(Photo: Sun Devil Athletics)
With 1:25 remaining in the second period, Arizona State found itself down 4-2 to No. 4 Western Michigan, a scenario it has found itself in throughout the season. In a season that has contained multi-goal comebacks against Colorado College and Ohio State, the Sun Devils were looking to work some of that same magic in Kalamazoo Saturday afternoon.
Instead of going into the third period with a manageable deficit, freshman forward Carmelo Crandell made a costly mistake, taking a five-minute major penalty. The Crandell penalty would allow the Broncos (22-8-0, 14-6-0 NCHC) to score five unanswered goals against the Sun Devils (13-18-1, 6-13-1 NCHC), eventually running away with the game in a 7-2 win. The loss keeps ASU at 19 points, just one point out of last place in the conference, setting up a series next weekend with Omaha, which sits in last place with 18 conference points, to likely decide who misses the playoffs.
When the Sun Devils and Broncos met last season, both teams were in the race for the NCHC’s top spot. Now, ASU has gone from a team with NCAA Tournament expectations to a team barely holding on to a spot in its own conference tournament.
For the Sun Devils, their season has contained some of the same problems throughout. One of those many problems is their inability to stay out of the penalty box in key moments of the game. Against then-No. 6 Penn State in the first series of the year, a costly elbowing penalty from junior defenseman Anthony Dowd put the Nittany Lions on the power play to score the game-winning goal.
The penalty problems have carried over into the late season for ASU. In its home series against then-fourth-ranked North Dakota, ASU took 11 penalties, conceding four goals while being a man down. The Sun Devils followed those losses by making similar mistakes in the series against St. Cloud State and Western Michigan, capped off by the Crandell penalty that allowed the Broncos to score three goals.
Not only have the Sun Devils’ penalty issues cost them goals on the ice, but they have also prevented them from being able to get back into games that they are trailing in. When the season started, ASU had a full roster of 26 healthy scholarship players. Now, the Sun Devils are down to 21 players available to put in their lineup, with season-ending injuries to sophomore forward Cullen Potter and freshman forward Jack Beck and three players leaving the team altogether
When ASU forces itself to kill off as many penalties as it has the past few weeks, it pushes its already depleted roster depth to the limits. The lack of rotation in the lineup causes the Sun Devils to have tired legs, which could be a possible explanation for their third-period struggles.
The Sun Devils have a -16 goal differential in the third period in their last eight games, as ASU would have to average having a three-goal lead going into the third frame to pick up all three possible conference points rewarded in each regulation win. These struggles have become so detrimental that head coach Greg Powers found himself virtually quoting ASU men’s basketball Bobby Hurley, declaring that he couldn’t get through to this team.
Although it seems all doom and gloom for Powers’ side, the Sun Devils still control their own destiny into the postseason, and get to do it in front of their own fans at Mullett Arena. ASU has the opportunity to clinch an NCHC playoff spot with a regulation sweep over ninth-placed Omaha, which could be its first conference sweep in over a year of play. The Sun Devils return to the ice on Friday at 7 p.m. MST in Tempe.
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