(Photo Courtesy – Haley Spracale)
The road trip continues for Sun Devils men’s hockey (8-9-0) this weekend as they head to the state of New Hampshire to face the University of New Hampshire Wildcats (3-13-1, 0-11-1 Hockey East).
This is only the second time this season that the Sun Devils will have back-to-back road games since the beginning of the year when they first played the University of Minnesota Duluth and Bemidji State, going 0-4 in the process. However, this is the Sun Devils’ first time back to Durham New Hampshire since 2016 when they played in a one-game series winning in overtime 5-4
ASU has never lost to the Wildcats sweeping them during the 2021-22 season at Oceanside Ice Arena. The Sun Devils picked up a 5-1 victory in both meetings between the two teams last year.
This year on the road however has been a point of struggle for the team as they are 2-7-0 when away from Mullett Arena. In comparison however, the Wildcats are 1-5-1 at home.
As their 3-13-1 record shows the Wildcats have had anything but an easy season so far. Like the Sun Devils, they too come off a weekend where they got swept in a home and road series against another top-seven team in the country, No. 7 Boston University. Their last winning season in fact is all the way back during the 2013-14 season with a final record of 22-18-1. Since then, they have had a couple of seasons where they finished at .500 but never above that .500-mark threshold.
It has been a ten-game losing streak for the New Hampshire Wildcats, and to find their last win one has to flip the calendar all the way back to October 21 where they beat Army West Point 3-1 at home. After that, the team has not seen a win but was able to go to overtime but lost in a shootout with at the time No. 13, but now No. 10 Providence.
If the playoffs were to start today both teams would be on the outside looking in as of pairwise rankings. Arizona State is ranked No. 28 and tied with Northeaster but New Hampshire is back at No. 50 and tied with Holy Cross.
The struggles first start in a lot of different places for UNH. Their power play is only converting 17% of the time compared to ASU’s, which is converting just under 20% of the time. Both teams’ penalty kill show more signs of life at 81% for the Sun Devils and 79% for the Wildcats.
Scoring only 1.7 goals per game to an opponent’s 3.4, is also not a recipe to win games. While allowing the opponent to score three goals, UNH is 0-8-0 when the opposition scores just even the first goal, and the Sun Devils are 3-4-0 when scoring first this season.
Along the same lines when the Sun Devils have the lead after one period of play their record is 5-2-0 and 6-1-0 when leading after two. To compare when trailing after the first period or the second period Wildcats are 1-7-0 while being only 1-1-1 when leading after one period and 1-1-0 through two.
The highest scorer on the team of UNH is freshman forward Cy LeClerc who has seven goals putting him just ahead of Sun Devils’ leading goal scorer senior forward Robert Mastrosimone who has six. The next closest to LeClerc on the UNH roster has four goals this year and that is sophomore forward Liam Devlin and freshman forward Morgan Winters.
The first game between the two squads will kick off Friday, Dec. 10, at 5:30 p.m. MST.
