University of St. Thomas Athletics
Penn State
Game Notes -- Men's Hockey prepares for road trip to Penn State
10/18/2022 12:12:00 PM | Men's Hockey
St. Paul, Minn. - St. Thomas Men's Hockey (1-3) takes to the road for an Oct. 20-21 series against No. 18-ranked Penn State (4-0). Both the Thursday and Friday games have a 6 p.m. Minnesota-time puck drop. St. Thomas plays seven of its next eight game on the road.
The Nittany Lions -- in just their 11th season of D-I hockey -- come in 4-0, including three home-ice wins when they outscored their opponents 22-11. Their roster includes nine graduate students and seniors, and eight juniors. The Nittany Lions went 17-20-1 overall last season (6-17-1 in conference). The Purple played Penn State twice in 2021-22, losing 4-1 and 5-1 on home ice.
The Toms are coming off a solid performance in a 5-2 home exhibition game loss to the unbeaten U.S. National Development and Training Program team, a score capped by an empty-net goal for the U.S. team. Ryan O'Neill and Tim Piechowski scored goals for St. Thomas, which outshot the USNTDP by a 41-22 margin.
Follow
This weekend's live video can be accessed HERE only via the B1G 10+ pay site...
Thursday's game can be accessed HERE
Friday's games can be accessed HERE
The games can be heard live on SkorNorth AM 1500 (HERE via computer):
The games will have live stats that can be accessed HERE:
Did You Know?
- This week marks the first St. Thomas sports competition at Penn State.
- The Oct. 8 win was the Toms' first of the D-I era when trailing after two periods, ending an 0-29 string. Twice last season the Tos rallied after a 40:00 deficit to force overtime but were unable to complete the comeback with a win.
- The Oct. 8 win also was first overtime victory of the Division I era after an 0-3-1 OT record last season. The win halted an eight-game UST losing streak dating back to last February.
- Luc Laylin is the son of Tommie assistant coach Cory Laylin. His third-period tying goal on Oct. 8 marked the first time in 20 seasons that a Tommie hockey coach witnessed a goal by his son on the St. Thomas roster -- Bryan Skrypek, son of longtime UST coach Terry Skrypek, scored the last of his 13 career goals as a senior in an overtime MIAC playoff win over Augsburg in February 2003.
- Approximately 20 NHL scouts and a few Minnesota Wild players were in attendance for the Oct. 14 exhibition game with the USNTDP squad. The capacity crowd of 950-plus marked the Toms' second sellout of the season at the STA rink, a program first.
- Grad student Nolan Sawchuk is closing in on his 100th game in D-I hockey. The Lakeville, Minn., native played in his 99th career game on Oct. 8 against Alaska-Fairbanks (61 games at U.Mass-Lowell, 38 for the Tommies).
Quoting Coach Rico Blasi
"We're looking forward to getting on the road after being home for the first three weeks. We had a good game (last) Friday, did a lot of good things, played a highly talented team. I thought the second and third period were probably our best periods, and really did a good job (to make plays to set up the next play). I thought our process got better.
"We're focused on playing the games... it'll be a lot of fun (at Penn State), it's a fun enviornment.
"(Our schedule) that we're playing before we play our first conference games are games we have to use to get ready on the ice with our mentality and understand the hostile environment that we'll be in. These are all learning experiences for our young team... most of them have played in hostile environments before, but this is a different level, and Penn State's a highly skilled team that comes after you in every aspect of the game, so we'll have to be ready to go... Everything has to be done with purpose."
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Click HERE to access Tommie Men's Hockey complete weekly game notes
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