Four takeaways in Penn State's road series against Michigan State

The Penn State Nittany Lions opened up their conference-only play with a disappointing tie and a loss against the Michigan State Spartans. Penn State blew numerous leads in both games. In Game 1, the Nittany Lions had a 2-0 lead and the Spartans stormed back to score three unanswered goals taking the series opener 3-2 in overtime.

While the Nittany Lions played better on Saturday, they still struggled to hold a lead.

"We allowed very little plays to change momentum of the game," coach Guy Gadowsky said on Tuesday. "We took our foot off the gas and we allowed momentum to change. Things were going pretty well and we allowed momentum to shift, but it's still a consistency issue."

In Game 2, Penn State had leads of 1-0, 3-1 and 4-3 and it could not close the door on the Spartans. The game resulted in a 4-4 tie with the Spartans earning the extra point in a shootout.

Here are four things that stood out over the weekend.

Penn State's special teams have been inconsistent all year. It was bad to start the year, then it had a hot streak and then it got brought back down to earth.

The Nittany Lions were 2-for-8 on the man-advantage in Game 1, and had 18 shot attempts. Both goals in that game came when Penn State had a 5-on-3 advantage. Penn State killed off all five Spartan power plays.

Things did not get any better the following night. The Nittany Lions were 1-for-5 on the power play and 2-for-4 on the penalty kill. Furthermore, Penn State had just eight shot attempts on the man-advantage.

While everyone will point to the power play not converting when it needed to, there was one thing that stood out at even-strength. The Nittany Lions played very soft in the neutral zone, the area between the two blue lines. When teams are soft in this area, it can lead to trouble and it did for the blue and white.

Passes were slow and Penn State was trying to make the difficult play instead of the simple play. Saturday it was better, but not good enough.

There was one turnover in particular that stood out in Game 2. Christian Berger tried to dangle around two Spartans and lost control of the puck. The Spartans had an odd-man rush and Liam Souliere came up with a huge cross-ice save.

The Nittany Lions got away from the defensive identity that made them successful in the first half of the season. This was apparent on Saturday where Michigan State completely broke down the Penn State defense on numerous occasions.

Souliere was the only reason that the Spartans did not pile on seven goals in each game. He was left out to dry numerous times in Game 2.

"I just think that their pressure was a little too much for us," Danny Dzhaniyev said. "We just couldn't find a way to get the bounces that we needed and eventually that caught up to us."

Michigan State had the majority of high-quality chances in both games. Penn State had its fair share of good looks in the series-opener, but the Spartans would quickly go on transition and have quality-looks of their own.

Outside of Souliere, Ture Linden was Penn State's best player. Linden had two points (one goal, one assist) over the weekend but he was doing a lot more than putting up points. He was creating a lot of turnovers.

Linden currently leads the Nittany Lions with 265 faceoff wins and a 57.9 faceoff percentage. His lone goal came on the power play in Game 1, where he parked himself right in front of the net and put the puck in a wide open cage.

Penn State takes on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at home this weekend in another critical matchup. The Nittany Lions are in a three-way tie with Michigan State and Ohio State for second place.

Each squad has 24 points. Despite dropping one spot in the USCHO poll, the Lions gained one spot in the PairWise rankings, going from fourth to third. The two points it earned were a big bonus to what was a heartbreaking weekend for the blue and white.