Everything is going right for the Penn State ACHA Division I Icers as they enter the final stretch of the 2005-06 regular season.

They have won 13 straight games, including two this past weekend against No. 1 Illinois.

They have now either beaten or tied every other team ranked in the top five of the ACHA and look poised to reach the national championship game for the ninth consecutive year under head coach Joe Battista.

But the current success was definitely not foreshadowed by an early-season stretch of eight games in October and November when the perennial title game contenders went an uncharacteristic 4-3-2.

With 13 freshmen and one transfer student on this year's roster, it took some time for the Icers to get acclimatized with each other and settle into their roles in Battista's system. But when they did, the team immediately began reaping the benefits in the form of wins.

So when did this transformation occur?

You wouldn't be wrong if you pointed to the 5-4 win against No. 2 Ohio on Nov. 12, the day that the current win streak began.

You wouldn't even be wrong if you said the 1-0 loss against Ohio the night before the streak began.

Even though they lost, the Icers asserted themselves against one of the ACHA's elite teams and had finally gotten past the "lack of respect for opponent" issues that Battista and some players said existed early on.

But the catalyst for the Icers' current success did not come in the form of wins or, for that matter, losses, but rather an on-ice collision between then-leading scorer Luke DeLorenzo and Justin DePretis the day after Thanksgiving during a win against Eastern Michigan in Michigan.

DeLorenzo suffered a concussion after he and DePretis crossed paths at center ice. As a result, the freshman that can seemingly put the biscuit in the basket on command was held out from the final four games of 2005.

It may have been natural for the Icers to panic, but the very next day they beat Michigan-Dearborn 9-0 -- a win Battista called, "the best game that we've played, collectively, all year."

Junior Mike McMullen led the way with his first career hat trick, taking over the team's scoring lead, and has not looked back since.

The day after that dominating win, the Icers beat up on Western Michigan, 6-2, and then closed out December with two impressive victories against No. 12 Delaware.

The wins accomplished their goal of running the table after the Ohio series until the end of the calendar year.

By the time DeLorenzo was ready to come back from "his vacation," as Battista jokingly referred to it, on Jan. 5 against Arizona State, the rest of the Icers now realized their roles within the system if they had not already. Some had even begun to flourish in their positions.

Sophomore Nate Obringer, the Icers second line center, emerged, scoring four goals and tallying two assists in DeLorenzo's absence.

His tear continued into 2006, most recently this weekend against top-ranked Illinois when he scored three goals and had three assists in the two revenge wins the Icers got against the Illini.

He is now among the Icers leading scorers, sitting only behind top-liners McMullen, DeLorenzo and freshman Frank Berry.

Two other freshmen -- Brandon Rubeo, who filled in admirably for DeLorenzo and Steve Thurston -- scored their first goals in a Penn State uniform.

Two veterans, senior captain Brett Wilson and sophomore defenseman Dave Arcobello, tallied their first goals of the year.

When DeLorenzo returned, he just made the Icers that much better than they had already become in his absence.

And while he is again dominating the scorecard, as evidenced by this weekend's six-goal performance in two games against ACHA No. 1 Illinois, the Icers, as a team, are a much stronger team than they were before their most potent offensive weapon was injured.

"Everybody pitches in. Everybody has their role," DeLorenzo said after the two wins against the Illini. "I'm supposed to create some offense when I get a chance to, and I guess I did that. But it's not just one person."

But it made all the difference when just one person went down.