Penn State got knocked out of B1G Tournament, but not finished yet

Penn State Hockey might be out of the Big Ten Tournament after a quick series versus Ohio State, but they are far from finished for the 2022-23 season.

Game 1

Penn State had a slow start to the first period as the Buckeyes' Tate Singleton took the lead off of a defensive rush less than six minutes in with the help of Stephen Halliday and Dominic Vidoli.

Just a few minutes after the Buckeye goal, Vidoli went to the box for hooking, and the Nittany Lions were set to face the best penalty kill in the nation. Even with three shots, they could not get one past Jakub Dobeš.

The Nittany Lions ended the first period with a few great chances and outshot the Buckeyes 14-11.

The Buckeyes had a strong second period, less than five minutes into the period, Tyler Duke scored, and less than a minute later, Cam Theising scored to give them a 3-0 lead.

When Penn States’ Ture Linden went to the box for hooking and gave the Buckeyes their third powerplay of the game, they managed to capitalize as Cole McWard scored with assists from Jake Wise and Stephen Halliday.

The Buckeyes had four penalties, three of which were man advantages for the Nittany Lions, who managed to capitalize on one, the Nittany Lions had six penalties, five of which were man advantages, and the Buckeyes only capitalized on one.

Between three powerplays and one four-on-four, the Nittany Lions managed to score their lone goal of the game by Linden with assists from Ashton Calder and Jimmy Dowd jr. Just over a minute later, Halliday scored the game's final goal to give the Buckeyes a 5-1 win and a 1-0 series lead.

Game 2

The second game was closer on the scoreboard, but even with a 2-1 win, coach Gadowsky said, “it was not our best game of the weekend.”.

The Nittany Lions did not come out as hard or eager as they should have been, the game was still scoreless at the end of two periods with five penalties, two for the Buckeyes and three for the Nittany Lions, but neither team managed to score with specialty teams all evening.

It took until the final four minutes of regulation for either team to score, and fortunately for the Nittany Lions, it was Ryan Kirwan. With 1:34 remaining in regulation, Joe Dunlap tied it for the Buckeyes’.

Neither team managed to win it in regulation, sending them to one of the eight NCAA overtimes of the evening.

Both goaltenders were standing on their heads for overtime with the third game on the line, and it took until the 10:35 mark for Dylan Gratton and Connor MacEachern to connect to Kevin Wall to send them to game three.

Penn States’ goaltender Liam Souliere recorded the program's best single-game save record with 56 saves.

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Game 3

While it was an unfortunate 3-1 loss for the Nittany Lions, Sunday's game was arguably their best of the weekend because they returned to their style of play and came out hungry.

Penn States’ Wall opened up the scoring in the second period, but the Buckeyes’ then scored two goals that were not counted. Eventually, they got one through Souliere when McWard scored on the powerplay. It did not take long for the Buckeyes to get the lead; just 3:47 later, Scooter Brickey scored.

The third period was rather uneventful though the Nittany Lions had many scoring opportunities they couldn’t capitalize on. With just under two minutes remaining in regulation, they pulled Souliere for the extra skater. A turnover led to the Buckeye’s scoring an empty net goal to secure a 3-1 victory.