Blue White Illustrated

1 As always, Penn State's offense will be prolific. The Nittany Lions led the country in goals per game last season with 4.54 – more than half a goal ahead of the next- closest team, St. Cloud State. The Nit- tany Lions bring almost all of the players behind that potent offense back for 2019-20, with nine of the 11 players who scored more than 20 points set to return. Perhaps even more striking, Penn State returns four players who scored at least 40 points last season. There were only 31 players who met that criteria in all of college hockey. 2 There's talent on defense, but it remains a question mark. From a personnel perspective, Penn State's defensive corps might be as loaded as it has been since the pro- gram's inception. The Lions bring back their top pair of Cole Hults and Paul De- Naples, get a full season of intriguing transfer Evan Bell, and add Minnesota transfer and Penguins draft pick Clay- "That's surprising," Folkes re- sponded with a laugh. Folkes said he's helped Barratt – who's notoriously hard on himself – manage his emotion on the bench. As for the on-ice stuff, though, playing with Barratt and Limoges has been just as formative an experience. "They've definitely taught me just as much as I've taught them," Folkes said. That yin and yang has com- bined to produce a line that can call itself the best in college hockey, although they say there are still improvements to be made. For as great as that line was last season, it wasn't enough to lift Penn State into the NCAA tournament for the third consecutive year. The Nittany Lions missed an at-large berth by a single place in the PairWise rankings and fell to Notre Dame, 3-2, in a thrilling Big Ten title game that would have awarded them an automatic bid. In that game, Barratt, Limoges and Folkes were held without a point by a stout Irish defense and the phenome- nal goaltending effort of Cale Morris – who seems to be the only man with the solution to Penn State's high-flying offensive equation. "The next step I think is being con- sistent this year," Limoges said. "There was a little time last year where we were playing well but the puck wasn't going in. So I think this year the goal is to every game be able to produce [when] playing against teams' top units." As for how they'll do that, well, there's no limit to the possibilities. Goaltender Peyton Jones said he's got- ten used to the line's absurd creativity by now. When Barratt picked up the puck on his stick and tucked it in the net lacrosse-style last season against Arizona State, Jones said he'd seen that hundreds of times in practice. There's more of that in the tank for this group, Jones said, but he's not giving away any secrets. "You'll just have to wait and see," he said. ■ H O C K E Y P R I M E R B Y D A V I D E C K E R T FIVE THINGS TO KNOW READY TO ROLL Bell (left), a transfer de- fenseman from Merrimac, battles Adam Pilewicz during a recent practice. Photo by Ryan Snyder

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