(Photo: Aiden Longbrake/WCSN)
Nearly four months after the first puck drop of the 2025-26 season, Arizona State has arrived at the final two contests before postseason play begins. A campaign that started with a No. 14 preseason ranking before being marred by injuries and losing nine of their last 14 still finds the Sun Devils in the driver’s seat in the pursuit of extending their season through March by making it to the NCHC tournament for a second consecutive year.
All that remains on ASU’s schedule is a two-game series at No. 8 Denver, a situation that calls for all hands to be on deck with the possibility of locking up a chance to at least compete for an automatic NCAA tournament berth on the line.
“We believe in the guys we have in the room,” freshman forward Carmelo Crandell said. “We believe in the message the coaches are telling us, and we’re confident that if we play our game and stick to what we’ve been taught, that the sky’s the limit for us, no matter how the season’s went so far.”
The top eight teams in the standings by the end of the regular season earn a bid to the NCHC tournament, while the ninth place finish is eliminated early; a spot ASU has hovered around since the start of 2026. A six-game losing streak including a 4-2 loss to Omaha last Friday dropped the Sun Devils down to last place before a 6-3 victory the next day moved them back up to eighth, as they sit just one point ahead of the Mavericks in the conference standings.
Although ASU is 4-11-1 against ranked opponents, those four wins have all come against teams ranked inside the top 10. The only one to not occur on the road was a 3-2 victory in overtime against the No. 3 Pioneers at Mullett Arena back on Nov. 22.
“You just have to get in the playoffs and then it’s best of three,” head coach Greg Powers said. “No matter where we go unless it’s Western Michigan, we’ve beaten whoever we’re going to play. So they have to have that inner belief that they can do it, but it comes from them. My belief has never wavered, I still believe in the group. We talk about that every day.”
Senior forwards Cruz Lucius and Bennett Schimek snapped out of pointless streaks in February to combine for four goals and 11 points during the Omaha series. Their efforts were aided by ASU’s young freshman core of Crandell, Ben Kevan, Lincoln Kuehne and Justin Kipkie alongside sophomores Brasen Boser and Noah Powell for eight total points in two games.
The road trip to Magness Arena also comes with the objective to extend the final ride of the team’s four seniors – Lucius, Schimek, goaltender Connor Hasley, defenseman Tucker Ness – in the maroon and gold.
“This is their last go and so everyone just wants to do it for them and give them the most amount of time they can have in college hockey,” Kevan said. “They’ve just been great leaders and great people. As a freshman coming in, you kind of don’t know what to expect and I couldn’t be more thankful for all they’ve done for me.”
The Sun Devils’ previous win against the Pioneers in extra time came as a result of forwards Cullen Potter and Jack Beck each scoring a goal, but with the duo out for the season with injuries, they’ll have to look elsewhere for production against a top-10 opponent on the road. While ASU’s forward depth has been razor thin in the final month of the regular season, Powers said that freshman forward Braxton Whitehead will “probably be back” in the fourth line center role after missing the last seven games with an undisclosed injury.
Since joining the NCHC in 2024, the Sun Devils have won four of six contests versus the Pioneers. The most recent series between both teams which included the 3-2 overtime win for ASU to secure a weekend split after Denver silenced Mullett Arena to the tune of a 7-1 result the night before.
The ten-time national champions are powered by strong two-way play featuring an average of 3.42 goals per game and the country’s No. 10 scoring defense. No player better exemplifies this style of play than junior defenseman and Hobey Baker nominee Eric Pohlkamp, who is four goals away from becoming the first collegiate defenseman to record 20 goals in a single season since 2003.
Denver is also first in the NCHC with a .920 save percentage and only surrenders 2.23 goals per game on average. Despite primary goaltender Quentin Miller not suiting up since Jan. 24 due to injury, freshman Johnny Hicks hasn’t skipped a beat with a 6-0-1 record and a .962 save percentage.
Five points separates the Pioneers from first place North Dakota, while Western Michigan holds tiebreaker over them despite sharing a 46 point total. While a strong showing could springboard Denver to the Penrose Cup, ASU hasn’t lost in front of the Pioneers’ home crowd since 2021, bringing fond memories to Magness Arena from its last visit in town. When the Sun Devils traveled up to Denver last season, they shocked the country by defeating the defending national champion in its own barn.
“It’s a fun place to play, but our program has gone up there recently and had success,” Powers said. “When we went up there, they were No. 1 in the country, defending national champs. I think they were 12-0, we were 4-7. And it completely changed the trajectory of our season, it changed everything.”
Over 500 miles away, last place Omaha will host a two-game series against Miami. The Mavericks go into this weekend with 21 points while the Sun Devils have 22.
If ASU wins one game in regulation while Omaha loses a game in regulation, a spot in the NCHC tournament is guaranteed. In the case that both teams finish with the same point total, the tie breakers for the eighth seed come down to in-conference regulations wins, goal differential in head-to-head games, goal differential against highest-ranked team, and a coin flip in that order.
Also worth monitoring is Miami’s performance versus Omaha and Colorado College’s series at Minnesota-Duluth considering the Sun Devils could be in a position to move up to the sixth seed if all goes their way.
The simplest way for ASU to leave no doubt this weekend is win. Such a task is much easier said than done when going up against the No. 8 team in the country on the road, but the Sun Devils’ travels to Denver a year prior is the blueprint for suddenly turning an entire season around.
“Nobody outside of our room gave us a chance to do that last year, and then we got one,” Powers said. “One became two, and we never looked back. We can do the same thing with that this weekend.”
