(Photo Courtesy – Samantha Maxwell)
After a high-flying high scoring game the night before game two between Arizona State and the University of Lindenwood was a different story but the Sun Devils were still able to tame the Lions.
It wasn’t a record-breaking night for the Arizona State Hockey (15-18-0) but it was still another win in the win column and a sweep of the University of Lindenwood (7-19-0) with a final score of 5-3, and their second consecutive sweep on home ice.
The beautiful part of college hockey is that if game one doesn’t go your way there’s always another game to be played. For Lindenwood, after having eight goals scored on them in game one it could be inferred that game two would be a tighter affair between the two teams – and it was.
It wasn’t high scoring that got the Sun Devils the win but a game-winning goal that didn’t come until the third period.
The Lions drew first blood, striking first just past the eight-minute mark in the first period. However, it took sophomore captain Josh Doan and his Sun Devils only 28 seconds to find an answer and on the power play nonetheless.
Doan received a tape-to-tape feed from junior defenseman Tim Lovell at the point and hammered the puck home. Graduate student Roni Salmenkangas who was tasked with the start for tonight had little chance to make the save.
After the first period ended 1-1 the second period went the same way. The Lions took their second lead of the game which held for longer than 28 seconds making the score 2-1. It wound up being four total goals scored in the second period for both sides. The Lions scored and then the Sun Devils responded. Rinse and repeat as Lindenwood broke the Sun Devils’ streak of five games without giving up a power play goal since game one of the RIT series to make it 3-2. But just like before ASU ties it up again.
This time junior Ryan O’Reilly and freshman Teddy Lagerback were able to spring a two-on-one quickly in transition and Lagerback was able to find O’Reilly back door for the goal. It was very similar to the second goal of the game for the Sun Devils except the scorer was junior forward Ty Jackson and graduate student Demetrios Koumontzis fed him the cross-ice pass.
“I thought the first period for Lindenwood was their best period of the weekend, they came out hard, and we knew they would.” Head Coach Greg Powers said after the game, “I thought in the second period, we completely dominated it … but what I was happy with was, you know, we haven’t had a ton of puck luck this year. And when we didn’t have any tonight and the other team did, our guys stuck with it and found a way to get a win.”
After two periods of play and both ending tied, going into the third overtime didn’t feel out of the question for both sides until graduate student (and first star of the game) Chris Grando scored the game-winning goal down on a knee with a stellar backhanded shot.
“Grando is a perfect example. I mean he put a really pretty one in for them on his back end and then he put a really pretty one in for us on his backhand. So that’s why he got the first star. You score a goal on your backhand for both teams, you get the first star.”
After that goal, it was all Arizona State until the last five minutes when Jackson took a hooking penalty giving the University of Lindenwood a chance to come back. Despite their best chances the Lions could not get the tying goal past sophomore goaltender Tj Semptimphelter and under a minute left Doan scored an empty netter to put the nail in the coffin.
“He (Semptimphelter) was good. I didn’t think he had to be great, to be honest. I mean, you know, their second and third goals went in off us. So they had some puck luck to stay in it and that’s just how it goes. What was impressive about TJ tonight was, I mean, it felt like they didn’t really even touch the puck in the third period. Right. And so I think they had one goal before they put on five shots in the last three minutes when they had that flurry on the power play. And that’s when he came up big. So for him to stay dialed in, after not seeing really any action for an entire period to seal the win. Just adding, in a nutshell, wraps up what he’s all about.”
“He’s our backbone back there,” Grando added. “Day in and day out he’s stepped up when he has to and we definitely feel confident having Tj in net behind us.”
Despite the win the injury bug continues for the Sun Devils, this time it was junior forward Lukas Sillinger who left the game due to a hit to the head in the first period.
“We hope he’s okay. You know, I mean, he’s obviously coherent and didn’t have to go to the hospital and everything. But you know, it was unfortunate, it was a dirty hit, and you hate to see that, but it is what it is.
After a week off the Sun Devils were able to score 13 total goals and get the sweep as they now look ahead to play Alaska Fairbanks once again.
“I think the mindset was just really high,” O’Reilly said post-game. “We had a really quick practice this week and legs were going, felt good after having a week off and the results showed this weekend.”
