PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – No. 9 Penn State struggles late as Princeton claws back in the third period to earn a 4-4 tie in non-conference action this evening from the Wells Fargo Center.
The Nittany Lions move to 11-5-2 on the year while the Tigers now stand at 3-8-2 overall.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- Princeton opened the scoring just 2:24 into the first period as Josh Teves took a feed from Ryan Kuffner in the slot a danced toward the goal firing a shot that snuck through Nittany Lion junior goaltender Peyton Jones (Langhorne, Pa.) for the 1-0 advantage.
- PSU answered as junior Kris Myllari (Kanata, Ontario) caused an offensive zone turnover at the blue-line and found classmate Brandon Biro (Sherwood Park, Alberta) on the half-wall and he skated to the net sending a backhand shot over the blocker of Tiger net-minder Ryan Ferland for the 1-1 tie at 5:42 of the opening stanza.
- Penn State then grabbed the lead thanks to the second short-handed goal of the season by junior Nate Sucese (Fairport, N.Y.) as he tracked down a pass from senior Ludvig Larsson (Malmo, Sweden) and sent it through the five-hole of Ferland for the 2-1 edge at 9:15.
- The Nittany Lions extended the lead to 3-1 as senior Chase Berger (St. Louis, Mo.) finished off a beautiful feed from classmate Derian Hamilton (Port McNeill, B.C.) at 15:40 of the opening frame.
- Penn State continued to pressure the Tigers as just 17 seconds into the second period senior Alec Marsh (Bridgewater, N.J.) intercepted a cross-ice pass in the defensive zone and split two defenders going coast-to-coast before slipping the puck past Ferland's left pad for the 4-1 margin.
- Max Veronneau cut into the deficit for the hosts late in the second period as he got behind the defense and beat Jones through the five-hole for the 4-2 score at 17:03.
- Veronneau then got his second of the game off a no angle shot to the right of Jones from Kuffner cutting the deficit to 4-3 at 15:28.
- Princeton then netted the equalizer as Kuffner ripped home a rebound after Veronneau's initial shot clanked the cross-bar for the 4-4 score at 18:52 of the third period.
GOALTENDING
- Jones moves to 7-3-2 on the year after making 31 saves.
- Ferland didn't factor into the decision after allowing four goals while only making 12 saves over the first 20:17 of game action before being lifted for Austin Shaw who stopped all 21 shots he saw over the final 44:43 .
NOTES
- Penn State held the slim 37-35 edge in shots while going 0-for-2 with the man-advantage and 3-for-3 on the penalty kill.
- With three first period goals, the Nittany Lions had four-straight periods scoring three goals and have had 15 such periods this season scoring three or more goals.
- Myllari had a pair of first period assists to register his third multi-point game this season and the seventh of his career.
- Marsh scored a goal in back-to-back games for just the second time in his career with the last time coming during October of his freshman season.
- With the fourth short-handed goal of his career, Sucese moves into a tie for second on the Penn State all-time list with Tommy Olczyk '16 and Eric Scheid '16.
- Sophomore Alex Limoges (Winchester, Pa.) notched the secondary assist on Berger's goal giving him 29 points for the season tying him with classmate Evan Barratt (Bristol, Pa.) for the national lead.
- Penn State is now 2-1-1 all-time against Princeton and 3-2-1 at Wells Fargo Center.
NEXT UP
- Penn State now takes a few weeks off for the holidays before resuming Big Ten action when they travel to Minnesota for a pair of games on January 4-5 to kick-off the second semester of play.
- The opening game of that series will air live on ESPNU with puck drop slated for 9 p.m. ET. Game two of the series will air locally on Fox Sports North while streaming on BTN2Go.