No. 17 Sun Devils rout Lindenwood in heated affair

(Photo: Marina Williams/WCSN)

Tempe, AZ – Sun Devil hockey (18-6-6) flexes its offensive mussels, defeating the Lindenwood Lions (5-14-4) by a final of 5-1.

After coming up with only a tie a night ago, ASU hockey came out flying in game two with a strong team effort—four different Sun Devil players combined for the five goals in a game that literally saw it all. The two teams combined for 139 penalty minutes, most of which came late in the third period.

After the Sun Devils had put up their fifth goal of the night in the third period, already heated tempers started to boil over. Coming to just under seven minutes to play a line brawl broke out when graduate forward Adam Conquest threw a punch on freshman forward Cole Gordon; what ensued after was pandemonium between the two teams.

“It got a little chippy there at the end, but it’s a good team win and balanced scoring,” head coach Greg Power said post-game. “Gibby did a hell of a job for us making some big saves early, and it really settled our guys down, and once we settled in, we kind of took over the game, I felt like, and it was just a good team win.”

A goaltending change was in store for the Sun Devils after night one. Head coach Greg Powers assigned sophomore Gibson Homer the task of standing up to the Lions, and he did, allowing only one goal on 34 shots faced.

“Obviously TJ’s, hell of a goalie,” Homer said. “But my role on the team is whenever I get put in, I got to do my job, and so the team has faith in me. I’ve just been doing my role, doing my job.”

While Homer did his job in the net, the Sun Devil penalty kill did their job in front of him, only allowing one goal on eight chances for Lindenwood.

“PK was unbelievable,” Powers said. “They’re unbelievable. [Lindenwood] didn’t generate much on their powerplay except for the one that found a seem there in the third, and Gibby made a big save. The goal was kind of garbage, not so sure it should have counted, but whatever.

“Gibby made all the saves that he’s supposed to make, and that’s what we want out of our goalies is just make the saves your supposed to make and let us take over the game as it goes. Tonight, he did that for us, and that’s what happened.”

It all started with two goals in the first period. Senior forward and Hobey Baker nominee Tim Lovell collected the rebound at the point, skated to his left behind the net, pulling Lindenwoods junior goaltender Trent Burnham with him. Lovell then found senior forward Lukas Sillinger at the bottom of the right circle who hammered the puck past a sprawling Brunham.

Later in the same period, senior forward Mathew Kopperud continued his five-game point streak and two-game goal streak with the goal that gave ASU a 2-0 lead. Sophomore forward Charlie Schoen worked a behind-the-back pass to Kopperud, who was planted just outside the top of the right circle. Kopperud wound up and fired a shot just past Burnham’s outreached glove.

“I thought that we were a little sloppy with the puck, especially in the first period,” Powers said. “We were opportunistic and had a couple of nice goals, but I didn’t like how we were breaking pucks out. We were shaky breaking, pucks out, and just a little bit off right; we weren’t connecting like we want to when we’re really crisp.”

After that, it was a period and a half of clean and controlled hockey for ASU. Junior forward Jackson Niedermayer netted two goals to give Arizona State a 4-0 lead. Niedermayer generated a turnover in the defensive zone for the Sun Devils that gave him the space he needed to fly down the left side boards and into the offensive zone, firing his shot at the top of the left circle past Burnham. That goal also spelled the end to Burnham’s night, and he was replaced by freshman Matthew Syverson.

The momentum continued as Arizona State killed off a five-minute major and game misconduct penalty taken by sophomore Charlie Schoen.

Then, if getting one past Burnham wasn’t enough, Niedermayer put his second goal of the night past the blocker of Syverson thanks to a backhanded pass from sophomore forward Ryan Alexander.

“Playing with Lucas and Ryan, they’re both great players,” Niedermayer said. “I think [Sillinger] kind of gave [Alexander] a push there to get ahead of the D-man. That’s good play by [Sillinger] too. Then [Alexander] finding me just going to the net, I know he’s gonna get the puck on my stick, so credit to those two. They set it all up, and I had the easy part.”

Early in the third period, junior defenseman Ethan Szmagaj gets a greasy goal in front of Syverson to bring ASU up 5-0. Lindenwood found a way to get a cheap power play goal at the end, snuffing out Homer’s chance for a shutout. However, it allowed freshman goaltender and ACHA call-up Chase Hamm to play the last three minutes for his first time in a Division I game.

“It’s huge, right,” Niedermayer said when asked how satisfying this game was. “You scrap and claw all day yesterday. They score one, we score one, they score one, we score one, going through that it’s draining for sure. But, it’s all about how you respond, and we responded well today, and credit to [Homer] he kept us in it. Just watching him work every day in practice, he’s a hell of a goalie, and we’ve all faith in him; he won us that game.”