(Photo: Gabrielle Mercer/WCSN)
Following Friday night’s 4-0 loss to the Princeton Tigers, Arizona State head coach Greg Powers spoke on the team’s growing need for a bonafide difference-maker.
It’s a logical problem for a third-year team to have — players are still developing and learning is paramount at this stage in the evolution of the program. The growth and maturation of both the players and the culture still take priority.
Still, on nights like tonight, that void is evident.
“We just don’t (have a go-to player) yet,” Powers said. “Where (Princeton) clearly does, that top line of theirs is special, they’re easily the best line we’ve seen all year, they’re really, really good.”
The Tigers’ top line, a group comprised of two seniors — Eric Robinson and Max Becker — and sophomore Jeremy Germain, caused problems for ASU all night. While Robinson chipped in with a goal, Becker and Germain remained quiet on the score sheet, but made all the difference with their speed in transition.
“They’re a very opportunistic team,” forward Jake Clifford said. “You give them opportunities like (we did) they’re going to capitalize on that and that’s what they did today.”
Powers acknowledged that his Captain’s line dropped the ball in terms of slowing down Princeton’s aforementioned top line.
He admitted he was disappointed in the effort put forth by captain Dylan Hollman and alternate captains Anthony Croston and Louie Rowe, specifically on the Tigers’ third goal of the contest.
“I think they need to take more ownership,” Powers said of his captains. “We wanted to go in and reset after that first period, they started the second period and got scored on. It was a little bit of a lapse in d-zone coverage, we lost their high guy, they popped one and that was the back breaker.”
The tone of the game remained clean throughout, which was to be expected considering Princeton’s precedent of disciplined play.
The Tigers had only been called for 44 violations on the season entering the game, the second-fewest in the country — contrasting to the Sun Devils’ 64.
Still, neither team conceded an excess of infractions — only three combined penalties were called on the night, including one in the game’s first 50 minutes.
The lack of penalties eliminated the power play opportunity for ASU. On the kill, the unit yielded a goal on its only opportunity of the night.
“It was a good, clean game,” Powers said. “Only one power play for them, none for us, which is tough, you go home and don’t get one power play it’s always tough. They’re a disciplined team, we knew they were and you’d rather have officials call the game and not try to impose their will on the game, just let the players play and I think that’s what they did tonight.”
Goaltender Joey Daccord allowed all four goals, but extended his streak of games with 30-plus saves to six with 32 saves. Daccord faced a barrage of shots on the night — Princeton got 36 shots off on goal, a far cry from the Sun Devils’ 20.
“There were certain odd-man rushes where we didn’t get anything done,” Clifford said. “These last two weeks in practice we really focused on getting pucks in the net and we just got to make a play. Sometimes we didn’t.”
In terms of Daccord’s performance, Powers didn’t blame his net minder for the Princeton scoring outburst.
“I thought (Daccord) was good,” Powers said. “That game wasn’t on him, it was a shame, he looked pretty sharp. We had some really good chances and just couldn’t put it in in any way, if we could’ve just gotten one and played downhill, we felt like we could’ve climbed back into the game.”
Following tonight’s loss, it’s the second time this season the Sun Devils have been shut out following a two-week break. On Nov. 17, the team fell to Penn State 7-0 two weeks after its tilt with Alabama-Huntsville.
Powers recognized the difficulty of playing after extended down time, but also pointed out the breaks are sometimes just the nature of NCAA scheduling.
“Bye weeks are tough,” Powers said. “When you take two weeks off, it’s not something that we want to do, but you’re allotted 34 games and sometimes it’s a necessary evil in college hockey. Guys, they’ve got to figure out a way to ramp up and be ready to play. It just took us a while to get going.
“In that first period, it looked like we hadn’t played in two weeks.”
For Clifford, he pointed out that it can be hard to build momentum coming out of extended time with no games.
“You get in a routine when you’re always playing every weekend,” Clifford said. “Just kind of an off week can set you back a little bit, but that’s no excuse to not be able to show up and play.”
With another opportunity against the Tigers tomorrow night, Powers feels that the message is simple — show up and reset.
“We’ve been here before,” Powers said. “We’ve dropped games on Friday and bounced back on Saturday, I think you’re going to see a much better effort out of the guys.”
