This weekend, Notre Dame hockey (9-18-1, 3-4-1 Big Ten) will play its first of two consecutive road series. The Irish will head to No. 18 Penn State (14-11-3, 5-10-3 Big Ten) for two games at Pegula Ice Arena in Hockey Valley.
The series in State College potentially presents Notre Dame’s last realistic opportunity to avoid a last-place finish in the Big Ten. All year long, the bottom two spots in the conference standings have belonged to the Irish and Nittany Lions, but Penn State currently leads Notre Dame by nine points in sixth place. Penn State’s also closing in on fifth-place Wisconsin (four points behind) and fourth-place Michigan (eight points behind) with two games in hand on both teams.
Notre Dame comes off, in terms of goal differential, one of the toughest weekends in the history of the Compton Family Ice Arena. The Irish lost a pair of 5-1 games to No. 9 Ohio State despite scoring first and upholding a tie game through 29 minutes of play on both nights. Senior goaltender Logan Terness, who started both contests, was terrific for the Buckeyes with 68 saves on 70 shots faced. He was especially dominant early in the game on Saturday, facing 19 first-period shots and making several key saves en route to Big Ten Second Star of the Week recognition.
Although sophomore center Cole Knuble lost his career-long seven-game point streak on Saturday, he still leads the Irish with 28 points on nine goals and 19 assists. The Hobey Baker Award nominee assisted on Friday’s lone goal, graduate winger Blake Biondi’s power-play tally. Sophomore center Danny Nelson lit the lamp on Saturday, matching the number on his back with 11 goals on the season to lead Notre Dame outright. On the blue line, sophomore defenseman Paul Fischer was the only Irish skater with multiple points last weekend, assisting on both goals.
Penn State’s recent push
When the Irish first met Penn State to start the new year, the Nittany Lions were a mess. At 0-8-0 to start conference play, they had lost junior goalie Arsenii Sergeev and were giving up goals left and right. In fact, at the time that the Notre Dame series started on Jan. 3, Penn State was conceding nearly five goals per game to Big Ten opponents.
Though Notre Dame won the Wrigley Field shootout in Sergeev’s return, the game two days later in South Bend sparked Penn State’s rise from 0-8 to 16th in the PairWise rankings (the top 13-14 teams typically receive automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament). Sergeev made 34 saves and freshman Charlie Cerrato scored twice as the Nittany Lions shut the Irish out by a 3-0 score. With that game as the first, Penn State owns a 7-2-2 record in its last 11 contests, claiming 18 of the 27 available Big Ten points. The Nittany Lions gave top-10 Ohio State all it could handle on Jan. 24-25, winning a shootout Friday and in overtime Saturday. They split at No. 13 Michigan a week later before traveling to Madison this past weekend and sweeping No. 19 Wisconsin with 2-0 and 6-2 wins.
As you might expect, the Nittany Lion surge has centered around Sergeev. The Connecticut transfer has started all 12 Penn State games since his return from injury, producing three shutouts during that time. He took home Big Ten First Star of the Week honors on Tuesday after stopping 64 of the 66 shots against him at Wisconsin. Not allowing an even-strength goal all weekend, the Russian puck-stopper set Penn State records for shutouts in a single season (four) and saves in a period (22 in the second on Saturday). The Calgary Flames draft selection and former USHL Goaltender of the Year has a .916 save percentage on the season.
Sergeev’s work has gained importance with Jimmy Dowd Jr., Penn State’s most experienced defenseman, missing each of the last eight games.
The Nittany Lions have always played with an opportunistic offense among the national leaders in shots per game, and that hasn’t changed as the defense has improved in 2025. Sophomore forward Aiden Fink, one of three players in the country with 40 or more points, has 21 goals and 20 assists this season. The Nashville draft selection has been downright ridiculous in the second half, scoring 13 times in 12 games to start 2025 with a goal in six consecutive Friday contests.
Fellow sophomore forward Reese Laubach was the Big Ten Third Star of the Week for his performance at Wisconsin. The San Jose draft pick has multiple points in five of his last six games since returning from a brief, mid-January absence. His 25 points match the total of Cerrato, who has 13 in his last 10 games. Streaky senior Danny Dzhaniyev has been hot lately as well, recording 13 points in an 11-game stretch that began in South Bend. Penn State’s fifth 20-point forward, sophomore Matt DiMarsico, has at least one point in each of the last 10 full series.
On the back end, senior Simon Mack has shouldered a heavier workload with Dowd out of the lineup. The Nittany Lion playing more than 20 minutes per game, Mack leads all Penn State defensemen with 19 assists. Cade Christenson has also displayed impressive composure as a freshman blue-liner, ranking second on the team in time on ice. He recorded his first collegiate goal in Penn State’s win on Saturday.
Both head coaches enter the weekend nearing milestones in the win column. Notre Dame 20th-year leader Jeff Jackson has 598 career wins, while Penn State bench boss Guy Gadowsky owns 396 wins across his 25 years of coaching Division One college hockey.
Notre Dame and Penn State will drop the puck at 7 p.m. before a 5 p.m. start time on Saturday.
