(Photo: Sun Devil Athletics)
Arizona State junior forward Johnny Walker entered the media room while freshman Logan Jenuwine answered an onslaught of questions after a Tuesday morning practice earlier this year. One question in particular was seemingly perfectly timed with the veteran’s arrival.
“What have the vets on the team done to make you feel at home?” a reporter asked.
“Nothing,” Jenuwine quipped, triggering a laugh from the media scrum and a smirk from Walker.
When Walker was asked about the freshmen fitting into their new team, he fired a light-hearted shot back in Jenuwine’s direction.
“They’re fitting in really well,” Walker said. “Except for Jenuwine.”
The exchange was a playful one between two extremely similar players.
Jenuwine, the jewel of the Sun Devils’ 2019-20 recruiting class, came into his freshman season as one of the most decorated scorers in the country. The 21-year-old netted 60 goals in 59 games with the North American Hockey League’s Amarillo Bulls last year — setting not only a Bulls franchise record but besting the NAHL’s all-time mark for a single-season.
Walker is coming off a season in which he finished tied for third in the country in goals scored — a mark which contributed to his NCAA-leading goals-per-game average of .72. He demonstrated the ability to get shots off his stick from practically any angle making the junior wing an unstoppable force over the course of last season. Proving it was no fluke, Walker continued the tear to start 2019, putting up six points — including three goals — in ASU’s first four games.
Jenuwine and Walker are both Sun Devils for one reason: they know how to score goals, and they know how to score a bunch of them.
“We’re going to look for production out of everybody,” ASU head coach Greg Powers said. “But when you have a luxury of having a Johnny Walker on a line and a Logan Jenuwine on a line, two kids that can just fill the net up with pucks, it’s a huge luxury.”
The talent Jenuwine showed in the junior leagues and at his high school just outside of Detroit, Michigan, where he scored an average of 1.7 goals-a-game during his junior and senior campaigns, has Powers abundantly confident in his abilities.
“He’s a kid that’s going to get an opportunity right away to be put in a position to do what he does,” Powers said.
Jenuwine has little concern about the transition from a Tier 2 junior league to Division I college hockey.
“I don’t think it’s going to change my game offensively,” he said. “The goal is to score goals. I’m going to keep trying to do that as best I can.”
Jenuwine does, however, see one potential roadblock in his way.
“The goalies are so much better,” Jenuwine said. “They’re four years older, some of them. They’re that much bigger and that much faster. I thought coming here that that was a thing that would give me the most problems but after being here a couple months… we have three of the best goalies debatably in college hockey, so practicing with them every day has made me so much better.”
Through four 2019 games, Jenuwine has been silenced.
The freshman fired off just five shots in two games against Mercyhurst but none went it. Granted, he didn’t see as much ice-time as was expected for him from the get-go. It’s something he will have to push through. ASU is leaning on the winger to eventually anchor his own line this season, especially since Powers believes he has improved since his record-setting campaign in the NAHL.
“In the month and a half to two months that he’s been here now, his body has changed,” Powers said of Jenuwine. “He looks faster. More explosive. He looks more confident. He’s moving the puck harder.”
Although it wasn’t necessarily the freshman’s fault, Jenuwine wasn’t ready to go from a conditioning standpoint when he arrived at ASU according to Powers.
“Most freshman classes come in the second half of the summer, take a class and then get training with Liane [Liane Blyn, the team’s trainer] and get in really good shape before the start of the year,” Powers said. “Our guys didn’t have that opportunity because we went to China.”
Conditioning hasn’t been Jenuwine’s only improvement.
“Defensively, in the last three months that we’ve been here, it’s gotten so much better,” Jenuwine said. “I really like that about my game so far.
“Now I really feel like I bring a defensive side of my game to help the team in whatever way I can.”
That would make Jenuwine an unprecedented two-way force, something that other offensive threats like Walker and Koumontzis are still working on achieving.
For now, Walker and Jenuwine represent one of college hockey’s most devastating and exciting duos. The offensive skills possessed by both could put them at the forefront of their respective lines. Jenuwine feels as if he can have a similar impact as Walker did in 2018-19.
“I just thought that the style that I play my game was similar to Johnny,” he said.
But the freshman, making sure not to stir the pot too much with the electric veteran, was sure to note that he thought he still had some work to do.
“Obviously I’m not the player that Johnny is,” Jenuwine said.
