No. 10 Penn State Hosts No. 6 Notre Dame In A Critical Early-Season Series

Penn State (10-4-1) will face its toughest test of the season when Notre Dame (10-4-1) comes to the Pegula Ice Arena this weekend. The two teams are each ranked in the top-10 in the USCHO.com hockey poll and in the PairWise Rankings.

Notre Dame is coming off a campaign in which it won both the regular-season and post-season Big Ten titles and then made it to the national championship game of the NCAA tournament. The Irish are already back in first place this season, leading the B1G standings with 12 points.

Leading Notre Dame in net is returning Richter Award Winner and Hobey Baker Finalist Cale Morris. Morris has allowed just four goals in his past four game, all wins, and has a .939 save percentage, which ranks near the top in college hockey. Notre Dame has one of the stingiest defenses in the country.

Cal Burke leads the team with 17 points but the scoring for Notre Dame is spread around throughout the roster. The top 6 scorers on the team are all upperclassmen so they are seasoned and well-composed players.

What Coach Gadowsky Said

After having trouble holding late leads for the past couple of weekends, coach Gadowsky was asked how the team would be able to correct that situation. Here’s what coach had to say. “I think it’s management of the game. Managing momentum, managing shifts, managing our energy. It’s not because we are lazy or in any way playing individually. If anything it’s playing hard and maybe being caught out too long. That’s game management and it’s just as much my responsibility as any of the players and together we are going to try to change that.”

On the nation-leading scoring line of Barratt, Folkes and Limoges. “I love watching them but I don’t know why they are playing so well. They all have an extremely high hockey I.Q. They are all competitive guys. They enjoy playing the game. They have fun playing hockey. It’s definitely up there with anybody, in terms of the lines that I’ve ever coached.”

On the emergence of sophomore Alex Limoges. “With him a lot of his maturation has been off the ice. I think he’s always been a naturally strong kid who was always able to protect pucks and get things done at the junior level. And when he got to play at this level, with big strong men, I think that natural benefit to him was a little less noticeable. He’s worked hard in the weight room to get that edge back and I think he’s feeling more physically dominant.”

Notes

• Alex Limoges and Sam Sternschein each took hits late in the Wisconsin series that caused them to miss time in practice this week. Each player is day-to-day and it will be a late decision on Friday as to whether they will play.
• The annual Teddy Bear toss will take place during the second intermission of the game on Saturday. Proceed benefit THON.
• Penn State’s line of Limoges, Folkes, and Barratt currently has as many points as 11 NCAA teams and have scored more goals than 14 teams all by themselves.
• Chase Berger needs just two more points to become the third Penn State player to score 100 points in his career.
• Evan Barratt and Aarnie Talivitie have each been named to the IIHF World Junior Championship team, Barratt for the United States and Talivitie for Finland. The games will be played during the break between semesters.