(Photo: Grace Johnson/WCSN)
TEMPE — It’s tough to win a game when you’re in the penalty box for almost an entire period, and it might not have cost No. 14 North Dakota the game, but it was one of the contributing factors for No. 16 Arizona State.
Game two between National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) foes ASU and UND was a night-and-day change from game one. Friday night’s contest saw UND take four penalties for eight minutes while ASU took two penalties for four minutes.
However, during Saturday night’s contest, the Fighting Hawks took six penalties for 23 minutes, and the Sun Devils took eight penalties for 16 minutes. Despite what felt like a revolving door to the penalty box, ASU (11-8-1, 6-4-0) hung tough with the Fighting Hawks (12-8-1, 7-3-0) but ultimately fell 4-3 in overtime.
The result means that North Dakota, ASU and No. 7 Western Michigan (13-4-1, 6-1-1) are all tied for first place in the NCHC Standings. However, the Broncos had the weekend off, giving them two conference games in hand on both the Sun Devils and Fighting Hawks.
“Penalties, obviously, it’s just penalties,” Powers said when asked what the biggest change was from Friday to Saturday. “It’s not staying out of the box, and our D, especially in the second period, stop moving their feet, and they’re reaching and a lot of stick penalties, and at the end of the day, we probably didn’t deserve that one, because how many penalties we took, we found a way to be really resilient there and pop two on a five-minute major.”
The five-minute major was a turning point; down 2-1 early into the third period, the Sun Devils got a huge break. Graduate forward and team captain Louis Jamernik V took a five-minute major for elbowing and a 10-minute game misconduct for a hit to the head that he laid on junior forward Cruz Lucius, who was making his return this weekend from injury. Prior to the penalty, the energy felt like it was sucked out of Mullet Arena. The second period had been a revolving door of penalties for ASU, and UND made them pay, going 1-for-3 with the goal being the one to take the lead.
North Dakota opened the scoring 1-0 in the second period, before the Sun Devils capitalized on a mistake from sophomore goaltender Hobie Hedquist. Hedquist collated the puck behind his own net but held onto it for a split second too long, which allowed graduate forward Artem Shlaine to intercept his attempted pass and put it in the empty net while the Sun Devils were shorthanded. Sophomore forward Jayden Perron tacked on one during a power play for UND to make 2-1 before the end of the period.
Things changed in the third. It felt like the five-minute major was a chance for the Sun Devils to right the ship and come back, which they did. Both junior forward Bennett Schimek and Shlaine pounced with two goals in that five-minute span to flip the script. ASU went from down 2-1 to up 3-2. However, the Sun Devils could not hold on to the game late, giving up a six-on-five goal with UND’s net empty.
The Sun Devils failed to win a crucial late faceoff in their own defensive zone, allowing UND to set up offensively. Then, from the right circle, senior forward Cameron Berg beat senior goaltender Luke Pavicich to tie the game with under 30 seconds remaining in the period. It only took freshman forward Sacha Boisvert 2:19 into overtime to light the lamp and win the game for UND.
“We just couldn’t win a faceoff, right,” Powers said. “We had the personnel out there that we wanted. We had [Shlaine] on his strong side, we needed to win one faceoff, and we get six points; we didn’t get it done.”
The Sun Devils were 25-for-58 overall on the night from the faceoff dot, while the Fighting Hawks were 33 for 58.
“That went off one of our guys and in the net; really nothing you can do about that, but we’d prefer for that not to go in and to hold a one-goal lead, but things happen, it’s hockey, not much you can do there,” senior defenseman Ty Murchison said.
Night two also saw a change in goaltending for both slides. Redshirt junior Gibson Homer was given the night off in place of Pavich, while graduate goaltender T.J. Semptimphelter was replaced by Hedquist. Pavicich turned away 32 of 36 shots and Hedquist stopped 21 of 24.
“[Pavicich] was awesome,” Powers said. “He was on point. He deserved to win the game and held us in it. Obviously, a lot of power plays, and he only gave up one, and he never saw it, right? The kid just hit bar down and they did a great job getting net front and screening him. [Pavicich] was awesome, I have no regrets whatsoever about starting him, he was tremendous.”
