(Photo: Kyle McCartney/WCSN)
TEMPE, AZ — Arizona State Men’s Hockey welcomed the University of New Hampshire to Oceanside Ice Arena on Friday night, and despite the freezing cold temperatures inside Oceanside Ice Arena, ASU amassed a streak as hot as the Arizona summer in the third period en route to a 5-1 victory over the Wildcats.
“Obviously, I loved how we came out and played in the third,” ASU head coach Greg Powers said. “We played to our potential, finally.”
The Sun Devils scored four of their five goals in the final 20 minutes of the contest while all five were unanswered goals. Senior forward Demetrios Koumontzis struck a chord that seemingly resonated with the rest of the team after putting the puck past New Hampshire’s sophomore goaltender Jeremy Forman with 15:12 left in the third period.
“Once you get one it just piles on,” Koumontzis said. “Yeah, it definitely changed the momentum on the bench, and everyone stuck with it and just kept pulling.”
After Koumontzis’ goal, a string followed. In three minutes, ASU scored three goals.
Freshmen forward Jackson Niedermayer scored his second goal of the game with 13:42 to play in the third, followed by senior captain forward Johnny Walker’s first goal of the season with 12:41 left in the game.
Niedermayer has strung together a pair of great performances. Last weekend, he scored his first collegiate goal against the University of Denver before finding the net twice against New Hampshire.
“If you play with confidence you’re going to be a confident player,” Niedermayer said. “Getting in there [in the] first game against Denver, you kinda get thrown right into the fire, and I enjoyed it.”
Sophomore goaltender Cole Brady can attest to being thrown into the fire. Against Denver, he allowed eight goals in his first start of the season last weekend but has bounced back quickly in his last two games. Against New Hampshire on Friday night, Brady only allowed one goal with 34 saves.
ASU’s biggest improvement, however, came in its five-on-five play, particularly in the third period.
“I think we were really good on the forecheck, especially in the third period,” Powers said. “We forced some turnovers and capitalized. We just played our brand of hockey in the third period.”
For the first time this season, all of ASU’s goals came at even strength and it didn’t score on a power-play opportunity. The team finally played to the level of physicality that Powers believed they could, while the Sun Devils also possessed the puck really well.
“[New Hampshire] did a lot of the hard work down low,” Koumontzis said. “I thought we did a really good job cycling and keeping it down low, and giving them hard pressure.”
ASU shot the puck 35 times on Friday night – the most it has taken this season.
The Sun Devils started the game aggressively and never looked back. They posted 13 shots in the first eight minutes. However, their urgency to start didn’t correlate with the scoreboard early, as New Hampshire freshman forward Robert Cronin scored an early go-ahead goal to give the Wildcats a 1-0 lead.
Prior to the season, Powers noted that the Sun Devils were attempting to find their identity from the 2019 season again. After Cronin’s goal, ASU exceeded those recover and rally expectations they set during the program’s initial liftoff, and it’s a trait that could bode well for success the rest of the early 2021-22 season.
