Photo: Riley Trujillo/WCSN
Following up a season like the one the Arizona State Men’s Hockey team had last year might be impossible.
They won 21 games, not only the most in its short Division-I tenure, but two less than the team had won in its three previous seasons combined.
ASU made the NCAA Tournament, not just by the skin of their teeth, but as a No. 3 seed. Now junior forward Johnny Walker tallied 23 goals, tied for the third most in the country, and former Sun Devil goaltender and current Ottawa Senator Joey Daccord was one of the best goaltenders in the nation.
ASU had a group of five seniors who were referred to as the “backbone” of the team by head coach Greg Powers after trudging through brutal losing seasons, only to cap off their careers by playing on college hockey’s biggest stage.
For an ASU team still trying to gain respect and break in as a legitimate program, 2018 was a dream. Now, they have to follow it up and contend with high expectations for 2019 with a new crop of young player to replace those who left.
“It’s the nature of being a start up program,” ASU head coach Greg Powers said. “The longer you’re at it recruiting, the better kids you get. Success breeds success. We continue to bring in really high level freshman. (Freshman forward) Logan Jenuwine is one of them. He had 60 goals last year. We’re going to look for him to score right away.”
Jenuwine’s 60 goals last season with the Amarillo Bulls was the most single-season goals in NAHL history.
Goaltender Max Prawdzik left Boston University, a prestigious hockey program, as a graduate transfer to join the Sun Devils. In his career with the Terriers, Prawdzik played a total of six games over the 2017 and ’18 seasons with save percentages of .914 and .889, respectively.
Jenuwine, Prawdzik, and others like freshman forward Jax Murray aren’t just recruits or transfers, they’re top of the line players expected to contribute right away.
“The Joey Daccord era is done. It’s gone. It’s over,” Powers said. “Now we’re all cheering for him as an Ottawa Senator.
“But these three guys (Prawdzik, Justin Robbins and Evan DeBrouwer) can carry the mail.”
Confidence like that is what pushes Powers to believe this season will be an even more successful one than the last.
“We need to continue to push the rock forward,” Powers said. “We made the tournament last year. We want to make it further. I still believe the way we do that is not to change our focus.”
That focus, according to Powers, is blocking out everything else – expectations, future opponents, doubters – and looking at what’s in front of the team.
“We’re worried about one thing: Mercyhurst on Oct. 5,” he said. “Everything that comes after that is irrelevant. We have a good enough team , we have enough here now, and the culture is so good with our player leadership group that, if we continue to do that, we will absolutely have a better year than last year.”
The Sun Devils have experience when it comes to living up to expectations, they destroyed them last year.
“We hope that they underestimate us, but I don’t think we’re going to sneak up on anybody,” Powers said. I wish that we could still, and I hope we do because, I think we all know how that’s going to end up for them.”
It’s why junior forward James Sanchez, a transfer from the University of Michigan, came to Tempe.
“I wanted to come to a program that was going to win and I believe ASU is going to do that,” Sanchez said.
Captain, senior defenseman Brinson Paschinuk, echoed a similar sentiment.
“You come here to win a national championship, and that’s what we’re striving for this year.”
