No.5 Penn State will travel to face No.19 Notre Dame for its last hoorah before winter break.

This is the first time the Nittany Lions have been ranked in the top five since November 2018.

Penn State is coming off a split against Ohio State in Pegula Ice Arena as it continues to struggle to win its second game of the series, especially against Big Ten teams. The Nittany Lions are currently 14-4-0 overall and 6-4-0 in the Big Ten.

"Every game in the Big Ten is huge," Ture Linden said

Unlike the Nittany Lions, Notre Dame’s last three wins were in the second game of the series. Notre Dame is coming off a split against Boston College, where they lost the first game 2-5 and won the second game 5-2. The Fighting Irish are currently 7-7-2 overall and 3-4-1 in the Big Ten.

The last time the Nittany Lions swept a Big Ten team was against the University of Wisconsin in the Kohl Center on October 29th.

Guy Gadowsky changed three of his four forward lines against Ohio State, only keeping the line of Ryan Kirwan, Xander Lamppa and Christian Sarlo together. In a post-game press conference Friday night, he mentioned that they will stay together for now.

The Nittany Lions special teams struggled at the beginning of the season, but in its past six games, it has scored at least one power play or shorthanded goal. In the team's first 12 games of the season, the power play was 4/33; in the past six games, it is 6/27.

“Our power play was struggling at the beginning, and we knew it was we were just trying to be too cute with the puck, then we switched our mentality to just getting as many shots as possible, and it's been working," Kevin Wall said. "That same mindset can be used for 5-on-5. We have a shoot-first mentality as a team, and we want to get 50+ shots off a night.”

Notre Dame’s power play has been the opposite; in its first four games, it was 5/17, but since then, it has been 2/40.

“Good goaltending will not win in this league. You need great goaltending,” Gadowsky said.

Penn State goaltender Liam Souliere is sitting at a .923 save percentage and a 2.12 goals-against average placing him third in the Big Ten. Notre Dames Ryan Bischel currently has a .924 save percentage, tied for first in the Big Ten, and a 2.56 goals-against average.

The combined Nittany Lion GAA is a 2.38, placing it first in the Big Ten, whereas the Fighting Irish is a 2.84, placing it fifth. The team saves percentage for the Irish is .916 placing them second in the conference, with the Nittany Lions just .001 behind for third place.

Both teams have split with Michigan, Ohio State and Michigan State, although when the Irish played Michigan State, their second game was a shootout loss. When the Nittany Lions played Michigan, their second game was an overtime loss.

Notre Dame was swept by Minnesota, but Penn State came away with a series split when they faced Minnesota.

It will be crucial for Penn State to sweep Notre Dame heading into winter break and to improve to 16-4-0 overall and 8-4-0 in the BigTen, as a conference win away after a long home stretch of games and before the long stretch of away games after the break will be necessary.