Player Spotlight: Dylan Richard
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Penn State’s leading scorers have struggled with balance throughout the early portion of this season. Andrew Sturtz has emerged as the primary goal scorer with eight goals but only one assist. David Goodwin and Trevor Hamilton both have one goal but they also have eight assist. These are not very balanced ratios.
Dylan Richard is the fifth-leading scorer on the team and brings the balance that the Nittany Lions require. He enters this weekend series against Alaska-Anchorage with four goals and four assists. This has been a common trend throughout Richard’s entire Penn State career. During Richard’s junior year he finished with nine goals as well as nine assists.
Richard is one of three seniors on the roster along with Goodwin and Zach Saar. Saar is returning from injury so early on in the season that Richard and Goodwin have had to prove themselves as the leaders on the ice for the young team. Goodwin has set the Penn State record for points but Richard has played consistent hockey. This comes as no surprise to anyone close to the hockey program as Richard has seemed poised for a breakout year ever since he arrived on campus. He finished his freshman year tied for the team lead with 11 assists while appearing in 30 games.
Richard continued to progress in his sophomore season and finished the year with 21 points. This included four multi-point games but his numbers were slightly diminished due to an injury that kept him from playing the entire month of November.
During his junior year, it appeared it would finally be Richard’s turn to emerge as a star forward for Penn State. Unfortunately, Richard again was not able to play a complete season, catching the injury bug and missing the final 12 games of the season. His impact to the team was clear as the Nittany Lions lost steam down the stretch of the season. Before Richard went down to injury Penn State was 16-7-3 on the season. In his absence they finished 5-8-3.
Even though Richard missed a large chunk of time he still was statistically one of the best performers for Guy Gadowsky. He finished second on the team in power-play goals with five and also scored a key short-handed goal in a 4-3 overtime win against Wisconsin. This meant that six of his nine goals on the year came for Penn State’s special teams’ unit.
This unit has not been particularly spectacular early in the 2016-17 season. The power play has only scored 11 goals on 61 chances which is a .180 conversion percentage. Penn State ranks 25th in this statistic nationally which is not great for a team currently ranked second in the Pairwise rankings. Richard could be a key component to turning this around the rest of the season. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio State are all Big Ten teams currently with a better power play than Penn State.
Richard needs to stay healthy and keep up the consistency he has brought to the table so far. If he can do this, Penn State will have one of the most dynamic lines in the country with Richard, Goodwin, and Andrew Sturtz. This will lead to a powerful attack that could dominate the Big Ten schedule.
Brian McLaughlin is a freshman majoring in Broadcast Journalism. You can contact him by emailing bxm48@psu.edu.
