Penn State hockey can't complete comeback effort in tough road loss

After climbing back from a three-goal deficit, Penn State hockey could not quite complete the comeback effort with a win on Saturday night. The Nittany Lions fell on the road against Sacred Heart, 6-3, to wrap up its first weekend of the season with back-to-back losses in the Ice Breaker Tournament in Connecticut.

Josh Fleming got the night off after protecting the goal Friday night in a loss at UConn. Ryder Fetterolf stood in goal for the Nittany Lions. Fetterolf made a couple of blocks on an odd-man rush by Sacred Heart but could not stop the third off a rebound as Sacred Heart struck first in the second period. A defensive turnover led to another Sacred Heart goal nearly midway through the second period as Fetterolf was unable to bail the Nittany Lions out of a jam. A fortunate bounce of the puck off the boards and an official led to a one-timer by Emmanuel Vermette to score a goal to put Sacred Heart up 3-0 late in the second period.

Penn State must have had an inspiring pep talk during the second intermission because Penn State came out swinging to start the third period. Kale Dach ignited a three-goal flurry in a span of 87 seconds as Penn State answered quickly at the start of the third period. Justin Larose scored his first goal of the season 21 seconds later and then captain Dane Dowiak tied the game at 3-3 a minute later.

Sacred Heart answered after things calmed down a bit with a goal midway through the period off the stick of Landen Gunderson, scoring his second goal of the game to give the Pioneers a 4-3 lead. A pair of empty-net goals padded the final box score as Penn State fell to 0-2-0 to start the season.

A night after outshooting UConn, Penn State was on the other end of things after being out-shot by Sacred Heart 40-25. Penn State was perfect on the penalty kill this weekend but failed to score on five power play opportunities against UConn and Sacred Heart. This was the first loss Penn State suffered against Sacred Heart in the seventh all-time meeting between the two clubs.

The Nittany Lions will face another tough non-conference challenge next weekend when it opens the doors to Pegula Ice Arena for the first time this season. Penn State will host No. 6 Quinnipiac for one game on Friday, Oct. 16. The game is scheduled to start at 7:00 p.m.

Kevin McGuire is the lead writer for Nittany Lions Wire, part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow him on BlueSky, Threads or any of these other platforms.

Follow Nittany Lions Wire on X and Facebook.

This article originally appeared on Nittany Lions Wire: Penn State hockey can’t complete comeback effort in tough road loss