There never seems to be a dull moment when the No. 12 Arizona State Sun Devils men’s hockey team (17-10-1) and the No. 6 Denver Pioneers (20-7-1) go head to head. The trend continued Saturday night at Mullett Arena when ASU delivered another third-period comeback to force overtime for the second straight night. This time, the Sun Devils secured a 6-5 victory over the Pioneers in the extra frame.
Just a few months ago, Arizona State swept Denver in its home arena, shocking the college hockey world. In Game Two against the Pioneers, after falling 5-4 in overtime on Friday, the Sun Devils earned a series split. ASU finished with nine out of a possible 12 points against the defending National Champions this season.
“We’re down to it right, and we have a hell of a team that shouldn’t settle for anything else than the end of the season in St. Louis,” ASU coach Greg Powers said. “That’s what we’re kind of preaching and to take nine out of 12 from the defending national champs is a tremendous accomplishment for our young program, for our players and they should be really proud of themselves.”
It didn’t take long for the wild rollercoaster of a game to get going. Over two minutes into the first period, Arizona State freshman defenseman Joel Kjellberg’s low shot from the point went off Denver senior goalie Matt Davis’ low pad and landed perfectly for sophomore forward Kyle Smolen, who hammered home the second chance opportunity.
The Sun Devils peppered Davis with shots from all over in the offensive zone, finishing the game with 55 shots on net. ASU looked to benefit from poor rebound control from the 6-foot-1, 195-pound netminder.
“We wanted to throw pucks and bodies at him and create second-chance opportunities,” Powers said. “We felt like we could get a few and we did.”
Less than a minute after Smolen’s goal, the ASU junior forward Cruz Lucius sat for hooking, allowing the best power play in the country a chance to level the score. The Pioneer power play wasted no time, converting on a silky tic-tac-toe passing play that resulted in a back-door tap-in for Denver sophomore forward Sam Harris. The scoreboard read 1-1 after one period.
The Pioneers came out with a strong push in the second period, but the Sun Devils jumped out to an early lead again, thanks to graduate student forward Lukas Sillinger’s breakaway goal at the 3:06 mark. Arizona State’s single-season point leader stripped a Denver defenseman of the puck and slipped it through Davis’ five-hole.
After regaining the 2-1 lead, ASU was off to the sin bin again: Freshman defenseman Sam Court’s slashing penalty opened the door to another Harris power-play marker.
The Sun Devils were awarded two consecutive man-advantage opportunities but they weren’t able to capitalize. To make matters worse, Arizona State senior forward Ryan Kirwan took an interference penalty two seconds into the second Sun Devil power play. Harris completed the hat trick scoring during 4-on-4 to give the Pioneers their first lead of the game. This marked the third time Denver had scored with an ASU player in the box, and every time it was Harris.
Kirwan redeemed himself 7:50 into the third period, ripping one bardown off the draw to tie the game at three. It was his team-leading 19th goal of the season.
Less than three minutes later, the Pioneers took the lead again. Junior forward Aiden Thompson beat a flailing Sun Devils junior goaltender Gibson Homer to give the Pioneers a 4-3 lead. Denver struck again 1:50 later: Sophomore forward Kieran Cebrian scored on Homer point blank and the Pioneers increased their lead to a two-goal margin with over eight minutes left in regulation. Homer’s fifth goal against ended his night. The 6-foot-5, 210-pounder allowed five goals on 29 shots for a .828 save percentage.
Just when it seemed ASU had dug itself too deep a hole, Sillinger delivered another big goal, cutting the deficit to one. It was the Bemidji State transfer’s second of the game and seventh of the season.
“He just wants to win. Silly’s playing hard, he’s playing downhill, he’s moving his feet, he’s managing pucks, he was our best player tonight, he was unbelievable,” Powers said. “He just looked like he had that look in his face that he wasn’t going to let our team lose tonight.”
It wasn’t until a play was reviewed minutes later that everyone knew that the puck had fully crossed the goal line. The Sun Devils managed to erase a two-goal deficit in under four minutes to tie the game at five. Arizona State junior forward Bennett Schimek was the hero in a scrum in front of the net that sent these two teams to overtime for the second time in as many nights.
Schimek didn’t stop there: 1:26 into overtime, he shimmied his way through all three Denver players and was in all alone on a breakaway with the game on his stick. The Providence College transfer tucked the game-winner five-hole to send Mullett Arena into absolute chaos.
“Once I got in on the breakaway, I knew I was going to go five-hole just because that’s what I did on him (Davis) back in Denver … I knew if I got a breakaway this weekend, that’s what I was going to do,” Schimek said.
The Sun Devils sit tied for second place in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference and are No. 13 in the Pairwise rankings. Next up for ASU is a trip to Minnesota Duluth to take on the Bulldogs next weekend.
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