The Ohio State men’s hockey team lost a key battle against Penn State Saturday night. It’s in the middle of a key stretch of games that will determine who wins the Big Ten, and possibly which league teams get an invite to the NCAA Tournament.
Friday night was a good beginning to that stretch with a tie, and extra Big Ten point via a shootout win, but there was a step back Saturday night in a tough 6-3 loss in the last regular-season game of the series with the Nittany Lions.
Penn State started the scoring first with a power-play goal with 12:37 left in the 1st period. It took that 1-0 lead to the first break. The Nittany Lions would separate in the 2nd period with three goals to just one Ohio State power-play goal by Carson Meyer. The score after two periods had the Buckeyes in a 4-1 hole it simply could not climb out of.
OSU did try to reel things back in with two unanswered tallies in the 3rd period on goals by Ronnie Hein and Ryan O’Connell to cut the deficit to 4-3, but Penn State would get two empty-netters to provide the final scores of the game.
Buckeyes are off next week before a series at Michigan State Feb. 21-22. pic.twitter.com/dvIbZ62cFW
— Ohio State Men's Hockey (@OhioStateMHKY) February 9, 2020
With the loss, the Buckeyes drop into a tie for second place in the Big Ten with a 9-8-3 Big Ten record. Penn State takes over sole possession of first place in the league with the win.
After being off for a week, OSU has another key two-game series against Michigan State the following weekend, the team it is tied with in the conference.