Sun Devils kick off NCHC play at Colorado College

(Photo: Marina Williams/WCSN)

A historic weekend for the Arizona State men’s hockey team is set to begin as the club travels to Colorado Springs for their first National Collegiate Hockey Conference game in program history.

The Sun Devils (3-4-1) have a 6-2-2 record against the No. 8 Colorado College Tigers (6-0-0) in their head-to-head matchups. The two teams squared off last season in Colorado Springs, with the Sun Devils taking a 2-0 win and a shootout win that goes as a 2-2 tie in the record book.

“It’s exciting,” head coach Greg Powers said. “We’ve worked a long time and really hard to get in the league and now it’s starting. It’s against a top-ten team on the road, so it’s a great opportunity.”

This weekend’s series will be the Sun Devils’ third straight series on the road. The stretch of road series started by getting swept by No. 11 Providence then the Sun Devils bounced back the following weekend and swept Northern Michigan, where senior forward Ryan Kirwan scored three of the five Sun Devil goals.

Kirwan now leads the Sun Devils with six goals on the season, which is tied for second-most in the country. All six of Kirwan’s goals this season have also been scored in the final five minutes of regulation.

Goaltending has been a strength for the Sun Devils this season, with junior goaltender Gibson Homer continuing his success from last year with a 2.03 goals against average and .926 save percentage this year and senior goaltender Luke Pavicich has a 2.33 goals against average and a .920 save percentage.

The problem for the Sun Devils has been scoring. This season, the Sun Devils are averaging 33 shots per game but only 2.8 goals per game. With the weekend off from games last week, the Sun Devils took to practice to work on finishing their scoring chances.

“We’ve got to find a way to put the puck in the net,” Powers said. “We’ve run into incredibly good goaltending the last six games so it’s not like we’re not generating against really good teams in tough situations. We’ve just got to find a way to finish.”

And the Sun Devils will not get a break from quality goaltending this week. The Tigers junior goaltender Kaidan Mbereko is coming off back-to-back NCHC Goaltender of the Week awards and boasts a 1.33 goals against average and .940 save percentage.

On top of the stellar goaltending, the Tigers’ lineup also provides scoring depth from top to bottom. Through six games, the Tigers have nine players with four or more points on the season, whereas the Sun Devils only have seven players with four or more points through their eight games played.

Junior forward Gleb Veremyev leads the Tigers with three goals and is tied for the team lead with six points. The other two Tigers with six points on the year are graduate defenseman Ty Gallagher and junior forward Noah Laba.

Another aspect of the game where the Tigers have the upper hand over the Sun Devils is in the faceoff dot. The Tigers own a .559 faceoff win percentage compared to the Sun Devils’ .463.

“It’s just being face-off ready,” Powers said. “Face-offs are not just on centers. Face-offs are just as much on the wingers as they are on the centers. You have to have a plan. You have to know what you’re going to do on a loss and a win and it’s a 50-50 battle for all the guys at the dot, so on partial wins or partial losses, we need our wingers to do a better job and get us more possession. So it’s been a lot of work on that, a lot of video on that.”

The Sun Devils and the Tigers have both faced Air Force and Northern Michigan this season, with the Sun Devils getting a road split with Air Force, winning game one, 8-1, and losing game two in overtime, 4-3. Conversely, the Tigers won both games; a 3-2 victory at home and a 6-1 thrashing at Air Force. As for the Northern Michigan series, the Sun Devils got the road sweep, winning 3-1 and 2-0 and the Tigers sweeping at home with 4-3 and 6-1 victories.

All of that to say this will be a big test right out of the gate for the Sun Devils in NCHC play. Facing the No. 8 team in the nation in their own barn is a tall task, but the Sun Devils are excited to finally take part in conference play.

“We’ve been looking forward to it for a long time,” senior defenseman Ty Murchison said. “I know when I came in as a freshman, the goal was always to get into a conference and for it to finally happen and be the best conference in my final year, it’s a dream come true.

“All these guys get the honor and the opportunity to compete in that game,” Powers said. “It’s on us to write the script, not to let them dictate how it goes. We need to go in and dictate how this goes, and we have the team that can do it.”