No. 18/17 Men’s Hockey Travels to No. 1/1 Michigan State for Crucial B1G Series – Penn State

A SPECIAL KIND OF SOMETHING

• Penn State has scored at least one powerplay goal in nine of the last 11 games raising its conversion percentage to 21.4 percent while the 24 man-advantage tallies for the Nittany Lions are the second-most in the Big Ten behind Michigan’s 27 and rank tied for 10th in the nation. The 24 powerplay goals are also the eighth-most in a single-season in Penn State history and just two shy of last year’s total of 26 which was the most in a season since 2019-20.
• The Nittany Lions have also had at least one shorthanded goal in each of the past three series with shortys in four of the last six games as Penn State leads the Big Ten with eight shorthanded tallies on the year, a mark good for second in the nation juts one shy of UConn’s nine.
• With his second shorthanded goal of the season last Friday, Dane Dowiak tied Aiden Fink for the team lead with two as the pair are just one shorty shy of the Big Ten and national leads.
• Fink and Dowiak are two of just seven Nittany Lions all-time to register multiple shorthanded goals in the same season and are now just one shy of tying the program single-season record of three held by a trio of Nittany Lions including current assistant coach Andrew Sturtz who scored three shortys in each of his three season’s in Hockey Valley.
• The eighth shorthanded tallies are the most in a season for Penn State in eight seasons and are the third most all-time behind the nine in 2016-17 and the 12 recorded during the 2015-16 season. Entering this year Penn State had just six shorthanded goals combined over the past five seasons.

GET HOTT, STAY HOTT

• Penn State has scored first in nine of its 14 games in the second half, including both last time out against Michigan State, and hold a 7-1-1 record in those games.
• For the season, Penn State is 13-4-1 when scoring and a perfect 15-0-0 when leading after two periods.

REESE’S PIECES

• Sophomore Reese Laubach has been on fire since returning from an injury sustained in South Bend back at the start of January and has six multi-point efforts in his last eight games earning a pair of B1G weekly accolades during this current stretch.
• Laubach has career-highs across the board this season with 14 goals and 13 assists for 27 points in 26 games as his 1.04 points per game are good for eighth in the Big Ten.

RUSSIAN MACHINE NEVER BREAKS

• Junior goaltender Arsenii Sergeev has a 9-2-3 record with a .921 save percentage and a 2.68 goals-against average since…