The possibility of a letdown game was very real this weekend for the No. 3 Penn State ACHA Division I Icers, who were coming off their much-ballyhooed series with No. 4 Ohio University the previous weekend.

Through the first period of Friday night's game against No. 13 West Virginia, it appeared the Icers were even in the midst of one as they harnessed a fragile 1-0 lead heading to the locker room.

Penn State's uninspired performance in the opening 20 minutes prompted head coach Scott Balboni to call out his team.

"We came out a little sluggish ... and Coach Balbs told us that we needed to step it up," junior forward Matt Schwartz said. "We outshot [West Virginia] 13-3 in the first period, but we really weren't outworking them."

Responding well to their coach's words, the Icers scored four goals in the second period and out-everythinged the Mountaineers en route to a 6-0 win. That intensity carried over to Saturday afternoon's 11-0 blowout against Drexel.

Penn State (9-2, 9-1 ACHA) extended its season-best winning streak to six, dominating every facet of its slate of games.

Offensively, the Icers outscored their opponents 17-0 -- the largest two-game scoring output since they tallied 21 goals in back-to-back contests last January.

The offensive blitzkrieg was spurred by Penn State's huge advantage in shots. Averaging just more than 40 shots on goal per game, the team surpassed that mark by peppering the West Virginia and Drexel goaltenders with 57 and 49 shots, respectively.

"Our guys came out really hard, did exactly what we wanted and executed," Balboni said.

"Overall, we played fantastic. Our goal is to hold the teams we play to less than 20 shots, which is our biggest goal of each game, and we did that."

In their own zone, the Icers continued to play stifling defense by allowing only 26 combined shots in the two-game sweep. It didn't hurt that sophomore goaltender Nick Signet turned in another solid showing.

Through his first nine starts of the season, Signet is 7-2 with 14 goals allowed and four shutouts.

"Far and beyond anything we could have imagined," Signet said of the defense's play. "We have a lot of young guys on defense and the way they keep the shots to the outside and far away is great. I'll take 26 shots every weekend."

Still, Penn State's seemingly flawless performance was not without what Balboni called "a lot of little things we're doing wrong as a young team," which he plans to address during practice.

The most pressing matters include the Icers' tendency turn over the puck in the neutral zone as the result of sloppy passes, as well as the execution of the power play. These concerns are shared by both the coaching staff and players.

When asked if his team still had areas to improve upon, sophomore forward Luke DeLorenzo answered the way that anyone would expect he would.

"Absolutely," he said. "You can never be satisfied until you win a national championship."