(Photo: Jordan Talley/WCSN)
TEMPE — Graduate student forward Ty Jackson brought the crowd of 5,300+ to its feet after he capitalized on a mistake by the Broncos, giving the Sun Devils a 1-0 lead and that was just the precursor to the bloodbath that would take place in Tempe.
Mullett Arena felt like a playoff atmosphere in Tempe, as a sold-out crowd willed No. 12 Arizona State Hockey (22-6-1, 15-3-1 NCHC) to a 5-3 win over No. 3 Western Michigan (18-11-2, 13-7-1 NCHC).
The battle could very well be a jumping point to a National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) Championship game between the Sun Devils and the Broncos. The game had a playoff feel, the intensity and physicality were high and the overall urgency seemed to reach a different level.
“Playoff Hockey, there’s no more room for error,” sophomore forward Kyle Smolen said. “We have to start playing like every game is [an] elimination because when an elimination game does come, we can’t be unprepared. So it’s just, it’s having that mentality every night.”
Western Michigan came to Tempe with a chance to win the NCHC regular season, something they would accomplish with two regulation wins. Instead, they came away with their first NCHC regulation loss this year. Despite Arizona State’s win, it didn’t move from 15th in the PairWise Rankings.
“To be honest, we gained a lot of ground,” head coach Greg Powers said. “While you may not see an immediate jump, it’s going to help us when it all comes down to the end, when that matters, this win is going to be big for us. It maybe didn’t happen tonight, but the RPI and the margin between, really, us and 11 right now is minuscule, so a win tomorrow, you’ll see some movement.”
The Broncos came out firing, giving ASU everything they had early and immediately tilting the ice in their favor. But senior goaltender Luke Pavicich stood tall and allowed his team to find its footing, and it paid off. Right at the halfway point in the first period, Jackson sent the frenzied crowd to their feet after he capitalized on a mistake by the Broncos to make it 1-0.
The Sun Devils had gotten chances before the 10-minute mark, but graduate goaltender Cameron Rowe, to his credit, turned them away. He was finally beaten after graduate student defenseman Brian Kramer had his pocket picked while trying to skate out from behind the net of Rowe.
Graduate student Lukas Sillinger had forced him to only have one way out after covering the other side. Jackson quickly stepped in Kramer’s path and got a stick on the puck to knock it away. Sillinger picked it up and gave it right back to Jackson at the right circle, who had a wide-open net as Rowe was out of position.
Not even two minutes later, senior forward Ryan Kirwan made it 2-0 — his 100th career point — by beating Rowe on a sharp-angle blocker side. The Sun Devils were outshot in that period, just barely 12 to 11, but it didn’t matter on the scoreboard; they had the lead over the No. 3 team in the country.
At the start of the second period, trouble was brewing for ASU. Just past the six-minute mark of the second period, the Broncos finally got the goose egg off the board. Junior defenseman Samuel Sjolund fired a shot from the point through traffic in front that got by Pavicich. Then, there was another one just before the halfway point, this time from sophomore Alex Bump.
The Flyers draft pick beat Pavicich blocker side, hitting the top corner of the net with little trouble. Through that stretch, it seemed like the ice and game had tilted back the way of Western Michigan. The pace of play was up, and there seemed to be little answer from the Sun Devil bench.
“It was tilted, you know, and it was all really just mismanaging pucks and not making hard plays,” Powers said. “Credit to our fourth line, we put that together so they could get pucks in and four check and finish hits and give us energy and momentum, and they did that. [Junior forward] Tucker [Ness] had a couple big hits. Tony [Achille] had an unbelievable four check where, he got the crowd into it. The next shift, we went up three, two, and a huge game out of those three.”
The fourth line was comprised of sophomore forward Tony Achille, sophomore forward Cole Gordon, and Ness, who is making his first appearance since the North Dakota series in early January. After their shift that got the energy flowing, junior forward Bennett Schimek picked up a loose puck right in front of Rowe and fired it over the sprawling goaltender to tie the game at 3-2 for ASU.
The Broncos netted one quickly to start the third, but Jackson potted his second of the night, putting Arizona State back in front. The Sun Devils never trailed during the 60-minute affair with Western Michigan.
With under two minutes to go and an empty net at the other end, Smolen won a defensive zone face off and fired the puck the length of the ice to seal the deal for the Sun Devils.
“Their face off structure, they don’t have a guy in the middle, and I lost the first face off, and I was like, I just need to change it up, and I saw that the middle of the ice was open, I was like, whatever, I’ll just punt it and see what happens,” Smolen said. “Coach was screaming at me to shoot it on the bench, and I just shot it, and I got some puck luck.”
Pavicich made 39 saves on 42 shots, which was a big reason ASU could stay in this game.
“Luke was phenomenal,” Powers said. “He was steady, he made big saves. He made the saves he was supposed to, he was probably our best player tonight. I challenged him after Duluth to win us a big game and tonight, he did, really proud of him.”
The 33 blocks that the Sun Devils put up in front of him also went hand in hand with the domination in front of the net.
“I was thanking them, hugging every single one of them, or try to get to all of them when I went back in the locker room,” Pavicich said. “You guys see me make saves, but I hope people see that too, those blocks are big time. That’s playoff hockey. That’s how you win hockey games, and that’s what we did tonight.”
