Arizona State hockey chases NCAA Tournament bid, ready for an epic matchup with Denver
Arizona State hockey coach Greg Powers’ messaging for the rest of the season is simple yet powerful.
Every time you put on that jersey, it could be your last.
For the many veteran players without eligibility left, it’s a sobering thought.
“We believe if our guys play with that urgency and desperation of not making it their last, we love our chances against everybody,” Powers said. “We’ve been as good as everyone in the country for the last two-thirds of the season and if we play with a certain level of urgency and desperation, we like our chances.”
ASU has another chance to extend its season and potentially earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament at the Frozen Faceoff in St. Paul, Minnesota. The No. 2 Sun Devils will face No. 3 Denver in one semifinal on Friday after taking care of Minnesota Duluth in the quarterfinals last weekend.
Fans can catch Friday's 2 p.m. game on CBS Sports Network.
ASU can remove the guesswork and gain an automatic bid to the 16-team NCAA Tournament with two wins in St. Paul. A loss on Friday or Saturday would put the Sun Devils' fate outside of their control. The current rankings have ASU hovering right around the cut line.
But confidence is evident for ASU. The Sun Devils clawed out of an early three-goal deficit last Saturday in Game 2 against a dangerous UMD team and answered back twice, eventually eliminating the Bulldogs in overtime.
ASU had two different starts in the quarterfinals, but always managed to find offense when needed.
“For the rest of the season, it tells us that it doesn’t matter what the score is,” forward Artem Shlaine said. “If you stick to your plan and keep doing the little things, you’re going to get rewarded. The rest of the time, we’re just focusing on our process and focusing on being good as a team and playing the right way and we surrender the outcome and get the results.”
ASU’s confidence isn’t lost on Denver. ASU has gone 3-0-1 against Denver this season, including a sweep at Denver in November that knocked off the Pioneers as the No. 1 program.
While the Denver sweep was a shock to the hockey community, it confirmed Powers' belief in his team. Since then, ASU has listened to Powers’ message about not letting that sweep be a fluke and building from it.
“They certainly have a belief and a confidence to them that they never feel out of a hockey game. We’ve seen that firsthand against them,” Denver head coach David Carle said. “We obviously saw that on Saturday, being down 3-0 to Duluth and to come back to win the game.
"First and foremost, I think Greg’s done a great job instilling a mindset that they’re never out of anything. You can even look at how their season has gone. Slow start, injuries, not the results they’re looking for. They’ve never been deterred by that.”
Injuries thwarted ASU's start to the season, but once the Sun Devils went to Denver with most of the team back, everything clicked. From then on, the Sun Devils hung in the national rankings and finished second in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference in the regular season.
“We had been playing the right way, we just weren’t getting the right results we wanted," Shlaine said. "But we knew that we had that formula of winning and getting the job done. At Denver, everything just clicked. It wasn’t that we found the formula, we validated it.
"We found out that we were playing the right way the whole way, it just clicked at that moment. Since then, we’ve been doing the same exact thing every weekend and getting results because we validated it for ourselves.”
ASU is 21-13-2 this season and went 14-9-1 in NCHC play. Denver is 28-10-1 overall and went 15-8-1 in NCHC conference games. The Pioneers dropped the first game against Colorado College, but won the last two to advance from the quarterfinals.
ASU forward Kyle Smolen missed Saturday’s game with an undisclosed injury and spent three days in the hospital for precautionary reasons. Smolen could be available after this weekend if the team advances to the NCAA Tournament. Smolen has 29 points (12 goals, 17 assists) and is sixth in scoring.
The winner of Friday's game will take on No. 1 seed Western Michigan or No. 4 seed North Dakota in the championship of the Frozen Faceoff on Saturday, with the winner of that game earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Saturday's game time is set for 5:30 p.m. MST.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ASU hockey chases NCAA Tournament bid, has epic matchup with Denver
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