By Jonathon Chun
jchun@statenews.com
After a 17-day stretch without a regular season game, MSU hockey (7-10-1 overall, 1-2-1-1 Big Ten) will return to Big Ten action this weekend. The Spartans will travel to Penn State (10-7-2 overall, 4-2 Big Ten) to take on the Nittany Lions in back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday.
“[PSU] is a team with a high compete level,” senior forward Brent Darnell said. “They’ve got a lot of confidence, they’re really good at home and it’s a fun place to play. I think it’ll be a good challenge for us to see where we are.”
Coming off a 4-1 exhibition win over the U.S. National Development Program last Friday, the Spartans continue to look for more offense as they head into the heart of their Big Ten schedule. MSU is 6-1-1 this season when scoring three or more goals, and 45-6-5 under head coach Tom Anastos.
“We’ve got to continue to work offensively to create more and more dangerous scoring chances,” Anastos said. “They’re a team that plays hard regardless of the score ... [PSU] is one of these teams that really shrinks the ice and makes it difficult to create offense.”
This being only the second year that the Nittany Lions have returned as a varsity program, it would be easy to assume there would be some growing pains. Anastos, however, knew that PSU had the right man leading them into a new chapter of its program.
“I think a lot of their coach, Guy Gadowsky. He’s done it before at other places he’s been to,” Anastos said. “I’m not surprised that they’re very competitive. We know we can go out there and have lots of success. We also know we can go out there and get beat because they have put themselves into the mix.
“They’re going to go into the heart of the Big Ten Schedule now too where they’re playing Big Ten teams week-in and week-out, and for all of our teams that’s going to present a challenge.”
Sophomore forward Joe Cox always had an inclination that PSU would shine at this level, but maybe not this early.
“I always thought that give them three-to-five years, and they were going to be a top-20 team,” Cox said. “It’s kind of hard to get started off, but I think now, obviously they’re a really good team.
“They’re actually a really hard-working team. They’re definitely skilled too, but one thing that we’re just going to have to be ready is for the intensity that they bring and the hard work that they bring. We’ve got to match it and even exceed it,” he said.
The Spartans were successful in doing that last year, as they came away with 11-of-12 possible points in the 2013-2014 series by going 3-0-1. That included regulation and shootout victories at PSU’s Pegula Ice Arena.
“Last year when we were there, I didn’t think we played particularly well,” Anastos said. “And yet we got out of there with five of the six points, so I don’t want to complain because that’s a hard place to get points.”
Friday’s game will be played at 7 p.m., while Saturday’s is a late afternoon start at 5 p.m. The latter of the two can be seen on ESPNU with the play-by-play being done by ESPN’s John Buccigross.
