The Icers returned to the friendly surroundings of the Greenberg Ice Pavilion on Friday night for a big conference matchup against Delaware. The first period was all Blue Hens as they outshot the Icers 14-7 and led 1-0.
It didn't look much better as Penn State stumbled and bumbled through a 4-minute power play early in the 2nd, but then things started to change.
By the 40-minute mark the shots on goal were even at 22, but there was no scoring in the middle frame. It remained 1-0 until 4:59 of the 3rd, when Chris Cerutti took advantage of a deflection off a Delaware player.
Chris broke in alone and beat Hens netminder SJ Broadt high to the glove side to tie the game. Marek Polidor and Teddy Hume picked up the assist on Cerutti's 8th of the season. For Ted - his second career assist.
With no scoring through the overtime, it was off to the Icers' 3rd shootout of the season. This one went 7 thrilling rounds on some very dirty ice, which proved to be a big factor.
The Hens noticed Hume building a snow fort in his crease that was quickly removed by linesman Tim Foreman. Gotta give Big T some points for trying!
Cerutti almost overskated the puck right out of the gate on his attempt, but managed to get it back in his stick -- twice!
John Conte, the shootout hero in Rhode Island, also overskated the disc, but managed to kick it up to his stick and then beat Broadt for a highlight reel goal.
Hume came up huge, with a poke check on Jason Michaud that would make Johnny Bower proud and a sprawling save on Ryan McDonald.
Paul Daley scored to open round 7, leaving it up to Andre Menard to try and keep the Hens alive. But Teddy made a huge left pad save on Menard before the net came off the pegs.
As the Icers celebrated Menard pulled a Keith Ballard, slamming his stick on the boards at the Delaware bench, earning himself an inconsequential 10-minute misconduct at game's end.
Speaking of John Conte, he faced younger brother David last night. Kudos to Delware coach Mike DeAngelis and Icers bench boss Scott Balboni for putting the brothers in their starting lineups as their parents and grandparents watched with pride.
I didn't see any physical contact between the boys, but John made a perfect tape-to-tape pass to kid brother. Too bad the pass was intended for Marek Polidor!
I had hoped to post my post-game interviews with Paul Daley and Chris Cerutti, but I only have the video. I left my audio recorder with the rest of the equipment at the arena, so there's no way for me to link the audio and video together.
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