UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Senior captain Brandon Biro (Sherwood Park, Alberta) rang home the game-winning goal for his 100th career point as No. 12 Penn State defeated in-state foe Robert Morris, 2-1, in non-conference action on Friday night inside Pegula Ice Arena.
The Nittany Lions improve to 4-1-0 on the year with the victory while the Colonials fall to 3-4-0 in the loss.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- After a scoreless first period, Penn State opened the scoring as freshman Connor MacEachern (Brooklin, Ontario) redirected a point shot from sophomore Paul DeNaples (Moscow, Pa.) over the left shoulder of Colonial net-minder Justin Kapelmaster for the 1-0 edge at 2:13 of the middle frame.
- RMU answered as Grant Hebert finished off a feed from Nick Prkusic for the 1-1 score at 4:20 of the second period.
- The Nittany Lions regained the lead in the third period as a strong fore-check caused a turnover behind the net and junior Evan Barratt (Bristol, Pa.) found Biro all alone in the left circle and he ripped a shot past the glove of Kapelmaster for the 2-1 advantage at 6:48 of the stanza. Biro secured career point No. 100 with the goal.
GOALTENDING
Senior Peyton Jones (Langhorne, Pa.) improved to 4-0-0 with the victory after stopping 21-of-22 shots against while Kapelmaster made 34 saves, but falls to 2-3-0 in setback.
GADOWSKY POSTGAME
Opening statement
I thought our [5-on-3] kill was huge; the penalty kill was excellent and defensively, 22 shots [allowed], not too bad. Obviously, we'd like to combine that with a little more of our offensive identity, but right now I think we'll take this as a positive. We had a very good third, so we're going to build off that.
Q: How important is it to get a result like this in a game where it's a bit out of your comfort zone?
A: We like it, it was a goal of ours at the start of the season to improve defense, and there's a number of parts to that, PK is one of them, shots is another. If you look at tonight, there are two pretty positive results there, but obviously we don't want to do it at the sacrifice of offense. Tonight, we probably did not have our best offensive game but it was nice to see the defensive part.
Q: How important was the 5-on-3 penalty kill in the third period?
A: Connor McMenamin had a big block during the kill, and Kris Myllari gave him the Thor hammer because of it. It was a huge kill, I know you can't really call it a turning point because we were up, but it was the confidence building point for us. Killing that 5-on-3 was excellent, it was probably the biggest part of the game for us.
Q: Did you think your team had better chemistry offensively in the third period than in the first two?
A: We did, we thought that the third was one of our better periods. That's accentuated by the 5-on-3 kill, but we finally started playing like ourselves and having tempo and spending a lot more time in the offensive zone, that's really a staple to how we play. I think we can really build off that third period offensively.
Q; How does it feel to have Peyton Jones in your net, knowing he's always going to keep you in the game?
A: Every good team has a goaltender do that, there's not an excellent team in college hockey that doesn't have that. Right now, I think it's a big part of our confidence. You get confidence from a 5-on-3 kill but you also get confidence from a few big saves we made as well. It's a big part of every successful team.
NOTES
- Biro became the sixth member of the 100-point club at Penn State with his third period goal and he is now 1-of-6 current NCAA Division I players with at least 100 career points joining teammates Nate Sucese (Fairport, N.Y.) and Denis Smirnov (Moscow, Russia).
- Penn State held the 36-22 edge in shots and went 4-for-4 on the penalty kill including an extended 5-on-3 in the third period. The Nittany Lions were 0-for-2 on the man-advantage.
- The Nittany Lions have now won five-straight games against Robert Morris improving to 7-4-0 all-time.
- PSU is now 4-0-0 this season when scoring first and has also killed off 15-straight penalties.
- Jones is now tied for the Big Ten lead with his .942 save percentage ranking eighth in the nation while his 1.75 goals against average is good for third and 14th, respectively.
NEXT UP
Penn State remains at home to open Big Ten play next weekend as the No. 6 Wisconsin Badgers come to town for a pair of contests on Thursday and Friday evening. Single-game tickets as well as resale tickets for both games can be purchased HERE of call 1-800-NITTANY for standing room only.
For more information on the 2019-20 season presented by the Penn State Bookstore: the Official Bookstore of Penn State Athletics, visit the men's hockey page at GoPSUsports.com or call 1-800-NITTANY Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.