The holiday season is looming, and Arizona State students, fans, and alums have been spoiled, to put it mildly. The football team is en route to Atlanta, Georgia, to play in the Peach Bowl, volleyball won the Big 12 in its first year in the conference, Bobby Hurley and the basketball team are 8-1, and Greg Powers and company are setting the tone in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC).
Related: Arizona State Wins Fifth Straight With Sweep Over Minnesota Duluth
Powers, the 15th-year head coach at ASU, has been through the mud during his tenure, and this season is no different. Just a couple of weeks ago, the team held a 3-7-1 record and looked outmatched in the NCHC, causing much doubt that their jump to the ‘SEC’ of college hockey was the right move.
Since then, the Maroon & Gold have won five straight, including a sweep over the nation’s best team, Denver University. Netminder Luke Pavicich has been on fire since his reign over the net, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be asking for anything. Let’s look at what could be under the tree for the Devils as the countdown to Christmas begins.
A Healthy Roster
In sports today, injuries can be the rope that holds teams back from reaching their full potential; luckily for the Sun Devils, that hasn’t quite happened this season, though it’s affected them negatively. At the start of the season, the New Jersey Devils 2020 fifth-round pick, Artem Shlaine, was sidelined and now has been a force to be reckoned with along with Ryan Alexander and Kyle Smolen on that third line.
They’ve had a couple of guys go down for a game or two, like Bennett Schimek, but most notable is the Pittsburgh Penguins 2022 fourth-round Cruz Lucius, who has yet to play a game with the Devils this season. Last season, he led the Wisconsin Badgers in points at just age 19.
While it hasn’t hindered the team much, especially recently on their five-game winning streak, getting healthy will be key in making a run at the NCAA tournament next spring.
An Improved Power Play
As we sit here today, Powers and company have an 18.8% power play, which has them tied at 32nd with Miami of Ohio and Niagara Univeristy. Similarly, with injuries, while it has yet to affect them a whole ton, it’s not best practice to be this far down in the rankings.
It’s also a fair question to ask: will Lucias help revive the power play? He played a massive part in the Badgers’ power play, and leading the team in points as a freshman in the Big 10 is no easy feat. It’s also a testament to players like Cullen Potter; what does the second half of his freshman season look like? Or a guy like Lukas Sillinger, the senior who led the Sun Devils in points last season, hasn’t quite had that spark this season; maybe that’ll be found in the second half.
As you can see, there are many questions and few answers. Hopefully, though, as the season progresses, the power play will be a strength rather than a weakness.
Continue Heading Strong in Pairwise Rankings
The Pairwise rankings are, in short, the rankings that determine the teams that qualify for the NCAA tournament in spring. At first, six teams are selected for the tournament; those six are conference winners and get an automatic bid. Then, the following ten highest-rated teams will be selected for the tournament.
ASU currently sits second in the NCHC. There’s a chance they win the conference and get an automatic bid, but that’s not certain for anyone in the conference, given how games have gone this season. So, they would need to be 16 or above, or somewhere around that range or higher, just to be safe. The Maroon & Gold right now sit at 16 in the Pairwise rankings, and with still plenty of games to be played, this isn’t terrible.
They’ll need to continue stacking conference wins atop conference wins if they want to continue to see that number rise, and making the NCAA tournament would be yet another accomplishment for the program.
Christmas Quickly Approaching for the Sun Devils
As we count down the days until Christmas (ten days when this is published), the Sun Devils, as they are currently positioned, have climbed back into the NCHC standings and the Pairwise rankings. As previously mentioned, Lucius will be back in early 2025, providing a prodigious boost for the Maroon & Gold. After playing five out of eight series away, they’ll see home ice much more next year, including their fifth annual Desert Hockey Classic duel with Cornell University, Robert Morris University, and the University of Massachusetts.
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