ASU Men’s Hockey: Sun Devil seniors prepare for final home games in series against AIC

(Photo: Riley Trujillo/WCSN)

For everyone on the Arizona State Sun Devils hockey roster, this weekend is a bit emotional.  The last home series of the season signifies the beginning of the end of the road for the team, even though this season, the road could be much longer than ones prior. Still, Friday’s and Saturday’s games serve as a reminder that the end is near, and that all the Sun Devils’ hard work is close to paying off.

But for five members of the ASU hockey team, it’s so much more than that.  Those five guys – Anthony Croston, Jack Rowe, Dylan Hollman, Jake Clifford and Jakob Stridsburg – are all about to play their last game at Oceanside Ice Arena.  It will be Senior Night, and a night none of those guys will ever forget.  On the other end, no player, coach or staff member of the ASU hockey program over the past four years will forget those guys either.  They’ve meant too much to what has now become one of the top college hockey teams in the country.

“These are the five guys we knew we could build around,” coach Greg Powers said of the senior class.

Four of them came in together. Croston was a local Phoenix kid who never thought he’d play Division-1 hockey, let alone be as close as he is to an NCAA Tournament berth, in the state of Arizona.  Jack Rowe was “a big get” for the program, as he’d played on many elite teams including Team USA’s Five Nations team and was previously committed to midwestern powerhouse North Dakota. Hollman was a Western Canadian kid who put up big numbers in the AJHL and had a storied hockey family.  And Clifford originally played defense but finding a key role at forward.

“It’s a pillar in what we’ve defined our culture to be: To leave the program better than you found it.  And these five kids, they’re the ones that made it through,” said Powers.

And then there’s Stridsburg, who in three years as a Sun Devil completed a degree and has turned himself into a point-scoring defenseman. For him, the hard work has paid off on and off the ice.

“Obviously it’s really special,” he said. “There was a lot of tough parts obviously the first two years, but this year has been tremendous.  We didn’t expect to win this many games.”

In their own ways, it’s special for everyone.  Just ask Croston, who graduated from Pinnacle High School and has been playing at Oceanside since he was just a kid.

“Just to play Division-1 in Arizona as an Arizona boy and play my last game in this rink that I grew up in is pretty special,” he said.

From state tournaments to high school rivalry games against Chapparel, Oceanside has been in his life for much longer than others on the team.

“That’s going to be a bittersweet thing,” Croston said.

For Rowe, Oceanside has been the place of a transformation physically and mentally for him.

“Learning to deal with adversity is definitely a lesson that we learn in the first few years here,” he said.

After tearing his ACL in his freshman season, Rowe’s role with the Sun Devils has declined as the years went on and as recruits have arrived.  The adversity Rowe faced wasn’t just the losing he and the team experienced in his first three years.

“The kid hasn’t had a shift all year and he’s one of the first guys here every day and has got a smile on his face every day,” Powers said of Rowe. “He’s incredibly supportive of his teammates.  He has defined what ‘Be the Tradition’ is and is a huge part of our success even though he hasn’t been on the ice this year.”

Powers, who called Rowe “the ultimate teammate”, said he’d “try” to get Rowe in the lineup this weekend against American International. Rowe’s Sun Devil experience, one riddled with boundaries and fences to climb, is similar to those of Hollman’s and Clifford’s. Hollman had his captaincy stripped before this season, in a move that Powers said gave him more time to focus on himself rather than others.  For Hollman, it’s given him a different perspective.

“I’ve been put in a few different roles with the team,” he said. “I’ve been a first-line guy, a fourth-line guy, been a captain.  I’ve seen every aspect to the team dynamic.  I think it’s just being able to mature and be a good teammate.”

Powers doesn’t regret the decision, citing how well it’s paid off, and how despite the removal of the ‘C’ from the jersey, their bond can never be broken.

“It’s worked very well,” Powers said of Hollman. “And he took it very well.  He’s the ultimate team guy. He’ll always be my first captain at the NCAA level.  I’ll look at him that way forever.”

Clifford represents that resiliency that most of the seniors have experience as well.  He came in as a defenseman to ASU, then made the transition to forward late in his sophomore year after having trouble finding a role on the blue line.

“He really struggled to play his first two years and found a role, certainly a huge role in the locker room,” said Powers.  “It’s going to be weird without him here.”

Clifford showed a bit more emotion than others, saying “it hasn’t really hit yet” when discussing his final home game.  He pondered whether it’d hit him after Saturday’s contest.

Clifford exemplified how ASU has changed him as a person too, saying his maturity has grown since becoming a Sun Devil.

“The things you learn being a student-athlete can apply to different things in life,” he explained.  “I think the biggest one is the way you handle adversity, especially in the first couple years.  Losing’s not fun.  To be level-headed, stay on task and be a good leader for other people, especially the freshman coming in every year, I think that’s one of the biggest takeaways from this experience.”

To Powers, everyone has left their mark on the program, and stoutly.

“They’ve elevated our program every year and they’ve done everything we’ve asked of them and more,” he said. “They’ve bought into our mantra.”

That mantra, the “focus on what’s ahead” idea that Powers and the team has pushed all season, doesn’t end this weekend against AIC, even though the road for some, does.

The Yellow Jackets don’t come in easy. Ranked essentially 21st in the USCHO Poll and leading the Atlantic Hockey Conference, AIC isn’t the easy late-season opponent most expected it to be. Like ASU, it struggled last year, and have surprised many.  If it wins its conference, one that it currently leads by seven points, then it too will be in the NCAA Tournament, just as the Sun Devils are hoping to be.

AIC has a potent offense, ranking sixth in goals scored compared to ASU at eight. The Yellow Jackets have also been stingy, ranking 14th in the nation in goals allowed. Goaltender Zackarius Skog has a 2.90 GAA, though is only saving 89.2 percent of shots faced. The Yellow Jackets are good defensively though, as they are a bit above average when it comes to not allowing shots.

“We’ve watched them a ton,” said Powers of AIC.  “You can’t give them time and space.  If you take away time and space, you defend with a lot of urgency, which we do especially in our building, we’ll be gold.”

Space is something Blake Christensen, a junior forward for the Yellow Jackets, thrives off of.  He’s their leader in assists and points, and is tied for third in the nation in points as well as fourth for assists.  Those totals are what have his name in the pot for the Hobey-Baker Award along with ASU’s Joey Daccord and Johnny Walker.

“That kid’s a really good player,” Powers said.

That doesn’t change anything for the Sun Devils, though.

“At the end of the day, we’re still going to play our game consistently for three periods,” Hollman said, “and we know we’re going to get results.”

Use Facebook to Comment on this Post