UNIVERSITY PARK – Penn State's 3-1 win at Michigan last Saturday ended a nine-game losing streak at Yost Ice Arena where Peyton Jones stopped a season-high 42 shots. Jones has a career-high .924 save percentage this season, which is good for 17th best in all of college hockey.
Penn State head coach Guy Gadowsky admitted that the team's losing streak at Yost was addressed, even though he normally does not talk to the team about trends like that.
"In the past, we sort of said it's just another game, but we actually did talk about it this time," Gadowsky said. "I would say it was a relief. It was a long time coming…to see them come out on top the way they did was a relief."
Barratt, Limoges and Folkes Line Heating Up
The highest-scoring line in all of college hockey last season got off to a much slower start this year than many expected, but the trio has begun to ramp it up as of late.
Limoges extended his point streak to nine games over the weekend, while Barratt has scored a goal in four of his last five games. Folkes also had his first career hat trick two weekends ago against Merrimack.
"When they had success to start with, quite frankly, it wasn't because we had three guys who were performing extremely well and we just threw them together," Gadowsky said. "It was quite the opposite, and they all worked very hard to play a good team game, a high-quality game. It's funny because they're very skilled, all three of them, but to me they're high-quality players. They're not pond hockey scrimmage players. When they're at their best, they're actually playing a really high-quality, fast game."
The coaching staff takes a deep dive into statistics after every week. Gadowsky noticed that in their case the problem was very simple in that they just weren't generating anywhere near the same number of shots as they have been recently or last year.
Limoges didn't think teams were defending them any differently based on the success they had last year but that they just had to get back to playing a simpler brand of hockey that made them so prolific last year.
"When coach called us in it meant a lot and he knew the right things to say," Limoges said. "He told us straight that we need to start playing better, and that we need to be the leaders of this team. It definitely took longer than we expected but we're getting back to it and definitely having a lot more fun now."
Starting Fast, Closing Out Better
Penn State has scored first in 11 of their 17 games this year. In those contests, the Nittany Lions are 10-1.
It's no coincidence that the highest-scoring team in college hockey has scored first at a high percentage, but starting fast and building early momentum has been a point of emphasis for the Nittany Lions this season.
"We always talk about starting the fight and getting 10 shots in the first 10 minutes and just setting the pace for the whole game," Limoges said. "We want to play Penn State hockey more than any other type of hockey. That's what we're good at, that's how we win, so the fact that we're able to score that first goal is just a confidence booster. As soon as we see it, it's like blood in the water and we just want to keep going."
Further, Penn State is a perfect 9-0 this season when leading after the second period. Closing out games has been a problem over the past few seasons, but the team's continuous emphasis on improving defensively this year without sacrificing any offense has paid dividends in that area.
"I think we've done that through managing the puck a lot better," Kris Myllari said. "We've done things like shorten our shifts and a lot of simple things that we can control that the other team doesn't dictate. I think we've done a great job of managing that and that's correlated well into closing out games."
In a deep conference like the Big Ten that currently includes four teams ranked inside the top 20 nationally, continuing to excel in that area will be crucial for Penn State to get back to the NCAA Tournament after narrowly missing out last season.
"Good teams find ways to finish," Limoges said. "Last year, the best teams in the country had unbelievable records when they were winning going into the third period…it's something we're learning how to do and I think it's something that's very important as the season goes on and playoffs start."
End of Long Road Trip
Penn State's upcoming series at Notre Dame will be the final two games of a six-game road trip heading into the holiday break.
With the semester ending, playing on the road this many weekends in a row can be difficult to balance with final exams, but the players enjoy playing on the road and the university makes it easy for them to focus on hockey.
"We're treated first class and I think that saves a lot in your body," Myllari said. "We eat well, our travel is smooth, quick and efficient. A lot of credit goes to the staff and the university for that. This school does everything to make it as easy as possible for us so all we have to do is focus on hockey. It's not like the NHL where you're traveling to four cities in four nights, so I think guys truly love going on the road."
Analytics Use
Analytics have become increasingly prevalent in sports over the last few years, and Penn State is beginning to adopt some of these methods to help with their performance on the ice.
Gadowsky noted the sport of hockey in general is a bit behind in advanced analytics compared to other sports, and that he still firmly believes in the eye test. However, he has found it very helpful when Director of Operations Alex Dawes and other members of the staff feed him numbers that support the eye test or even suggest a different way to look at certain things.
"I find it extremely valuable and extremely interesting," Gadowsky said. "A lot of what we do is broken down into analytics per zone. Analytics in terms of per zone and percentages of success per zone are very telling."
Penn State uses a grading system assigned to every player per zone that evens out ice time, so that a player with a higher volume of shots, for example, with greater ice time than average is adjusted to average. The numbers have helped the coaching staff better determine the roster game by game.
"I think over the years you learn to see it yourself too," Myllari said. "I think also there are certain matchups we have and our coaches do an excellent job of that and making sure that we have the right guys on the ice in those situations."
