Penn State Hockey is all set to travel to Washington D.C. to face Army in the inaugural Capital Hockey Classic at 8 pm ET tonight.
Army is 6-10 overall and 5-7 in the Atlantic Hockey Conference. The team is currently on a four-game losing streak, including getting shut out by Sacred Heart last Tuesday and two 3-1 losses against the University of Massachusetts and Stonehill in their two games prior
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The Black Knights still have all of their top-five leading point-getters from last season, including Joey Baez, who led the team with 31 points between 15 goals and 16 assists. Max Itagaki and Mac Gadowsky led the team with 19 assists, with 25 and 23 points, respectively.
This season, Army is led by defenseman Gadowsky, with 10 points between four goals and six assists. Guy Gadowsky, his dad, is the head coach of the Penn State team,
He sees the ice pretty well,” coach Gadowsky said.
Army’s special teams are currently in opposite holes of each other, with the penalty kill going 32-for-39, or 82.1 percent, which is 25th in the nation. The powerplay is 4-for-51, or a 7.8 percent success rate, which does not crack the top-60.
JJ Cataldo has started seven of the team's last eight games in net for the Black Knights and is 16th in the nation for goals against average with 1.909, and his .937 save percentage is good for first in the AHA and ninth in the nation.
While the Nittany Lions are 6-9 overall, they are 6-1 in non-conference games this season, with their lone 3-2 loss coming against Quinnipiac back in October. Penn State has scored at least two goals in every non-conference contest this season, and beat Colgate 7-1 in their most recent non-conference game over Thanksgiving.
The blue and white are led by sophomore Aiden Fink, who has 22 points on the season between eight goals and 14 assists, his 1.47 points per game leads the Big Ten and is third nationally. His eight goals place him at sixth in the conference, but his 14 assists are good for first in the Big Ten and seventh in the nation.
One of Penn States strengths this season has been on the dot, as the teams 56.6 percent success is second in the Nation, behind Northeastern. Charlie Ceratto has led the team at the dot winning 62.8 percent of his faceoffs, which puts him second in the conference only behind Owen Lindmark. Not far behind Cerrato is sophomore Dane Dowiak, who has a 60.5 percent success rate, which puts him at third in the conference.
The Nittany Lions struggled on the powerplay to start the season, going 3-for-20 in the first seven games. However, in the last eight games they have converted in six of them going 10-for-30 in those eight games. The team is now 12-for-53 on the season, the 24.5 percent success is good for second in the Big Ten and 13th in the nation.
Penn State has had an interesting situation between the pipes, as starting netminder Arsenii Sergeev got injured almost a month ago while facing Wisconsin and has yet to return. Noah Grannan went in for him and allowed 17 goals not playing three full games, so John Seifarth has manned the crease since the third period against Michigan late in November. Seifarth was on the club team last season and is just the fourth goalie in program history to have been pulled up from the team, but he has the most minutes. Seifarth has a .906 save percentage and has a 2.8 goals-against average.
Both teams released special jerseys for the inaugural Capital Hockey Classic. The Nittany Lions are dining navy sweaters that honor Lt. Michael P. Murphy and his Operational Red Wings team. Murphy was a Navy SEAL who graduated from Penn State in 1998 and was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2005. The popular Murph workout was named after him. The inside collar of the jerseys has a Greek inscription “With it (your shield), or on it,” which can also be found at the Veterans Plaza memorial on Penn States Campus. The jerseys also have a variety of other details that pay homage to the United States armed forces. The jerseys are set to be auctioned after the game.
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