"Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live."
    - Robert F. Kennedy

Dearborn, Michigan- For any good tragedy you need to have a character or in this case a group of characters whose ultimate downfall is determined by something that is called in literary circles as their "tragic flaw." The Eagles "tragic flaw" today came in some key turnovers and a couple of huge mistakes at the end of power plays, as the #3 Penn State Icers handed the Eastern Michigan Eagles an 8-3 defeat in the first game of the UMD Thankgiving Dearborn Tournament. 

The first period of the game was by far the most evenly played period of the three on this day. Penn State began the period coming full speed ahead against the Eagles and had several good opportunities to score, but the Eagles defense held firm and gave them a chance early on. For the Eagles to have any chance in the game, I felt that they needed to get off to a lead early and continue to push the envelope. The Eagles listened and struck the first blow in Dearborn on a nice steal from Jeff Jepson who shot the puck past the PSU goaltender with 13:12 left. The Eagles increased their lead to 2-0 on  a goal from Kelly Koester[Jones, Opyd] which gave the Eagles a good 2-0 lead just 7:14 into the game. Penn State however got one back on a very patient goal scored by Lukas DeLorenzo, which was set up with a couple of nice passes. Penn State evened the score up 3 minutes later on a theme that would haunt the Eagles today, on a turnover immediately in front of the net which DeLorenzo put into the back of the net and evened the game up at 2-2 after one period. The Eagles played solid in the period and really did a decent job preventing the onslaught from getting too bad.

The second period of the game demonstrated the true power of the Penn State Ice Hockey team. Penn State continued to press, and press and press, constantly intercepting passes, shooting the puck back into the Eagles zone and really preventing the Eagles from doing much at all. Penn State pulled ahead 3-2 on a very well set up 2 on 1 which was pounded home by Lucas Walker. A minute later Penn State made the score 4-2 on Frank Perry's goal, which was one of those typical Penn State goals in which they swarm the net and poked the puck past Gresham. Penn State added their fifth goal with 11:21 left to make the score 5-2. The Eagles were then given one of their several opportunities on the day on the power play and right at the end of the period a Penn State player gets down and blocks an incoming slap shot from the point, and the puck is deflected all the way down the ice to Michael McMullen who was coming out of the penalty box and on an easy breakaway he had no problem making the score 6-2. The Eagles however did get a little bit of revenge as they did pull the score to 6-3 at the 5:26 mark when three Penn State guys ran into each other and took each other and on a nice 2 on 1, Ryan Connolly pounded home the pass from Matt Opyd to give the Eagles fans a tiny bit of hope. That hope was distinguished just 45 seconds later as Frank Berry scored to end the momentum that the Eagles were hoping to gain and pushed the score to 7-3 after two periods.

The third period of the game was utter dominance and puck control from the Penn State Icers. Despite the fact that PSU only scored one goal in the period, the puck was in the Eastern zone for approximately 13 of the 20 minutes, if not more. Eastern tried everything to get the puck out but they just couldn't as Penn State was able to swarm to the puck at all instances and continued to dump the puck back in. For at least the first 8 minutes, the play was entirely set up in the Eagles zone with the Eagles defense stuck on their heels, and add a bunch of sloppy puck control plays in their own zone, they couldn't escape. In fairness to the Eagles, Gresham deserved a lot of credit for making some huge saves and the defense made enough plays to prevent PSU from making the score much worse than it could of been. The final goal of the game was scored in an identical manner to that of the sixth goal with another blocked deflection at the end of an EMU power play which ended in another Penn State breakaway goal this one scored by Justin Depretis, which concluded the score with a dominant 8-3 victory that really forced one to tip their hat to that of the Icers players.

Honestly, if I had to describe Penn State's style of hockey it's very simple, I can define it in three works, "Shoot and Swarm." Penn State's only mentality is to go forward and to push the envelope at every moment, their guys are always in perfect position to get to the puck and when they shoot there is always two to three guys in front of the net waiting for another pass or another shot. Defensively, there were always 2 to 3 guys back when the Eagles attempted to breakout. Not to mention too, that this team were rewarded two goals for just killing off a penalty in the immediate moments following a penalty kill. I have personally never seen many third periods like that in which a team just looked so in control without any worry in their opponents zone, although it obviously helped that they were ahead. Penn State swarmed to the net and swarmed around the ice, passes were good.. They just looked superb today, except for the fact that they did commit around 6 penalties on the game which is unusually shocking as those penalties almost ALWAYS go against the Eagles in these games. However, let's not take anything away from PSU, they were clearly the better team on this night.

The Eagles had the right mentality early in the game. They were able to weather the storm of Penn State's aggression with solid defense and were blocking the puck very well, and were able to jump out to a 2-0 lead, and then frankly they started to let Penn State's aggression drive them nuts as they did not control the puck nearly as well after that, and were unable to get their offense going. However, the Eagles defeat today can be defined in a couple of thoughts. The first lies in their puck control as two of those goals were scored when an Eagles player would turn the puck over in front of the net and PSU would pound it home, taking advantage of these opportunities. The second lied in the lack of doing anything on the power play as Penn State gave the Eagles plenty of opportunities to try to get something going with the number of power plays that they had, and instead of the Eagles scoring on these power plays they would go off and give a goal from a streaking player from the penalty box. Those are both unacceptable things in a game against a team as good as Penn State, simply put, they give you an opportunity, you take it, or you'll lose. PERIOD. It truthfully was not that Eastern Michigan played bad hockey, it was just sloppy hockey and I'll be the first to credit a lot of that to Penn State's style of play forcing the issue. However, the two goals that happened immediately after the power play. 

It was a humbling experience as an Eagles fan, and all credit has to go to Penn State on this day. All we can do is take what we've learned and improve as I know this team is capable of doing.

Looking Ahead:

The Eagles now hope to rebound in the other two games of the UMD Thanksgiving Classic starting tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 PM with their first of three contests against the Lindenwood Lions. Sunday's matinee pits the Eagles against a West Chester club which is looking to beat the Eagles for the third straight meeting.

GO EAGLES!
-Kevin