Saturday night at Oceanside Arena in Tempe provided for another high-intensity, down-to-the-wire game between No. 2 ASU and No. 6 Lindenwood.
The Sun Devils entered the series with a 1-15 record overall against Lindenwood.
That didn’t seem to matter much to coach Greg Powers and his revamped team.
The ASU hockey team left the weekend 7-0-0 overall after a 5-3 victory Saturday night.
Coach Greg Powers and staff were much more pleased with his team’s performance on Saturday compared to Friday.
“Way better, much cleaner, much more disciplined, and (we) slowed them down in transition,” Powers said. “We played well.”
To come out and play more disciplined was Powers’ main goal, as the Sun Devils have struggled with players in the penalty box against good teams.
ASU had six penalties in the last two periods on Friday night, and Lindenwood scored a goal on five of those six times the Sun Devils were in the box.
ASU only committed six overall penalties in the game, but the defense and sophomore goaltender Corey Frank made the difference on Saturday.
Frank saved 28 of Lindenwood’s 31 shots on goal, and did so in style.
“We took care of the defensive zone (tonight),” Powers said.
ASU’s defense did, especially well with the power kill against Lindenwood compared to Friday night's match.
The Sun Devils also cleared loose pucks effectively in front of Frank all night, which had resulted in a few goals Friday night.
For the offense, ASU always seems to have one guy that’s in the zone resulting in a multi-goal game.
Saturday seemed to be the rookies' night to shine, as freshman forward Stephen Collins scored two goals and freshman defenseman Jordan Young was credited for three of ASU's five goals.
“I think we had a great night and great effort,” Collins said. “We wanted to get shots on net and put the rebounds in.”
Last night’s stars — junior forward’s Colin Hekle and Danny McAuliffe — shared the other two goals.
The Sun Devils were happy to get a clean sweep of top-ranked Lindenwood and keep the winning streak on the season alive.
“You sweep Lindenwood, you got to be happy about it,” Powers said with a grin. “We’ve had a tough stretch with two really tough teams in Iowa State last week and Lindenwood.”
With the team a little roughed up, Powers hopes to get his team healthy and ready for next week’s matchup against D-II San Diego State (4-1-0).
Reach the reporter at msterrel@asu.edu
