TEMPE – Arizona State (4-8-1) returned home on Friday night to host No. 3 Denver (9-3-1) for the first time since the Pioneers ended the Sun Devils’ season last March in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) Frozen Faceoff.
Denver capitalized on the young Sun Devils’ mistakes, scoring a whopping seven goals. Twelve different Pioneers registered points in the team’s sixth consecutive victory, remaining undefeated in the NCHC and the month of November.
“They’re the hottest team in the country right now,” Arizona State coach Greg Powers said. “Tonight they showed us why.”
Just three and a half minutes into the game, ASU sophomore defenseman Sam Court fell trying to keep the puck in the offensive zone. The Pioneers were gifted an odd-man rush setting up junior defenseman Eric Pohlkamp for his team-leading ninth goal of the season.
In the dying seconds of the first, a seeing-eye shot from senior forward Samu Salminen gave Denver a 2-0 lead. Powers and the Sun Devils felt like they played well in the first but had nothing to show for it.
The pioneers wasted no time in the second. Twenty-six seconds into the middle frame, junior defenseman Boston Buckberger threw a point shot on net and went straight past the heavily screened freshman goaltender Samuel Urban.
“We stress the importance of the first two and last two minutes of every period,” Powers said. “Clearly, I need to stress it more because that’s where we lost the game tonight.”
Urban let in another screened point shot, this time to Pohlkamp yet again. The defenseman’s second of the game and 10th of the season was enough for Powers to pull Urban and make way for senior goaltender Connor Hasley.
The goaltending change provided a small spark; just over two minutes later, ASU was on the power play and sophomore forward Cullen Potter fed junior forward Bennett Schimek in the slot. The co-captain made no mistake for his sixth of the season and 40th career college hockey goal, cutting the lead to three.
The Pioneers were unfazed in the final frame, scoring three more on Hasley, including a rare penalty-shot goal from freshman forward Kyle Chyzowski.
Despite Denver recording just one more shot than ASU, the Sun Devil net minders recorded a combined .788 save percentage.
“You hate to blame it on goaltending, they’ve obviously been good for us,” Powers said. “We needed better goaltending than what we got tonight.”
After another discouraging Friday result, the Sun Devils will look to repeat their performance on the road last weekend in Grand Forks against then-No. 6 North Dakota.
“It wasn’t a great result last Friday in a tough environment, and our guys found a way to dig deep and find success on Saturday. That’s what we have to do tomorrow,” Powers said.
The Sun Devils and Pioneers will face off for Game 2 at 5 P.M. on Saturday, with the Sun Devils looking for their first NCHC victory at Mullett Arena this season.
“There’s a lot of really good things we can pull from the tape tonight,” Powers said. “It seemed every mistake ended up in the back of our net.”
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