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No. 11 Sun Devils using loss to No. 19 Colorado College as a lesson

(Photo: Marina Williams/WCSN)

TEMPE — It’s amazing the difference eight minutes can make in a hockey game.

After building a 2-0 advantage after a pair of solid periods in game two against No. 19 Colorado College, No. 11 Arizona State hockey led the Tigers, 4-1, six minutes into the third. Junior forward Charlie Schoen had just scored back-to-back goals and ASU looked well on its way to fourth sweep of the season and 12th win in the last 13 games.

But then, a flip switched; the Sun Devils became complacent and Colorado College capitalized. 

Junior goaltender Gibson Homer was lights-out between the pipes for most of the game, finishing with 36 saves on 41 shots, but the Tigers (12-11-1, 6-7-1) beat him five times in the final frame period to snatch a victory from the Sun Devils’ (14-9-1, 9-5 NCHC) fingertips.

“It looked like we were going to run away with it,” head coach Greg Powers said. “But we didn’t get it done. I think they were desperate, they were desperate. And we looked like a team that took winning for granted, right? It’s a great lesson, because it’s hard to win in this league. It’s hard to win in college hockey. You go up, 4-1, and you think it’s going to be easy. Credit to them.”

Immediately after Schoen’s second strike, which came at the 13:38 mark of the third, sophomore defenseman Max Burkholder carried the puck into ASU’s zone off of a faceoff win. Homer made the save on his shot, but nobody accounted for junior forward Noah Laba, who scored Colorado College’s first goal of the evening, sitting alone at the netfront. Laba easily put home the rebound, countering the opposition’s fourth goal.

Two more tallies — one of which was due to another Tiger being left alone — and some eight minutes later, freshman forward Gavin Lindberg found linemate Drew Montgomery alone at the top of the crease. The sophomore caught Homer by surprise with a quick snap shot that gave Colorado College the lead for good, shocking ASU’s players and fans alike.

The revelation was for good reason: it seemed as though Saturday was going to be another win in a two-month stretch that has yielded great success for the Sun Devils. But two-goal performances from senior forward Ryan Kirwan and Schoen, along with a strong outing from Homer, ultimately went to waste.

“I think we kind of just sat on our toes for a little bit,” Kirwan said. “We’re gonna be in that situation a lot this year, hopefully. So we just gotta give it to them, play sound defensively and we’ve got to play a full 60 (minutes). It’s what it comes down to and winning in this league’s so hard. We’ve just got to commit to a full 60.”

Put in the simplest of terms, if ASU intends to remain a contender in the highly-touted National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC), breakdowns like the one that occurred on Saturday just can’t happen.

It wasn’t just how everything transpired, but who it happened against. Colorado College entered the weekend at No. 33 in the PairWise Rankings despite being named the No. 19 team in the land according to the U.S. College Hockey Online (USCHO) Poll.

Make no mistake about it, the Tigers are an immensely talented team dealing with the rigors of a difficult schedule. But losing a 4-1 lead after defeating the same, lower-ranked, opponent the night before adds an extra sting to the loss.

“I would say the biggest thing for us is just to not get comfortable,” Schoen said. “Like (Kirwan) said, we’re gonna be in some positions where we’re gonna have leads a lot of the time this year, so we just can’t sit back and we have to keep going…”

ASU was punished accordingly for its loss, falling from No. 10 to No. 14 in the PairWise. That means that the Sun Devils will have to learn their lesson fast, and they have a great opportunity to prove they did in less than a week’s time when they travel to Oxford, Ohio to face Miami. The RedHawks, despite splitting with ASU last year, have yet to win a conference game at 0-14.

Winning down the stretch will be uber-important for the Sun Devils, who are currently two points out of first place with No. 3 Western Michigan and Omaha ahead of them in the standings. After Miami, it won’t be easy, as ASU will face two top-five opponents — the Broncos and No. 5 Denver — at home in addition to two road series to close out the regular season.

However, for a team playing as well as the Sun Devils are playing right now, the competition down the stretch is also viewed as an opportunity. More times than not, ASU has taken care of business this season, even sweeping then-No. 1 Denver and then-No. 15 St. Cloud State on the road. There’s a lot of reason to think they can continue to do so, even with fierce competition the rest of the way.

“There’s a lot of time left,” Kirwan said. “So you know, it’s great, the spot we’re in, but there’s so much time, so many games. The gap’s still close, so close in this conference, this league. So we’ve just got to keep chipping away game by game and not even focus on (our standing in the NCHC).”

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