Penn State Drops Home Opener to No. 7 Michigan, 3-1 Evan Bell scored the lone goal for the Nittany Lions in the defeat
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Senior Evan Bell (Livonia, Mich.) tallied the lone goal for Penn State as the Nittany Lions dropped their home opener to No. 7 Michigan, 3-1, in Big Ten Conference action on Wednesday evening from Pegula Ice Arena.
Penn State falls to 0-5-0 to start the year and 0-5-0 in conference action while Michigan improves to 5-2-0 on the year and 3-2-0-1 in Big Ten play.
HOW IT HAPPENED
* Michigan opened the scoring as Nolan Moyle ripped a loose puck in the slot to the back of the net at 4:10 of the first period for the 1-0 lead.
* Michael Pastujov doubled the Wolverine lead with a power-play tally at 7:21 of the middle frame as he cut across the goal mouth finishing into a yawning net after receiving a beautiful pass from the high slot from Brendan Brisson.
* Penn State cut the deficit in half midway through the third period when Bell finished by the near post after a nifty play from junior Aarne Talvitie (Espoo, Finland) who split a pair of Wolverine defenders at the blueline and put the puck right on his tape for the 2-1 score at 11:00.
* Michigan iced the game only a few seconds after the Nittany Lions got the extra attacker on the ice as Matty Beniers found the empty net for the 3-1 score at 18:18 of the final frame.
GOALTENDING
Junior Oskar Autio (Espoo, Finland) played well in net for the Nittany Lions, but falls to 0-3-0 after stopping 28-of-30 shots while his counterpart Strauss Mann improves to 5-2-0 following a 38-save performance for the Wolverines.
NOTES
* Tonight’s game marked the first-ever Wednesday night contest in Penn State hockey history. The Nittany Lions have now played at least one game on every day of the week.
* The Nittany Lions outshot Michigan 39-31 but went 0-for-2 with the man-advantage while the Wolverines were 1-for-4 on the powerplay.
* Junior Kevin Wall (Penfield, N.Y.) secured the secondary assist on Bell’s goal pushing his team lead in points to five and he has now registered at least one point in four of the first five games this season.
* The two teams were nearly even on faceoffs with Michigan controlling 31-of-60.
* Bell scored just his third career goal and his first since the game-winner against Wisconsin on February 15, 2020. In fact Bell’s first two career goals came against the Badgers.
* Michigan is now 18-13-1 all-time against Penn State.
NEXT UP
Both teams return to Pegula Ice Arena tomorrow evening to close out the mid-week series with a 6 p.m. puck drop.
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