(Photo: Riley Trujillo/WCSN)
All it took was one series.
Prior to Cornell’s sweep of Arizona State’s men’s hockey team two weeks ago, this season had been an absolute dream for the Sun Devils. ASU was in position to make the NCAA tournament, something no independent team has done in 27 years. No one in the college hockey universe could have foreseen what has came this year for the ASU.
Then came the losses against the Big Red in Ithaca, one of the toughest places to play in college hockey, a pair of defeats that have all the sudden put ASU in a tougher spot.
Ranked No. 11 in the latest PairWise ratings — good for a projected 3-seed spot in USCHO’s latest mock NCAA Tournament bracket — the Sun Devils might only be able to afford one or two losses the rest of the season.
Unlike every other Division I school around the country, ASU won’t get the benefit of a conference championship tournament. As the only independent program in the nation, the Sun Devils won’t have a chance to earn one of the six automatic qualifying spots that go to the six conferences champions. If ASU is going to get into the NCAA Tournament, it will have to jockey with other high-quality schools to snag one of the 10 at-large bids — decided exclusively by the PairWise ratings.
This year, competition on the bubble is tight. The National Collegiate Hockey Conference has three of the top five teams in the country (St. Cloud State, Denver and Minnesota-Duluth) and will likely gobble up at least a pair of the at-large bids. Bowling Green and Minnesota State will be competing for the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, likely swallowing up another at-large spot. The Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference features a four team race at the top, which consists of two teams that have defeated the Sun Devils (Clarkson and Cornell), and probably takes up another three at-large bids.
That could leave as few as four spots for ASU. While they’re currently in the tournament picture, the Sun Devils’ margin for error down the stretch will be tight, beginning with this weekend’s two-game series at Boston University.
ASU has four series left, two against teams ranked well below the Sun Devils (RIT and American International), and two against a couple of the country’s top programs: BU and Minnesota, which ASU will play in its final regular season series in March.
Splits against Minnesota and BU and sweeps against RIT and American International could be enough to get ASU in the tournament. Getting swept by Minnesota or BU wouldn’t help, and getting swept by both Minnesota and BU or dropping a single game to RIT or American International could be fatal.
The Tigers and Yellow Jackets rank below the national average in the PairWise rankings; a loss against them would likely sink ASU’s stock, and four more losses even to higher-ranked teams like the Golden Gophers and Terriers would probably be too much to overcome. Of course, other schools around the country could falter as well, teams that have a lot more hockey left to play than the Sun Devils and have the unpredictability of conference tournaments coming their way.
No matter what happens, ASU still has to take care of its own business, a motto that coach Greg Powers has echoed all season and one that his players have adopted.
“We’re focused on Friday night in Boston University and controlling what we can,” sophomore forward Johnny Walker said. “As long as we’re doing what we need to do, we’ll be fine.”
BU brings an immense amount of talent with 12 NHL draft picks on the team, though Powers doesn’t see that as being the whole story. He thinks his young group can overcome the gap in other ways.
“From a skill standpoint, they have much more of that,” he said. “But I tell the guys everyday, that means nothing. If skill doesn’t want to pay the price, I’ll take will all day.”
By BU standards, the Terries are having a rough year. They’re 9-9-3 on the season, are tied for 36th in scoring, and have the youngest roster in the country. They’ve been held up by goaltender Jake Oettinger, who has the Terriers ranked 16th in save percentage and was a first round draft pick of the Dallas Stars in 2017. Oettinger, freshman Joel Farabee, and sophomore Shane Bowers are the three first rounders of the squad.
“They have much more high-end skill,” Powers said.
BU has been on fire as of late, going 5-1-1 in their last seven games. It hasn’t been an easy stretch for them either. They’ve beaten high-quality teams like Providence, Massachusetts-Lowell and Providence, while tying with a Harvard team that ASU split with and falling to Quinnipiac, a team ranked 6th in the PairWise currently.
“They always seem to kick it up this time of year,” said sophomore forward Johnny Walker.
The Terriers fall in the mid-2os of the country in most statistical rankings, including shots attempted, shots allowed, power play percentage, and penally kill. The higher number of shots allowed speaks to how good Oettinger has been for BU. That might be a challenge for ASU, which has struggled to utilize its best offensive feature lately in the power play and has scored just five goals in their last three games, but after the Cornell loss, the team knows it has to find its footing again.
“We have to kick it into high gear and take advantage of the opportunity that we have, because it’s an incredible opportunity,” junior goaltender Joey Daccord said.
That doesn’t mean there is panic though. There never has been all season. Powers mentioned how the team has rebounded nicely from their three sweeps this year.
“We went to Omaha and got swept,” he said. “There was a bitter taste in their mouth for about a week and a half before we went to Princeton. We went there and took care of business pretty good. We’re hoping to replciate that exact same thing.”
For the veterans, and especially the seniors, the pressure to make the tournament goes hand-in-hand with the bittersweet feelings that will come during their final days as a Sun Devil.
“It would be the most amazing thing ever,” senior forward Anthony Croston said of possibly making the tournament. “I would have never expected us to be a position like this while I’ve been here.”
It also gives those who are taking over for them an even wider path to lead on. When asked what he was looking forward to against BU, junior defenseman Brinson Pasichnuk summed it up in two words.
“Sweeping them.”
The Sun Devils could certainly use that.
