(Photo Courtesy – Samantha Maxwell)
Boy, what wonders a week off can do. After getting swept on the road Arizona State Men’s Hockey (15-18-0) had a week off. When they stepped back on the ice last weekend they were able to pull off a weekend sweep of their own over the University of Lindenwood, a brand new team to the Division l hockey landscape. This weekend the Sun Devils will now turn their attention back to a team they know all too well, and a team whose hopes the Sun Devils look to crush.
When the puck drops Friday, February 24, it will be 20 days since Arizona State Men’s Hockey has last faced the University of Alaska Fairbanks (18-10-2) and was swept.
For the Nanooks, they are just coming off a four-game series that saw the team travel to New York to play the University of Long Island for two games. They then head back home the next weekend for two more. In this four-game series, the Nanooks were able to go 3-1 with the only loss coming during the second game of the road trip 3-1.
As of now, the University of Alaska Fairbanks sits just barely on the outside looking in on the college hockey playoffs at 14 in the Pairwise. The top 16 teams in the Pairwise rankings will make the tournament, those 16 teams will be the only ones competing for the chance to become National Champions.
Being one of the six independent hockey programs like ASU or UAF makes trying to get to the tournament even harder. Six teams will get an automatic bid because they won their conference, and the remaining 10 slots will be filled by the Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Committee. This committee will use pairwise calculations to determine the remaining ten slots.
For the Sun Devils, their tournament chances are mathematically over and have been since the middle of January. However, they have a chance to once again try to play spoiler and ruin the chances for the Nanooks.
“They’re a good team,” sophomore defenseman Ty Murchinson told the media this week. “Obviously they’re in a pretty good spot for the tournament but our hope is to end their hopes to get in. We want to be known as the only independent that gets into the tournament so it’s a big weekend for us and a big weekend for them.”
It was last year when ASU was on the bubble of the playoffs and UAF beat ASU in three out of the four games – the fourth ended in a tie – that they played in a two-week home and away series ending the hopes for ASU.
So far the Sun Devils have been unsuccessful in flipping the script on the Nanooks this year losing the first two games up in Alaska almost three weeks ago, but they will have a chance to try and play spoiler once again this weekend. The overall record between these two teams is now in favor of UAF, they are 6-4-1 all-time against ASU.
In Alaska, it was a tandem of six players that scored goals during the two games for UAF. Since then four of them have scored goals against LIU. Notables are sophomore Brady Risk who leads the team in goals with 11. Sophomore Payton Matsui continues to pick up points as he had three points (1 goal and two assists) against LIU and is tied for the most points on the team at 22.
The other co-leader in points for the Nanooks is graduate student forward Jimmy Sorenson. Through 30 games this year Sorensoon had nine goals and 13 assists, for 22 total points, however, he did not score against ASU but he did get an assist and a goal against LIU.
The Nanooks come to Tempe with an even worse power play which is converting only 17.4% of the time compared to the Sun Devils whose power play is converting 19% of the time and went 3/10 last weekend against the Lions. ASU also has an advantage in the penalty kill at 86.2% compared to UAF’s 81.2%.
Game one is set for Friday, February 24 at 7 pm MST in Tempe Arizona.
