Blue White Illustrated

I f you thought college hockey's most prolific scoring machine couldn't get any more dangerous offensively, it might be time to think again. Earlier this month, Penn State wel- comed Merrimack transfer defenseman Evan Bell to the fold, adding a much- needed body to a defensive corps that ex- ited the first portion of the season with a few battered bodies. Bell's teammates told it straight, though. A de- fenseman by label, Bell's game is most equipped to help the Nittany Lions put the puck in the net. "He's a very offensive defenseman," Ludvig Larsson, a former team- mate of Bell's at Merrimack, said on the Penn State PuckPod podcast. "He fits perfectly into Penn State hockey. He's a very good skater, skill guy. He loves the puck. ... Anything that has to do with of- fense, he loves it. But as well, he's a very good defenseman." Larsson's words are backed by Bell's junior hockey numbers. Opting to return to the USHL after a five-game stint at Merrimack, Bell scored eight goals and added 15 assists in 35 reg- ular-season games with the Fargo Force. The Livonia, Mich., native then posted 11 points in 14 games while leading the Force to a USHL title. "He really fits our game extremely well," Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky said. "He moves pucks extremely well. He's got great feet. He really fits what we do really well. I think you're going to see us move a lot more pucks quickly from the back end, which plays right into what we like to do." And although it seems more than a little crazy to contemplate the idea that Penn State is capable of even more offensive productivity, if there's a place for the Nit- tany Lions to improve, it's on the blue line. Despite a 4.86 goals-per-game average that was leading the country by a huge margin as of mid-January, Penn State did not have a defenseman who ranked in the country's top 20 in scoring among blue- liners. Kris Myllari was leading the Nittany Lions in that category with 16 points through 22 games. And with three goals, Myllari was tied with Cole Hults for the team lead among defensemen. All of that is to say that Bell's addition makes Penn State even more potent of- fensively than it already was. "He's good. He's a little bit more offen- sive-minded I would say," Hults said. "He definitely likes jumping in the rush. He's a really good skater. I'm excited. We're all excited for him to come in and make an impact for us." Bell made his debut in Penn State's first game of the new year, tallying a secondary assist on Kevin Kerr's second-period goal in a 4-2 victory at Minnesota on Jan. 4. Bell is a left-handed shot, but he played on the right side with Kerr to his left in both games of the Minnesota series, which ended in a split after the Gophers Guy Gadowsky sat down for his postgame news conference with a mes- sage, one probably directed at his team as much as it was the media members he was addressing. Penn State's effort, in Gadowsky's view, simply was not good enough. They were not prepared. Their start was poor. And a price was paid. The Nittany Lions left the ice Jan. 12 with their worst loss of the season, falling 6-4 to a Michigan State team that was 37th in the Pairwise rankings before the game. "I think that was the worst mental- ity that we came out with," Gadowsky said, unprompted. "Obviously, that's my responsibility to make sure that we're ready to play at the drop of the puck. Clearly we weren't. And clearly Michigan State was. Regardless of what happened after the first period, that set the tone." Penn State controlled the flow of play for the majority of the game, outshooting Michigan State 44-37 and attempting 81 shots to the Spar- tans' 52. But turnovers, a few soft goals and an opportunistic Spartans group made sure that didn't matter. Penn State fell behind 3-1 early in the game, prompting Gadowsky to note that "we got our doors blown off in the first period." The Lions, who had won the series opener the night before, 4-2, seemed to right them- selves in the second period of the fi- nale, using two goals from Chase Berger to pull even. But another Michigan State scoring flurry in the third period put the visitors up 5-3, and Penn State couldn't answer. The loss dropped the Lions from eighth to 16th in the Pairwise rankings heading into a two-game series against Ohio State Jan. 18-19. –D.E. M E N ' S I C E H O C K E Y Nittany Lions stumble vs. Michigan State VARSITY VIEWS THE BEST DEFENSE... Transfer defenseman Evan Bell looks to give the Nittany Lions a lift on both ends of the ice | BELL

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