UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The No. 13/10 Penn State men's ice hockey team opens the 2019-20 regular season this weekend when they host the Sacred Heart Pioneers for a pair of games on Friday and Saturday evening.
FOLLOW THE ACTION
Dates: Friday, October 11 | Saturday, October 12
Place: Pegula Ice Arena
Time: Friday at 7 p.m. | Saturday at 4:30 p.m.
Tickets: Friday | Saturday
BTN+ Video ($): Friday | Saturday
Listen: Friday | Saturday
Live Statistics: Live Stats (Both Games)
Game Notes: Penn State | Sacred Heart
THIS WEEK'S MATCHUP
- Penn State and Sacred Heart meet for just the fifth and six times this weekend and its the first series between the two since November 13-14, 2015, a sweep at home by the Nittany Lions.
- PSU is 4-0-0 all-time against the Pioneers including a 3-0-0 mark at Pegula Ice Arena. The Nittany Lions are outscoring Sacred Heart 19-8 all-time.
- Penn State is 4-2-1 all-time in season openers, but is a perfect 3-0-1 in season opening games inside Pegula Ice Arena. In their last two season openers at home, the Nittany Lions have defeated ranked opponents, a 4-2 victory over No. 16 St. Lawrence to open the 2016-17 slate and a 4-3 win against No. 17 Clarkson to begin last season.
SCOUTING SACRED HEART
- Sacred Heart is coming off a 16-17-4 season a year ago which included a 14-11-3 mark in Atlantic Hockey. The Pioneers fell in three games to RIT in the conference quarterfinals to end their season.
- SHU returns its top 10 scorers from 2018-19 losing just one player who registered double-digit points. The Pios are led by sophomore Austin Magera who paced the team as a freshman last season with 14 goals and 13 assists for 27 points. Also returning are junior Jordan Kaplan and sophomore Ryan Steele who each registered double-digit goals with 11 and 10, respectively. Senior Jason Cotton and Junior Marc Johnstone are also back after collecting 23 and 22 points in 2018-19.
- Josh Benson returns between the pipes after posting a 13-7-2 record as a rookie in 24 starts playing 61 percent of the time in 2018-19. Benson compiled a 2.54 goals against average and a .898 save percentage.
- Sacred Heart was one of 20 teams to open its regular season last weekend and the played UConn to a 3-3 tie on Friday night. Junior Matt Tugnutt led the way with his first career hat-trick while Jason Cotton assisted all three scores including the primary assist on the first and third. Benson made 17 saves in the tie.
- Sacred Heart ranked 54th in the nation last season with the man-advantage scoring just 22 power-play goals in 158 chances (13.9 percent) and they opened 2019-20 going 0-for-6 against the Huskies. The Pioneer PK was much better a season ago ranking 20th in the nation at 83.2 percent and it went 2-for-2 last weekend to open the season.
- SHU averaged 30.6 shots per game last season but fired 48 on net in the tie at UConn last week.
- The Pioneers lost just six seniors from the team last year but brought in eight newcomers to battle for ice time in 2019-20, bringing their roster total to 30 players. Four freshmen saw the ice last Saturday against UConn.
MR. 300
- Entering the 2019-20 season head coach Guy Gadowsky is just two wins shy of 300 for his career, which he would reach with a series sweep against the Pioneers.
- Among active coaches, Gadowsky ranks 13th in the nation with his 298 victories and second among active Big Ten coaches only behind Notre Dame's Jeff Jackson (501).
- Gadowsky is also just 20 wins shy of cracking the top-50 all-time winningest Division I coaches list.
LEADERS OF THE PACK
- Penn State's now senior class has led the team in scoring each of the past three seasons. Three of those players enter their final season in Hockey Valley top-10 in the nation for scoring among active players.
- Nate Sucese ranks second in the Big Ten and third in the nation with 102 points trailing only Minnesota State's Marc Michaelis (118) and Ohio State's Tanner Laczynski (109). Sucese is also just 26 points shy of the Penn State all-time program record of 128 held by David Goodwin '17.
- Denis Smirnov ranks fourth in the nation and third in the Big Ten right behind Sucese with 96 career points while Brandon Biro ranks fourth in the Big Ten and tied for eighth in the nation with 91 points.
- Sucese's 50 goals lead the Big Ten among active players and are just one behind Michaelis' 51. The senior needs just five goals to pass Nittany Lion all-time leading goal scorer Andrew Sturtz. Smirnov ranks second in the Big Ten and third in the nation entering the 2019-20 season with 42 goals in his career while Liam Folkes is tied for fourth in the Big Ten and ninth in the nation with 37 tallies to his name.
- Sucese is also second among active players with five shorthanded tallies, trailing Michaelis by a pair. Smirnov is tied for the national lead entering the season with 10 game-winning goals.
- Senior goaltender Peyton Jones is also tops among active goaltenders with 58 career victories, a Penn State record, while his 2,809 saves and 103 games played rank second in the nation entering the season.
GOALS A-PLENTY
- After leading the nation and setting program standards for goals (177), assists (301), points (478) and goals per game (4.54) last season, Penn State returns the most goals and points out of all 60 Division I teams with 145 and 392, respectively. The Nittany Lions return 82 percent of their total offense from the 2018-19 season, the most in the Big Ten and the seventh most in the nation.
HIGH ABOVE
- At 6'8" senior Nikita Pavlychev is one of three players in the NCAA that share the distinction of tallest player joining Stephen Mundinger of Maine and Keenan Suthers of St. Lawrence. There are then six players at 6'7".
VETERAN PRESENCE
- With 10 seniors, the Nittany Lions have the second largest senior class in the nation behind only Boston College's 11, but factor in the nine juniors and Penn State has the most upper classmen in the nation with 19 of its 29 players as either a junior or senior.
NATIONAL TREASURE
- Hailing from Winchester, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C., junior Alex Limoges tied for the national lead with 50 points last season and is the nation's leading returning scorer from a season ago. This marks the first time in nine years that the national scoring leader returns to college hockey (Maine's Gustav Nyquist in 2010-11).
- The junior's 50-point outburst as a sophomore set a Penn State single-season scoring record as did his 23 goals, the most in the Big Ten and second most in the nation in 2018-19.
TOP OF THE LINE
- Penn State boasted the highest scoring line in all of college hockey in 2018-19 with Limoges, Barratt and Folkes each registering 40-plus points.
- When playing together, the trio averaged 3.84 points per game to lead the entire nation and outscore Alaska-Anchorage who averaged just 3.24 points per game as a team.
- In total, the trio scored 57 goals, more than Alaska Anchorage (40) and Colgate (55) had for the entire 2018-19 season.
NEXT UP
- The Nittany Lions host Alaska-Fairbanks for the first time ever and just the second meeting all-time.
- The last meeting between the two schools was a single game during the Brice Alaska Goal Rush Tournament on October 18, 2014. The Nanooks won that contest 4-3.
- This series will be played next Thursday and Friday with puck drop slated for 7 p.m. each night.