Penn State hockey makes major jump in the polls after latest wins

Penn State hockey faced a challenge with three road games to open the 2023-24 season. While the Nittany Lions had some up and down moments, ultimately, Guy Gadowsky’s team emerged from that stretch undefeated. Now heading into its home opener, Penn State has seen a nice boost in the USCHO national poll as a reward for its effort.

Penn State hockey sees major jump in the polls after strong weekend

The Nittany Lions weekend sweep of Clarkson and St. Lawrence turned heads among voters in the USCHO.com national poll. Penn State hockey came into the week at No. 18 but jumped six spots to No. 12 when the new poll came out Monday. With an easier schedule ahead, at least before conference play, the Nittany Lions are trending toward another top-10 appearance. Penn State spent most of last season in the top 10.

Penn State’s ability to eke out wins this season has been an impressive show of stability among chaos nationally. The first weekend of the season saw the defending national champion Quinnipiac Bobcats lose at home to Boston College. This past weekend, then No. 1-ranked Boston University fell in a shocking upset to New Hampshire. 

The Big Ten has not been immune from such chaos either. Highly ranked Michigan State was upset by the Air Force this past week. Ohio State tied with Division I newcomer Lindenwood, and now No. 1-ranked Minnesota needed overtime to get past St. Thomas. In addition, Michigan also suffered a road loss to UMass, and Notre Dame lost to RIT.

Could all these upsets hurt the Nittany Lions?

Ultimately these results could come back to hurt Penn State hockey. College hockey’s tournament selection and seeding is decided exclusively through a statistical ranking called the Pairwise. The NCAA does this to have a completely objective selection process for a sport as fluky as hockey, where there really is no such thing as the “eye test.” In a nutshell, you get a lot of credit for beating good teams and severely punished for losing to bad teams.

With no opportunities on the Nittany Lions’ schedule to pick up wins against good teams in the non-conference, Penn State hockey is going to have to rely on stacking wins in what was projected to be a loaded Big Ten conference this season. Teams within the conference being weaker than expected could take away Penn State’s opportunity to earn points in the Pairwise, and could ultimately hurt their NCAA tournament chances. 

Nittany Lions come home for the first time

Penn State hockey takes its newly minted top-15 ranking back to Pegula Ice Arena for this weekend’s home opener. The Nittany Lions will play in front of a home crowd for the first time since last February when they take on the American International College Yellow Jackets. Puck drop on Friday is scheduled for 7 p.m and Saturday is slated for 5 p.m.

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