ASU Men’s Hockey: Sun Devils complete another comeback to sweep RIT

(Photo: Travis David V Whittaker)

It was less than a week ago when Arizona State men’s hockey found themselves down 3-0 in the second period in the last contest of a two game series. The Sun Devils rallied back furiously despite the early deficit, winning 4-3 in overtime at Brown.

So six days later – Saturday night against the RIT Tigers in Tempe – when ASU was down 3-1 in the same second period, they didn’t panic.

“We’ve now been in every and any situation,” head coach Greg Powers said after the game.

Like last weekend, ASU pulled out the win – this time 5-3 in regulation, which completed a sweep over RIT and extended the Devils’ winning streak to four.

“We have to draw on these experiences and continue to do that as we go down the stretch,” Powers said of wild wins as of late.

The game-winner came with 12:54 left in the third period. A short-handed rush led by sophomore defenseman Josh Maniscalco and senior forward Tyler Busch resulted in Maniscalco receiving a last second pass from the upperclassman and tipping it in with 12:54 left in the period.

“[Maniscalco] made a great play in the D-zone to break a play up,” Busch said. “We took off on a rush and I just tried to draw him in as fast as I could, keep it in the blue and just try to put it into an area for him.

“It wasn’t a perfect pass but he got a good bounce off it.”

The equalizer came midway through a wild second period thanks to sophomore forward PJ Marrocco, who shot a bomb from the blue line that hit the crossbar and bounced straight down for a goal with 8:35 left in the period. Marrocco fed off the frenzy created by ASU’s power play just prior – their fourth of the period.

The three goals RIT had scored to build the lead on ASU all came early, and all were surrendered by grad transfer goaltender Max Prawdzik, who was making his fourth start of the season. After the third goal, which came early in the second period, Powers pulled Prawdzik for sophomore Evan DeBrouwer, who has started most games for the Sun Devils this season. The sophomore recorded 14 saves through 38:42 of hockey.

ASU’s comeback began with a bomb similar to Marrocco’s: this time from junior defenseman Gvido Jansons, who fired a puck from the blue line straight to the net. But on its way there, it deflected off junior forward William Knierim (who was given credit for the goal and finished the night with two goals and an assist), giving RIT juinor goaltender Logan Drackett practically no chance of saving it.

ASU found themselves in a hole early. Prawdzik got the start after a solid outing Friday night, but had two bad clears early in the period, one of which saw RIT almost poke a puck in the net as Prawdzik was feet out of the box attempting to send the puck to a defenseman.

Soon after, with 13:51 left in the period, the Tigers got an odd man rush down ice, which then left freshman winger Kobe Walker squared right up with Prawdzik one-on-one. Walker crossed over Prawdzik with the puck, and lifted it in behind Prawdzik’s right side making it 1-0 Tigers.

“We just made mistakes early,” Powers said. “We gave up two breakaways.”

Things almost got worse for ASU before they got better. Sophomore defenseman Jarrod Gourley was called for an interference penalty on the goal-scoring play, sending RIT to the power play just after going up 1-0. ASU killed it, but not without dealing with heavy Tiger pressure first.

After the Sun Devils found a breakthrough offensively, which included a power play, the unthinkable happened: Knierim fired a shot on net with little to no defense around him, and the puck hit Drackett’s right side before harmless falling to the blue ice that sat between Drackett and the red stripe that marks a goal. An eerie silence fell among the 817 fans at Oceanside Ice Arena for the brief second.

During that time, a Tiger skater attempted to clear it out of the dangerous space, but as he and Drackett battled for it, it made its way across the goal line and into the net, tying the game at one a piece with 3:40 left in the period as the crowd exploded, realizing what had just happened.

That was not all. Just two minutes and 26 seconds later, RIT senior forward Shawn Cameron broke away with the puck after it skirted through the ASU defense and put the Tigers ahead 2-1. It was the second one-on-one situation Prawdzik faced in the period, and the second one he lost.

Powers sent him back out onto the ice for the second period, but it didn’t last long. Just a minute and 58 seconds into the second, Prawdzik surrendered that third goal (and RIT’s last of the game) as junior center Bryson Traptow, after a rush which produced two shots, set up shop behind the net and moved the puck to Cameron, who scored again for his second of the night to make it 3-1.

“Those three goals weren’t on Max [Prawdzik],” Powers said. “I felt kind of bad for him because he wasn’t seeing much action. They had three Grade-As and they scored on all three.”

ASU never let RIT scored again, and poured it on like they did Friday night when they scored five goals in a record 4:48 of hockey. They might be taking awhile to form, but the offensive onslaughts for the Sun Devils have been prevalent the past two weeks.

“We want to get out ahead,” Powers said. “We’re tough to beat when we get a lead, play downhill and make teams climb back against us. But now we’ve came back last Sunday down three, we came back tonight down two. We won our first game last night going into the third tied.

“We’re at the point of the year where we need to collect wins to get to the tournament and it’s just one at a time.”