I don’t like fighting in hockey, but when you watch all of the cheap, undisciplined and dirty play in these college hockey games, including by PSU, you understand why it needs to be in the game. These college hockey games are just filled with a bunch of unnecessary garbage from start to finish, mainly because these players don’t have to answer for it. If PSU wants to beat the top three teams in this conference in the upcoming weeks, they can’t be in the box for almost a quarter of a game.
Strongly consider some bipolar meds. First they commit too many penalties, then they aren’t answering the aggression with aggression? Can’t have it both ways.
I don’t like seven penalties either, but that’s the game the Domers wanted. We were down a skater on Friday and two on Saturday. The strategy to me appeared to be aiming to get us in the box and try to take advantage. It DID NOT work. Domers were 1-12 with the advantage in two games. PSU was 4-12. We were dragged down into the ditch and still came out on top.
Given the injury situation, PSU could not allow anyone to heavily retaliate, and was forced into “allowing” the Domers to play the style of games they wanted. And still the Lions emerged on top. If this team was fully staffed this weekend, I’m pretty sure some of the Domer nonsense would’ve been settled on the ice, probably late in Friday’s game. All that said, the refs were letting too much go on before they overcompensated and got whistle happy. It was the worst officiating of the year this weekend, even worse than LIU.
I don’t want to get too excited because PSU SHOULD be beating the Domers. But they still had to do it, and were forced into playing the games the Domers wanted. And for those scoring at home, that’s four straight 3-goal conference victories. The goal was 12 points, and they got 12/12.
The next three series will likely tell us a lot about this year’s Lions. They have played quite well in the first six games of the second half; even the loss at RIT was more a product of a hot goalie. However, the injuries are a concern. If the day-to-day crew is truly that status, then we should be full strength soon. Either way, they did EXACTLY what they were supposed to do the last two weekends: dominate.
Also, PSU is
2nd in the B1G standings, so don’t worry yet about beating the top 3 in the conference. The next two squads on the schedule are looking UP at the Lions. And the team on top has played two games more than the next three, and needed OT to beat the Gophers tonight. Plenty of things yet to be determined.
Finally, PSU is sixth in the NPI and 90% likely to make the tournament. They also are highly likely to host at least one, maybe two B1G playoff games. The top seed is within their reach, and four games remain against tOSU and the dirty Domers. Splits against Bucky and Michiganistan on the road are perfectly acceptable. I’d prefer to sweep Sparty if possible.