th game at Pegula Ice Arena with the Nittany Lions holding a 60-30-10 all-time record in the venue with an even more impressive 56-18-8 mark on home ice since the start of the 2014-15 season.
- During that span starting in the fall of 2014, Penn State has a +121 goal differential at home outscoring opponents 362-241.
- Pegula Ice Arena has been sold-out for 91-straight games and 96 overall with the Nittany Lions outscoring opponents.
NEXT UP
- Penn State opens Big Ten play at home against No. 14 Michigan next Friday and Saturday. This marks the second time in the past three seasons that the Nittany Lions and Wolverines have opened conference play against each other and this is the third-straight season Michigan has been the first Big Ten opponent for Penn State on home ice.