Hockey: Sucese breaks Sturtz's goals record as mentor passes mark to mentee

When his Belleville Senators and the Milwaukee Admirals wrapped up their AHL contest last Saturday night, Andrew Sturtz reached for his phone to continue what has been something of a weekend ritual since he stepped out of a blue and white jersey and into the pro ranks.

He opened Twitter, like usual, to see how his alma mater had fared that night. He scrolled to find a 6-3 win over Minnesota, and the name of someone he mentored at the top of Penn State’s all-time goals leaderboard.

Nate Sucese scored twice that night to bring his career goal total to 56, surpassing Sturtz’s mark of 54. When Sturtz broke the record, Casey Bailey — its previous owner — was one of the first to reach out and express his congratulations, so Sturtz was sure to reciprocate with Sucese.

“He was one of the first guys to reach out to me on Saturday,” Sucese said. “Nothing but love for the kid.”

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Thanks to some mutual friends and the proximity of their hometowns, the two were connected from the start of Sucese’s Nittany Lion career, and they’ll be connected in Penn State hockey history now, too.

Sturtz, a sophomore when Sucese arrived as a freshman, is from Buffalo, New York, while Sucese is from Rochester. So it seems somewhat natural that Guy Gadowsky paired Sturtz with Sucese in Penn State’s mentorship system. The two roomed together on all of the Nittany Lions’ road trips from that point forward and shared a section of Penn State’s dressing room, and a bond was formed.

“I think it’s something that’s organic, just kind of happened,” Sucese said.

“We both liked learning the game from each other,” Sturtz said.

Certainly, Sucese and Sturtz are different hockey players, but they share a willingness to mix things up in front of the net and score however they can — even if the goals aren’t always pretty.

So perhaps it’s fitting that Sucese’s record breaking goal was simple. He found open space in front of the Minnesota net and redirected a pass from the point into the back of the net, with a Gopher defenseman arriving just a moment too late.

“It’s just finding a way to get to the net, and being a smaller guy, outworking the guys there and finding ways to bang home rebounds. That’s how I’ve scored a lot of my goals here and I don’t see that changing.”

What’s remarkable about Sucese’s production to Gadowsky is his consistency, a byproduct of that sense of grit. Sucese, now a senior, has only gone three games without a point once since his freshman season.

Watching Sucese put the puck in the back of the net felt so routine to Gadowsky that he didn’t even detect the significance of Sucese’s record breaking goal at first.

“I didn’t know it was record breaking,” Gadowsky said. “I was obviously pumped it went in for different reasons.”

So when did Gadowsky realize?

“When they got the puck and I didn’t know why the got the puck,” he said.

Gadowsky, who values mental strength from his players more than almost anything, finds a model in Sucese, and his ability to consistently produce.

“You really have to admire and respect that,” Gadowsky said. “You really do. His mental toughness to produce in any type of game and whoever he’s playing with is awesome. It really is.”

From afar, Sturtz is admiring his old mentee, too.

With more than half a season left, Sucese will have plenty of time to pad a record that has changed hands twice since 2017 — and Sturtz is counting on his old hotel roommate to make that happen.

“I’m obviously really happy to see him beat it, and hopefully he can set the bar pretty high so we can keep it in our old road roommate combo,” Sturtz said.

“Obviously I'm super proud of my accomplishment, and there's some guys that I passed along the way that are incredible hockey players, and the one that was at the top was one of my mentors and one of my best friends,” Sucese said.

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