This is the first of four previews for teams playing in the 2025 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four this week in St. Louis. Click here for all of USCHO’s Frozen Four coverage.
Penn State Nittany Lions
Season record: 22-13-4
How they got to St. Louis: Won the Allentown Regional, beating Maine 5-1 and Connecticut 3-2 (OT)
Top players: F Aiden Fink (23-30-53), F Charlie Cerrato (15-27-42), F JJ Wiebusch (14-19-33), F Matt DiMarsico (17-13-32), F Danny Dzhaniyev (12-19-31), F Reese Laubach (15-15-30), D Simon Mack (3-26-29)
Top goalie: Arsenii Sergeev (19-8-4, 2.56 goals-against average, .918 save percentage)
Why they’ll win the national championship: Because why not? The Nittany Lions didn’t win their first Big Ten game until Jan. 3 and didn’t have more wins than losses on the season until Jan. 25. As newcomers to the Frozen Four and the lowest seed in the field, no one expects Penn State to advance past the semifinals, let alone contend for the national title. In their run to the Frozen Four, they delivered a lopsided defeat to a top seed and won their regional title game in overtime. They’re fast, they can score, and they haven’t peaked yet.
Why they won’t win the national championship: In their first-ever Frozen Four contest, the Nittany Lions will play Boston University, a team making its third consecutive Frozen Four appearance. If the difference in experience between these semifinal opponents isn’t enough to sink Penn State, the Nittany Lions’ own shortcomings will be. Like the other teams in this field, Penn State averages a lot of goals per game, but the Nittany Lions struggle to win when opponents keep them to two or fewer goals, with a record of 1-5-2 in those contests. They win when they can play their game. In the Frozen Four, they may not have that advantage.
The Nittany Lions are one of two teams making their first-ever trip to the Frozen Four. Penn State does so in just its 12th season of Division I play, too. That’s a journey that took Western Michigan, the other newcomer, a few more decades to travel.
Another difference between the Nittany Lions and the Broncos can be traced to much more recent history. At the start of this calendar year, Western Michigan was already contending for the NCHC title while Penn State had yet to earn its first Big Ten win.
What a difference three months make.
“We started out very slow,” said Guy Gadowsky, the only head coach Penn State’s ever known. “We were winless in the Big Ten our first nine games and I think at that time we were 40th or something like that in the PairWise after Christmas, and I don’t think anybody gave us a chance.”
Since their 7-9-0 first half, the Nittany Lions have gone 15-4-4, giving them a .773 win percentage since Jan. 3. Gadowsky said that there’s no “watershed” moment for when things began to turn around, but he credits captain Carson Dyck and the other veteran leaders on the team for something they said in December.
“It came from Carson and the leadership group,” said Gadowsky. “It was basically that we were absolutely refusing to let anybody get negative.”
At that point in the season, said Gadowsky, it would have been easy to succumb to negative thinking when “a lot of Big Ten teams [were] doing extremely well and you looked up the mountain and it could seem insurmountable to get out of the basement.”
When the Nittany Lions returned to play following the midseason break, they did so with Arsenii Sergeev in net. The junior transfer from Connecticut had been out of with an injury since Nov. 16. In his first game back, he made 43 saves in a tie game against Notre Dame in Wrigley Field. Two nights later, he backstopped the Nittany Lions to a 3-0 win against the Fighting Irish in South bend, his second shutout of the season and Penn State’s first B1G win of 2024-25. Sergeev has been in net ever since.
“His competitiveness is at the highest level I think I’ve ever seen,” said Gadowsky. “It just matches our locker room so well, and he’s such a good person, such a good, grateful, wonderful teammate.
“The guys just love him. Yes, he’s been great on the ice. He’s been awesome, but his play on the ice isn’t close to the impact he’s had on this program. The impact he’s had on this program is way beyond how great he’s been on the ice.”
Heading into St. Louis, Gadowsky said that the Nittany Lions will be focusing on their own game first. “No matter what happens,” said Gadowsky, “you’re going to be playing a great team that’s playing extremely well, no matter how you slice it. We’re certainly prepared for that.”
Gadowsky said that the Nittany Lions will savor “every aspect” their first trip to the Frozen Four. “We feel very honored and privileged and blessed to be able to be going to St. Louis,” said Gadowsky. “It’s certainly a business trip for us, but it’s one we’re going to enjoy.”
And how this season began and what the Nittany Lions did to turn things around, said Gadowsky, may make this trip to the Frozen Four a little more special.
“This group, it doesn’t really matter where they go together,” said Gadowsky. “They have a pretty good time.”
