(Photo: Marina Williams)
This weekend serves as the second of a seven-week stretch for Arizona State men’s ice hockey that includes matchups against four ranked opponents, three of which currently sit in the top 10. To kick off such a gauntlet, the Sun Devils took on No. 6 North Dakota at Ralph Engelstad Arena for the first time in program history.
Despite breaking new ground, ASU (3-7-1, 1-3-1 NCHC) reverted to its old ways of failing to play a full 60 minutes on the ice in all three phases to drop the first game against the Fighting Hawks (8-3, 4-1 NCHC) by a score of 5-2.
The bad omens for the Sun Devils were out in full force almost immediately after falling flat in the first period. The Fighting Hawks completely dominated offensive possession to the point of outshooting ASU 18-8 by the first intermission.
After being peppered and forced to make 11 saves barely 12 minutes into the game, freshman goaltender Samuel Urban wasn’t prepared for the speed of senior forward Ben Strinden, who threw up a puck between his legs and into the net to hand North Dakota an early lead.
Where the Sun Devils really struggled throughout the contest was a lack of awareness and failure to defend their own zone. Nothing encapsulated the team’s struggles more than when senior forward Bennett Schimek hit a puck off the leg of freshman forward Cole Reschny in an attempt to dump it down the ice, but it instead landed right next to freshman forward Will Zellers for a wrist shot score that sailed past two ASU defenders.
Just as everything was falling apart, a slip-up from the Fighting Hawks presented the Sun Devils with a chance to live up to their season-long pattern of suddenly flipping a switch.
A two-minute minor for holding sent out the power play unit for the first time, eventually leading to sophomore forward Ty Nash finding sophomore forward Cullen Potter from the blue line. The first-round draft pick skated right down the middle before making a no-look pass to junior forward and co-captain Kyle Smolen that let him finish it off by sneaking it past freshman goaltender Jan Špunar’s left side.
With half of the work done, ASU made it a two-for-one deal on memorizing passes two minutes before the end of the second period when Schimek floated the puck under the stick of sophomore defenseman EJ Emery to put senior forward Cruz Lucius in position to score the game-tying goal. Schimek’s assist helped him record his 20th multi-point outing in his career, while Lucius collected his ninth goal of the season in the 100th game of his collegiate career.
The resurgence in the second period meant that the Sun Devils had a blank slate in their hands and all momentum pointing in their direction. Instead, it took all of 64 seconds for the glass to shatter as several missed swipes at clearing the puck gave North Dakota a two-on-one opportunity that Zellers gladly used to sling a shot over the shoulder of Urban.
30 seconds later, the Slovakia native’s glove hand missed a one-timer from the blue line by senior forward Tyler Young to put the Fighting Hawks back up by two goals in the blink of an eye.
This time around, ASU had no response outside of putting up nine total shots in the next 12 minutes of play. North Dakota hadn’t lost a game all season where it scored at least four goals, and a dagger in the form of a power play goal from sophomore forward Cody Croal with six minutes remaining ensured that streak would remain intact for another day.
The Sun Devils have matched their 2024-25 counterpart’s exact record of 3-7-1 through 11 games this season. In order to maintain this mirroring, a win tomorrow would have to follow suit.
Such a scenario playing out requires ASU to not only improve from a 1-4 mark on the road thus far, but also address the issues in defense and consistency head-on before advancing any further into the upcoming schedule.
The series finale between Arizona State and North Dakota takes place at 5:07 p.m. MST tomorrow.
