After a season-opening sweep to begin the season, the Penn State men’s hockey team looks to remain undefeated as they began a weekend series against Canisius Golden Griffins from Pegula Ice Arena.
Both teams had some chances to score but both goalies were up for the test and it would be a scoreless first period.
In the second period, Canisius got the scoring started. Penn State would respond back on Goal from Kevin Wall to tie things up at 1-1.
What a nifty little pass from Mack to set up Wall for the tying goal!!#WeAre #HockeyValley pic.twitter.com/w0uSTxSjYz
— Penn State Men’s Hockey (@PennStateMHKY) October 9, 2021
The third period was when things just went wrong for the Nittany Lions with sloppy play and, at times, getting outplayed in their own end. Canisius would burn the Nittany Lions with three goals for a 4-1 win and give the Nittany Lions their first loss on the season.
“Give Canisius a ton of credit for playing a great game, they beat us, absolutely,” Penn State head coach Guy Gadowsky said in his postgame comments. “They beat us physically, I thought they played to their identity much better than we did and I think it was a great lesson for us.”
“I honestly felt like we wanted a cute game and we’ve gone through that attitude in the past and had to change it and hopefully this is a really good lesson because we’re not a cute team, but we played like we wanted to be tonight,” Gadowsky went on to say.
A look inside the opposing locker room told the story. Canisius was the team ready to seize the moment. Penn State was clearly not.
“You guys took control of the moment.”
Listen to @Coach_Large’s postgame speech following tonight’s win. #Griffs pic.twitter.com/PjfDG2oQo2
— Canisius Hockey (@GriffsHockey) October 9, 2021