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Week #5 Hockey Release
Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Athletics
• Big Ten Conference play begins in earnest this week with two series on the schedule. Rv/rv Wisconsin, which opened the Big Ten season two weeks ago, travels to No. 19/20 Notre Dame while No. 4/4 Minnesota hosts No. 18/18 Penn State. The Golden Gophers swept the Nittany Lions in the 2024 Big Ten Tournament Quarterfinals. In nonconference action, #11/11 Michigan takes on No. 5/5 Boston University on the road and No. 15/15 Ohio State entertains Lake Superior State in Columbus. No. 3/3 Michigan State is idle this week after moving up a spot in the national polls. Six Big Ten teams are ranked in the USCHO.com and USA Hockey/The Rink Live Top 20 polls, matching an all-time high for the conference.
• Ohio State, picked seventh in the preseason coaches poll, is off to a 2-0 conference start and remains unbeaten with a 5-0-1 overall record. RIT transfer Aiden Hansen-Bukata owns a team-best eight points on defense and second-year forward Max Montes has five goals in six games. Kristoffer Eberly (1.00 GAA, .962 SV%) and Logan Terness (1.59 GAA, .942 SV%) have been formidable in goal for the third-best defensive team in the country (1.33 goals allowed per game). The OSU penalty kill is operating at an .889 clip (16-for-18) and the Buckeyes have allowed one goal or fewer in four-straight contests.
• Coming off 2024 NCAA Tournament appearances, Minnesota and Michigan State continue to experience success based on 5-1-0 starts to the season. The Gophers rank second nationally in scoring, averaging 5.50 goals per game after netting five-or-more goals in four-straight outings. Junior forwards Connor Kurth and Matthew Wood are averaging 2.0 points per game as the third-leading scorers in the nation. The offense has helped Bob Motzko’s team complete sweeps of in-state rivals Minnesota Duluth and St. Thomas. Michigan State has proven to be stingy on defense as well, allowing 1.50 goals per game while outscoring opponents, 18-9, on the season. Since the start of the 2023-24 season, the Spartans have compiled a 30-11-3 record with Adam Nightingale behind the bench.
• Entering this week’s action with a 4-1-0 record, Penn State is continuing a trend of fast starts under 13-year Head Coach Guy Gadowsky. The Nittany Lions have won 19 of their last 22 games in October going back three years and sport a 33-5-0 record in October dating to 2018. Penn State’s only setback this season was a one-goal loss to No. 8/8 Quinnipiac on the road.
• The next Big Ten Hockey game scheduled for the Big Ten Network will take place December 5 when Penn State travels to Ohio State. Until then, fans can tune into live streams of Big Ten games on B1G+ (bigtenplus.com), a subscription service from BTN. In addition to hockey, B1G+ offers live streaming of over 1,400 non-televised games, On-Demand archives of both non-televised and televised games and access to the BTN’s video library and programming.