(Photo: Riley Trujillo/WCSN)
After 40 days without competing on home ice, No. 12 Arizona State returned to a jam-packed Oceanside Ice Arena in Tempe for the beginning of an intense, high-stakes series Friday night against American International College.
Back on home ice, the Sun Devils used an explosive second period to propel themselves over the Yellow Jackets 4-1, marking the program’s first-ever 20-win season at the Division I level.
Entering the match-up, the Sun Devils (20-10-1) and Yellow Jackets (17-13-1) held high expectations with NCAA Tournament hopes on the line. In the Pairwise rankings, ASU stood at No. 9 while AIC sought to maintain its lead in the Atlantic Hockey conference.
Despite being in the latter half of the Pairwise to begin the evening, the Yellow Jackets did not go down without a fight, swarming the net all night with clean looks from their top-six forwards right out of the gate.
Early jitters were noticeable as the Sun Devils scrambled and failed to connect on cross-ice passes to start the first period. A bad bounce off a Sun Devil defenseman landed right into the skates of AIC junior Joel Kocur, who potted a nifty breakaway goal to break open the scoring. ASU coach Greg Powers mentioned after the game that the atmosphere felt different after not playing over a month at Oceanside.
“It felt a little weird,” Powers said, “We’ve been gone for so long… It was almost getting reacclimated with our own building and it took us a while to find our legs after a week off and a long layoff from playing a home game.”
Despite the slow start, the Sun Devils’ first power play of the night was the exact spark the team needed to get right back into the contest.
In his wheelhouse, Johnny Walker sniped home his NCAA-leading 23rd goal of the season on a perfect tic-tac-toe to knot the score up 1-1. It was the first Sun Devils power-play marker since Jan 5 in the series finale against Boston College.
“To be honest, we used reverse psychology on them,” Powers said, making light of his team’s recent man-advantage woes.
With the pressure mounting early into the second frame, the Sun Devils turned up the heat with two sensational scores.
A deep pass from the defensive zone sent freshmen Demetrios Koumontzis and Josh Maniscalco on a clean 2-on-0 breakaway. After Maniscalco faked out AIC goaltender Zackarias Skog with a sweet dish to his left, Koumontzis lit the lamp with ease, his third goal of the season giving ASU its first lead of the night.
“I saw [Josh] had a step on me with a little more speed, so I wanted to give it to him first,” Koumontzis said. “I saw he faked out the goalie and sent me a beautiful pass. It was an easy tap-in.”
Just 73 seconds later, the Sun Devils cashed in on their second power play goal after 4-on-4 play expired, when Max Balinson’s shot from the right point deflected to an unprotected area in the crease. With his entire 6-foot-1 figure extended, Maniscalco lunged forward and forced the puck over the goal line, sparking a wave of exhilaration throughout the arena and extending ASU’s lead to 3-1.
“Right before that, (assistant) coach (Alex) Hicks got us for not competing for pucks,” Maniscalco said. “The puck squirted out in front of me. I thought I was going to lose the race, so I dove for it and was fortunate enough for it to go in.
AIC rallied late in the third period, peppering goalie Joey Daccord with shots from all angles, but the junior netminder held his ground firmly, making 24 saves on the evening.
In the final minute of the game, senior Dylan Hollman buried the dagger with an easy empty-netter for his 12th goal of the season, second among ASU forwards behind Walker, to cement another huge victory in the Sun Devils’ record-setting campaign.
ASU rides a four-game win streak into the series finale – which will be the final home game in the career of the team’s five seniors – with few adjustments to make.
“We want to keep things a little bit more simple, especially on the back-end,” Powers said. “It’s just good, hard playoff hockey. That’s how we play. We will be better tomorrow.”
