Penn State hockey is currently undefeated and the Nittany Lions are set to play host to No. 1 Michigan this weekend inside of Pegula Ice Arena. Whenever a top ranked program comes to town, it is always going to be a star-studded affair.
Recently spotlight has been shined on current Nittany Lions like Ture Linden and Kevin Wall, but one guy that has flown under the radar since arriving in Happy Valley in 2019 is senior forward Connor McMenamin.
The Collegeville, Pennsylvania native played in his 100th career game this past Saturday against Wisconsin.
"That's not surprising the type of guy he is,” coach Guy Gadowsky said. “He brings consistent effort and consistent performance. Whether he's scoring or not, his attitude, his defensive play, his play without the puck, his leadership, it's very consistent and it's been that way from day one.”
McMenamin was a freshman when Penn State won the Big Ten Conference regular season title in 2020 and has been a crucial part of the cultural shift.
“He's a guy that you can count on. It's part of his personality, his leadership,” Gadowsky said. “He's a big part of everything this program does.”
Looking back to his freshman season, he had 12 points (four goals, eight assists) in 32 games. After that, McMenamin took a huge offensive step forward in year two, grabbing 15 points (six goals, nine assists) in just 22 games.
Now just eight games into this season, McMenamin has taken his game to another level once again as he already has seven points and right now he is on pace for 35 points this season.
“My freshman year I came in and it was really good. I got really lucky with that.” McMenamin said.
Now it's nice to see how many points you can rack up in the stat sheet each game, but McMenamin's full offensive progression is not represented on the score sheet as his shots per game have significantly increased in each season.
In his freshman year, he took 45 shots through 33 games, sophomore season he had 64 shots in 22 games and then in year three he recorded 96 shots in 38 games.
So far this year, McMenamin has 20 shots in eight games and is on pace for 95 shots.
“I really haven't tried to change anything, just getting better,” McMenamin said. “I've always liked to be a 200-foot player.”
Right now McMenamin is making every game count and is hoping to build off of this milestone for the rest of the season.
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