As Penn State Icers coach Joe Battista sat calmly answering questions late Friday night, senior Jack Weber appeared out of the locker room in an outfit that can only be described as made-for-Vegas attire.

The fact that it was Halloween sweetened the getup, as did the fact that it wasn't a costume at all. It was standard post-game dress for Weber, who along with defenseman Curtiss Patrick makes sure to dress as ridiculously as possible after all games.

"Oh my goodness," Battista said, pausing to collect his thoughts.

"Now don't bet it all in one place," he said.

All joking aside, Battista seemed to heed his own advice, taking forward Justin DePretis off the first line in place of hard working forward Mike Carrano, moving DePretis to the second line next to senior Bill Downey and sophomore Brett Wilson.

In hockey terms, don't put all your gunslingers in one row, or perhaps one line.

"I think we wanted to make some switches because we were kind of like a one line horse for a while there," Battista said. "We kind of had all our big guns on one line."

The No. 1 Penn State ACHA Div. I Icers (10-0-0) had ridden the vaunted red line of senior Glenn Zuck and juniors Kevin Jaeger and DePretis to 21 goals and 31 assists over the first seven games. Putting this in perspective, the rest of the Icers had combined for 35 goals and 64 assists over the same period.

So for once, Battista said, too much of a good thing was not advantageous.

"By balancing the lines out a little better I think it makes it even tougher for teams and now we got some guys that can shoot the puck on different lines."

The move paid immediate dividends for the Icers, as DePretis notched five goals in Friday night's 14-1 rout of No. 14 Towson, and over the three games tallied eight goals and two assists. His line mate Downey was also a benefactor of the move, amassing a goal and eight assists alongside DePretis.

The eight goals by DePretis were one more than he had scored for the season prior to this weekend.

"I kind of liked it actually because when I was playing with Glenny and Jaeger, it was kind of three guys who want the puck all the time and there's not really enough pucks to go around," DePretis said. "[The line change] opened the ice up and balances our lines out a lot better."

The same line change energized a sluggish power play, especially on Friday, when the Icers scored four consecutive goals on the man-advantage over a twelve-minute span, with both lines tallying two goals in a six-goal first period.

However, the changes were less noticeable on Saturday and Sunday due to the absence of Jaeger, who missed both games because of personal reasons. Battista said that when Jaeger returns to the lineup, he will consider keeping DePretis on the second line.

If Friday was any indication of things to come, the minor tweak could produce significant improvements in the future.

"If you watched the game last Friday night [against SUNY-Buffalo], I should have had about seven goals," DePretis said. "It feels better that I am actually putting the puck in the net now."

Next on the list of things to do for the coach is to change the way his players dress.

"Oh, you know what I put up with," Battista said.