Its Season on the Brink, Penn State Hockey Found a Lifeline From its Seniors

"Our backs were against the wall," Penn State's Dylan Lugris said. Now, the Nittany Lions are in the Frozen Four.

The Penn State Nittany Lions celebrate a goal against Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament. | Brian Bradshaw Sevald-Imagn Images

The six seniors on Penn State’s hockey roster have spent their entire college careers in Happy Valley. Those in their fifth season have been through three losing seasons since 2020-21. The fourth-year seniors have been through two.

For the Nittany Lions’ veterans, this run to the Frozen Four has been a reward for their unwillingness to quit. The upperclassmen have paced a second-half turnaround, leading on the ice and in the locker room. Their next step: a Frozen Four meeting Thursday with Boston University.

Fueling the turnaround

Penn State head coach Guy Gadowsky has pointed to the leadership his upperclassmen showed when their season was collapsing. The Nittany Lions’ 0-9 start to Big Ten action was a significant reason to doubt where their 2024-25 season was heading. In December, senior forward Carson Dyck showed initiative in an attempt to turn around the Nittany Lions’ struggles.

Forwards Tyler Paquette and Dylan Lugris said this week that Dyck gathered Penn State’s veterans together at the time, then they set up individual meetings with each player. The seniors emphasized in those meetings that in their final seasons at Penn State, “all we want to do is win.”

“Carson came up with the idea that if we meet with everybody individually, we can kind of go through and see what's working right now, and what we think their positive values are, and what things that they can work on,” Lugris said. “Everybody kind of just dug in. And after that, I'd say that was a pretty pivotal moment of like, ‘Okay, if our seniors believe in us when we're going through such a bad skid, I think we can do it.’”

That belief sparked the 14-3-2 stretch the Nittany Lions have been on since mid-January, boasting one of the most dynamic offensive talents in the country in Aiden Fink and a goaltender who hit his stride in Arsenii Sergeev. Penn State is making program history — and for the most part, that history can be attributed to its seasoned players leading the way. 

“We just had two things that [weren't] checked off our checklist in the locker room, and we've accomplished one of those things,” Paquette said. “All the alumni coming and just seeing how happy they are for our team and what we've accomplished is really special.”

Positivity has been the main message along the way. Whether during a poor start to the season or in an NCAA Tournament game, the Nittany Lions’ mindset hasn’t wavered. They haven’t let one mistake, or one loss, balloon into more. And that has led them on their journey to St. Louis for the Frozen Four.

“We just committed to staying positive no matter what,” Lugris said. “I think that's why we've had success coming back when we were down in games. And I think that's helped us get through the second half of the year and [being] so successful.”

Leaving an impact

Penn State’s seniors have played their final games in Pegula Ice Arena. Even through the Allentown Regional, they had the support of the “Roar Zone” student section and other in-state fans behind them. Paquette and Lugris attributed the team’s success to the fuel their student section has provided. But as the veterans have been going out with their deepest playoff run yet, they’ve also been playing for each other. 

“We didn't really have a choice. Our backs were against the wall,” Lugris said. “I know Dane Dowiak said this after we lost at Ohio State in the first half of the year. He was like, ‘Take pride. Do it for your seniors. If you can't find it within yourself, do it for your seniors.’ We know that we have the formula to beat a lot of teams, so we just want to stay true to that and play playoff hockey as long as we can.”

The Nittany Lions have a maximum of two games remaining in their season, but there’s nothing they want more than to win those two games. They’ve already built a lasting legacy at Penn State by making the program's first Frozen Four, feeling the support of their playoff run throughout the community.

“Even just walking around downtown or going out to eat, seeing people come up to us and congratulate us and say they're with us on this journey is really special,” Paquette said. “It definitely shows the community we're a part of, and we're definitely grateful for it.”

When its current group of veterans committed to Penn State, it wasn’t a program bursting with postseason success. They chose to play under Gadowsky for other reasons. For Paquette, who is from Collegeville, Pennsylvania, it was being close to home and the high-end facilities.

But as their final season with the Nittany Lions concludes, those veterans will be leaving a significant legacy: Penn State now has proven NCAA Tournament success thanks to the work they put in on and off the ice.

Lugris will never forget Dec. 15, 2021, the day he said he got a call from Penn State after his Division I hockey dreams “were pretty much over.” Since then, Lugris has become more than a Division I player. He’s a member of the most successful Nittany Lions team at the NCAA level.

“I already knew [at the time] Penn State would be a great place to play, just because of the facilities you see on TV. But what they really talked about was the culture they were trying to build,” Lugris said. “Immediately, as soon as I stepped foot on campus, I fell in love with it. And I'm so grateful to the coaching staff for allowing me to be a part of this place.”