Huge series to open the hockey season against a Clarkson team that PSU will likely be battling with at the end of the season for one of the last few NCAA berths. 7:00 face off.
LET’S GO STATE!!
LET’S GO STATE!!
LIVE FROM PEGULA... It’s OPENING night
- Thread starter PA_JOE
- Start date
Scoreless 1st period. PSU had the better of the play outshooting Clarkson 12-8 but we still haven’t cleaned up some of the defensive sloppiness/softness that has plagued us the last couple of season. Almost cost us a couple times already. Chris Funkey starting in goal instead of Peyton Jones played a solid if unspectacular period. Dennis Smirnov is out - looked like a concussion during the exhibition game last Saturday, may not see him this weekend.
Sam Sternschein finishes some beautiful tic tac toe passing on a 5 on 3 power play to tie the game at 1-1 at the halfway mark of the second period.
well Liam Folkes gave us a 2-1 lead on the power play a minute and a half in and we immediately coughed up a turnover that led to the tieing goal 2-2 the other way. AND got a penalty to go down short handed BUT Nate SUCESE stole the puck and buried a shortie to put us back ahead 3-2 all within a minute and a half of playing time AND THEN Clarkson converted their power play to tie it 3-3 with 16:50 to go. UGGGLY but entertaining hockey.
Brendan Biro stuffs the biscuit in the basket point blank and it stands up after a lengthy replay review. 4-3 PSU with 9 minutes left to go.
Great win against a team that beat the Lions last year. It looks like we'll see alternating goalies again (seems like that was a thing two seasons ago). I'll be back in Pegula Ice Arena for the first time this season tomorrow night - can't wait (although, I wish the Homecoming parade were better timed so as to be able to attend both - my kid will want to see both)! Go State!
What were they reviewing? The goal was right in front of me. The puck was well over the line and stuck in the bottom of the net.
Agreed, couldn’t for the life of me figure out what they were even looking at. No one in the crease, puck made a full semi circle along the back of the net. All I could think of is if they were looking to see if the net lifted off its moorings to let the puck under.
Hard fought win last night. D needs to tighten up. Funkey played pretty darn well. Getting a sweep vs Clarkson will likely pay big dividends in Pairwise later in season.
Two evenly matched teams. PSU played well in spots. There were a couple of instances where Clarkson played with discipline, demonstrated that they were physically stronger, and kept PSU pinned in their own zone. Fortunately, PSU did not take any of those penalties that come with fatigue from chasing the other team around in those situations. This is the smallest PSU team of the NCAA era. Some PSU players got manhandled on occasion last night. It will be interesting to see how that plays out over the course of the season. I assume Jones will play in goal tonight.
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Yes, Jones in goal tonight. At least I read last night that it was predetermined that Funkey would start Thursday and Jones on Friday. Statistically at least, we are about the same size as Clarkson. Both teams average height is 6'. Clarkson's average weight is 192 and ours is 189.5. Even average age is almost identical -- they average 20 days older per player.
Funkey was solid but that first goal was soft. Their third goal was high blocker side. I think his height (or lack of) hurt him there.
It was nice to see a game without a really bad defensive lapse or a really horrible penalty. Pretty solid first game in my opinion.
Thanks for the numbers. I was't comparing our size to Clarkson's though. I was stating that PSU is smaller, certainly on the frontline, than they have been since joining the NCAA. The fact that Clarkson won the physical battle much of the time wasn't necessarily based on size, although there was that one David vs. Goliath moment in the game when their #2 got tangled up with a much smaller PSU player behind the play. They just played stronger and several of our smaller forwards did get manhandled last night, literally just pushed down to the ice along the boards and taken out of the play. PSU is also obviously much faster and more skilled than they were when they first became an NCAA team. That is more important. It will be great, if they continue to stay out of the box.
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I was trying add emphasis to your "two evenly matched teams" comment.
Belated Good luck on the season. This should be a fun season. Overall, I think our conference is starting to become what we thought it could be. Not sure about my Gophers, but they are off to a 1-0-1 start. They opened up with instate rival and National Champion UMD, so not too bad of a start.
The Big Ten suffered from a lack of identity early. Michigan State and Wisconsin falling off the map didn't help either. I think you guys will benefit from the coaching change. Not that Lucia was bad, maybe his program just got stale.
Agree. Hate to say it, but adding ND may have awakened the conference as well. We won't face-off till January. By then, we should know the identity of both teams. PSU has a very good returning group of players. My Gophers do have some decent returning guys, but how they play together remains to be seen.
