(Photo: Gabrielle Mercer/WCSN)
Playing away from home has continued to be a task too tall for the Arizona State Sun Devils.
In Boston on Friday, No. 17 Northeastern (2-1-0) set the tone early in its 5-2 win over Arizona State (1-4-0), scoring four of its five goals in the first period.
In three road games this season, the Sun Devils have been outscored 18-6.
“There’s not a guy in that room that shouldn’t look in the mirror and know they can be better, everybody can be better,” ASU head coach Greg Powers said. “That was a team loss, period, but they went down 4-0, they could’ve mailed it in but they didn’t.”
Overshadowed by the loss was the continued success of graduate transfer Robbie Baillargeon. His two goals scored on the night brought his season point total to four, three of those points courtesy of goals.
Baillargeon again headlined the Sun Devils’ most productive line alongside Wade Murphy and Dylan Hollman. The group accounted for all of Arizona State’s points – Hollman assisted on both of Baillargeon goals.
“It’s kind of one of those things that just kind of happens,” Baillargeon said. “We [the third line] just kind of play to each other’s strengths and kind of know what each other does and it just kind of works and clicks. It’s one of those things that just kind of happened right away, we started clicking right away and you just go with it.”
On the flip side, Baillargeon and the third line also struggled with penalties throughout the contest.
“I can’t even comment about the calls, it is what it is,” Baillargeon said. “We’ve just got to fight through it tomorrow, play through it. Just kind of get a feel for the refs and what they were looking for.”
In net for the Sun Devils, Powers elected to make an early change. After allowing a third goal in the first 15 minutes of the contest, freshman Joey Daccord was pulled in favor of sophomore Ryland Pashovitz.
Pashovitz fared well off the bench, amassing 20 saves and two goals allowed in his first crack at live action this season.
“I thought he [Pashovitz] was pretty good going in cold down 3-0,” Pashovitz said. “I think he could look sharper, but I thought he did a pretty good job. Joey just didn’t have it tonight, he’s a hell of a goalie, he’s going to have a great career, he just had a great weekend against Air Force, he’s a freshman, it was what it was.”
In the final two periods, Arizona State outscored Northeastern 2-1. Regardless, the early four-goal deficit was too much to overcome.
“Our guys, they know, they know they can skate with anybody, they know they can play with anybody,” Powers said. “That team, they were harder on pucks, they dominated us in the neutral zone, they were just harder and won every 50-50 puck battle against guys that, quite frankly for us, can’t lose those consistently. Just little stuff, not getting pucks deep when you can.
“That’s the stuff that we have to clean up.”
