(Photo: Hailey Rogalski/WCSN)
The Arizona State Sun Devils (15-3-3) closed out night one of the Desert Hockey Classic with a dominant 5-2 victory over the Harvard Crimson (1-8-3), all thanks to their bottom six forwards.
For the first time in program history, the Sun Devils have punched their ticket to the championship game of the Desert Hockey Classic. Friday night, all five of the Sun Devils’ goals came from the bottom six of their lineup. Freshman forward Cole Gordon netted one, senior forward Ryan O’Reilly netted a pair, and so did freshman forward Kyle Smolen.
With the team’s two highest leading scorers, senior forwards Ty and Dylan Jackson, not available, scoring has come from different parts of the lineup, and the past two weekends now for Arizona State have shown that when they need their guys to step up, they can do just that.
“They gave us a ton of energy,” ASU head coach Greg Powers said. “That’s what their job is – to give us energy. They play with energy, finish checks, and get pucks in, and they have the ability to chip in offensively. They obviously did tonight in a major way. So we have that scoring depth; we’re a tough team to beat. That’s a big reason why we’ve lost three games and 22.”
After a solid but rocky start, the Sun Devils got out of it with a 2-1 lead thanks to Gordon, who got the night started with a goal from right between the circles. A beautiful pass from senior defenseman Tim Lovell set Gordon in a poised position to drive home the night’s opening goal, and he did just that. However, Harvard, who came out with a strong start, found the equalizer. Freshman forward Ryan Fine used the stick which had been knocked out of the hand of junior goaltender Tj Semptimphelter perfectly to play pinball with, sending the puck off the butt end of the stick past a diving Semptimphelter.
With time expiring in the first, O’Reilly found the back of the net with 0.1 seconds remaining to give the Sun Devils a lead going into the locker room despite being outshot eight to seven, breaking a 14-game scoring slump for him.
“It felt good for sure,” O’Reilly said. I definitely wanted to do the monkey off the back celly, but I definitely felt like there was more coming.”
After a wake-up message from Powers telling his team to “get it going,” going into the second, they did just that.
“We were lucky to get out of [the first] with a lead. But the two goals that we scored were the execution of exactly what we practiced all week, what our pre-scout was, and it was just to grind a young team down in the o-zone and get them running around and find somebody in the high ice, and that’s what we did in goal one. Then, the second goal, we were just grinding it down below the goal line, and Smolen made a great play, and that gave us a lot of energy going into the room.”
Energy continued on for the third line into the second period as before the ten-minute mark, O’Reilly found his second of the night on a two-on-one with senior forward Benji Eckerle off to his hip. O’Reilly took the shot himself, burying the puck in the back of the net. Still holding onto the little light they had Harvard close to with one again making 3-2 on a power play, but that would be all they could do.
With a record of 7-1-1 when leading through two periods of play, Sun Devil hockey was poised to close out Harvard, as it seemed like familiar territory for the Sun Devils. Despite getting outshot in the third period, seven to six, the bottom six potted two more goals for the Sun Devils, this time both from Smolen on the third line.
“They’ve probably been our most effective line,” Powers said in reference to that third line tonight. “I can trust them in every situation. I can put them out there in the D-zone. Two of them kill regularly. [O’Rielly] can kill; they’ve scored big goals. I put them out there five on six, so they’re kind of a Swiss Army Knife. In college hockey, really at any level, the team with the best third line generally wins.”
Streaking down the near side boards, Smolen received a touch pass from Eckerle in the neutral zone, which he turned into a goal over the right shoulder of senior goaltender Derek Mullahy, regaining ASU’s two-goal lead. Smolen’s second goal of the game would come late in the night via the empty net to seal the deal for the Sun Devils.
“Having two seniors working with you every day, giving you advice on how to play the game the right way, it just makes it easy to want to go out there every night and play for them,” Smolen said. “And when you practice with them every week, you work with them, and they give you advice, it kind of makes the game easier.”
“I thought the second two periods we were really just sound, and we looked like a mature team that knew how to win games,” said Powers. “The first period was a little sloppy both ways, but we got through with the lead, and I thought the second period was really good.”
The bottom six combined for eight total points (five goals, three assists) on the night, a statistic the Sun Devils will hope carries over into Saturday’s championship game with the University of Nebraska Omaha. The puck drop is set for 7 p.m. as the Sun Devils look to pick up their first Desert Hockey Classic win.
