Sun Devils fall to 0-3 in NCHC Despite Strong Play

(Photo: Aishling Cavanaugh/WCSN)

Regardless of the result, Arizona State men’s hockey head coach Greg Powers has been complimentary of his team’s performance through its inaugural three National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) games in program history.

To their credit, the Sun Devils have done almost everything right in each of those three contests. Last Friday, they were mere seconds away from a monumental victory at then-No. 8 Colorado College. Less than 24 hours later, they outshot the Tigers 42-21 and put forth a similar performance in their NCHC home opener against Omaha on Friday.

The only issue: ASU lost all of these games. With a 4-2 defeat at the hands of the Mavericks (3-6, 1-2 NCHC), ASU (3-7-1, 0-3 NCHC), the Sun Devils are still winless in conference play. They nearly doubled up the Mavericks in shots but didn’t convert on their opportunities enough while the opposition did.

“Same story last weekend,” Powers said. “Literally a carbon copy of last weekend, maybe even worse tonight. Outshot them 18-5 in the third, I think their only scoring chance was the goal they went ahead on. We played well at the end of the day, our guys have to figure out how to win games.”

This weekend seemed a prime opportunity to get their first conference sweep in program history. Although it’s difficult to win two-straight games over any opponent — Powers has said this on multiple occasions — chances to sweep during NCHC play will be few and far between given its strength, meaning any chance to rattle off consecutive victories over one team becomes even more of a premium.

Entering the weekend, the Mavericks were losers of their last six games, even losing two straight to second-year NCAA program Augustana at home in mid-October. That doesn’t mean Omaha won’t be successful this season per sé, as their two early-season wins over then-No. 14 Massachusetts and then-No. 5 Minnesota point to the contrary.

However, ASU faced a spiraling Omaha team that has been bitten by the injury bug so far this season, and is even without last year’s leading scorer in sophomore forward Tanner Ludtke, and once again came up short.

“We’re getting the shots through,” senior defenseman and captain Ethan Szmagaj said. “Obviously, we’re out-shooting them, but we’re not defending well enough. It’s just another stepping stone that we’ve got to overcome and come together as a team and figure it out.”

Overall, the Sun Devils’ defense was solid. But a few costly miscues that ended up in the back of their net were ultimately the name of the game.

As the clock inched towards the two-minute mark of the opening period, senior defenseman Ty Murchison coughed up the puck to junior forward Cameron Mitchell in the corner. Mitchell quickly fed freshman forward and former ASU commit Chase LaPinta, who rifled a one-timer off the crossbar and behind junior netminder Luke Pavicich.

Although the Sun Devils tied the score in the second, it didn’t last long. With exactly four minutes remaining in the frame, graduate defenseman Noah Beck took an avoidable interference penalty. Omaha only needed 15 seconds to make ASU pay as junior forward Dylan Gratton — brother of Tyler Gratton, ASU’s captain for the 2023-24 campaign — fed sophomore forward Charlie Lurie with a feed that he buried with a one-timer.

Naturally, several errors occur during every hockey game. But when those blunders lead to goals and are the difference in a close affair, they very much become magnified.

“It’s tough,” Powers said. “But at the end of the day, it’s the really egregious mistakes that we’re making that are ending up in the back of our net. Until we stop making them while we’re not scoring, it’s going to keep happening.”

On the offensive side, ASU generated plenty of chances, but few were high-danger. The Sun Devils went 1-for-3 on the man advantage, their lone power play goal came courtesy of a snap-shot from sophomore defenseman Anthony Dowd less than four minutes into the third. But for the most part, those grade-A scoring chances were few and far between.

Sophomore forward Kyle Smolen and freshman forward Cullen Potter, however, were exceptions to this. The two combined for multiple odd-man rushes where Potter’s speed and hockey IQ, along with Smolen’s patience and shot were on full display. The best opportunity for either was Smolen’s look from the slot with about six minutes left in the first; one he took advantage of and had junior netminder Simon Latkoczy, but not the crossbar, beat.

For the most part, the Sun Devils simply couldn’t penetrate Omaha’s defense. They struggled to create traffic in front and were kept to the perimeter of the offensive zone far too often, especially on power plays. Call it puck luck, call it good defensive structure on the Mavericks’ part. No matter the reason, converting on your opportunities just means more in the ‘SEC of College Hockey’.

“It’s hard in life not to be results-focused,” Powers said. “It’s hard. I struggle with it as much as anyone, when you’re going out, playing your opposition and out-chancing them, out-shooting them, you’re 56% on the faceoff dot tonight and you’re not getting the result.”

It’s important to note that ASU has been playing without juniors Charlie Schoen, Cruz Lucius and Bennett Schimek, three of its most talented forwards, due to injury. On Friday, graduate forward Dylan Jackson joined that group, severely depleting ASU’s attack to the point that junior defenseman Tucker Ness was moved up front.

The fact that the Sun Devils have managed to remain competitive in their NCHC games in spite of their depleted talent pool is certainly an impressive one. Powers called this year’s team the deepest he’s had, and he appears to be correct. But with the encouragement that accompanies strong performances against tough opponents comes the expectation that conference wins start showing up on ASU’s record.

To Powers, that expectation is warranted.

“We already knew we could compete,” Powers said. “And we’re showing it with really, really short-handed roster. But again, while we have a lot of scoring out of the lineup, make sure that we’re not making egregious mistakes. That was the focus. That team struggled to score more than us, and we needed to be suffocating. We needed to defend, we needed to have good sticks, we needed to have clean retrievals…

“It’s veteran guys that are making some pretty bad mistakes and unfortunately, they’re all ending up in the back of our net.”