University Park, PA – No. 4 Penn State men’s hockey team opened their 2025-26 home schedule with a celebration of their 2024-25 Frozen Four run, but the Clarkson Golden Knights decided to spoil the evening with three third period goals to defeat the Nittany Lions 6-4 at the Pegula Ice Arena.
It was a record night for Penn State forward JJ Wiebusch who set a Nittany Lion single game record with 4 goals, but the rest of the Nittany Lions got frozen out of the scoring.
Clarkson started fast with a goal 1:07 into the first period by forward Talon Sigurdson burying it past Penn State goalie Kevin Riedler to go up 1-0.
After Clarkson forward Erik Bargholtz received a tripping penalty, the Penn State power play went to work where Wiebusch would score 16 seconds into the power play.
It would be the first of two power play goals on the evening for Wiebusch, the special teams unit overall went 2 for 6 on the power play.
Overall, the Nittany Lions are 5 for 14 (35.7%) on the season.
Into the second period, defenseman Jackson Smith, who made his season debut tonight after missing the trip to Arizona State due to an illness, was a secondary assist on Wiebusch’s second goal that put Penn State up 2-1.
After Wiebusch buried his second power play goal in the evening to go up 3-1, Clarkson began to rally when forward Adrian Misaljevic scored to make it 3-2.
Wiebusch hot hand continued scoring his record breaking fourth goal 7:23 in the second period to put Penn State up 4-2, it would be the last goal Penn State would score.
Bargholtz would get a shorthanded goal in the evening with eight minutes to go in the second period to cut the deficit to one.
Into the third period, forward Owen Van Steensel would even it up at 4-4.
While the Nittany Lions seemingly couldn’t score, they were defensively excellent on the penalty kill not allowing a single goal on six power play opportunities to extend their streak to 15 consecutive penalties, successfully killing 94.4% of penalties.
After Misaljevic put Golden Knights up 5-4, Bargholtz slammed home the empty netter to give Clarkson a 6-4 win, snapping a three-game losing streak to the Nittany Lions.
Nittany Sports Now’s Three Stars For Penn State
Third Star – Gavin McKenna
McKenna continues to impress on Penn State’s special teams where both of his assists came on Wiebusch’s two power play goals. On the penalty kill, McKenna seems to be exponentially better since his first game being a factor on an unit that hasn’t given up a goal in 15 straight opportunities.
Second Star – Jared Crespo
After taking a nasty hit into the boards against Arizona State at the Mullet Arena, Crespo returned to play Clarkson, even though Gadowsky thought he could use a few days. Tonight, Crespo was one of two skaters that finished with a positive plus/minus.
First Star – JJ Wiebusch
The obvious choice with a record setting four goals. The line of Wiebusch-Cerrato-DiMarsico continues their torrid pace averaging now 3.51 points per game in the last 27 games.
