Now that Sun Devil hockey has played all 32 of its NCAA games this season, the numbers are in.
ASU hockey had a losing record (10-19-3) and finished below the college hockey median in Rating Percentage Index (44th place among 60 teams), which measures the performance of a team beyond just wins and losses. With that, it’d be easy to brush off the Sun Devils as merely a struggling program.
But in its first season as an NCAA program this year, the Sun Devils won 10 games. That’s more than Penn State’s eight wins in its first full year of Division I play just three years ago (the last team to join NCAA DI before ASU), and now, the Nittany Lions are ranked No. 11 in the latest NCAA poll.
So with that, and with a statistical analysis, evidence suggests the Sun Devils’ poor record might be slightly misleading at first glance.
Here’s what the numbers tell us about ASU hockey:
‘Playing downhill:’ Sun Devils have a winning record when they score first
In games this season when ASU didn’t score first, it went just 2-16-0. When they drew first blood, they were 8-3-3.
“When you get on the board first and you can play downhill, you have more confidence,” Greg Powers, the team's head coach, said. “Our guys just seem to respond better. That’s a metric a lot of teams have, is trying to get that first goal.”
Not surprisingly, 15 of the 18 games in which the Sun Devils didn’t score first were against ranked opponents. In other words, the Sun Devils struggled to get on the board early against better teams, but no matter who they played, they usually came out on top if they could light the lamp first.
ASU’s tough schedule didn't help its record
Powers said repeatedly throughout the season that his team’s difficult, top-ranked-opponent-laden schedule was partly by design to help his team improve.
“That was huge for us,” said senior defenseman Drew Newmeyer. “Obviously, at the time, it was tough playing top-10 teams our first weekend like Notre Dame. But what was good about the tough schedule is we get to the back half and we’ve seen everything. We play a good team like Western Michigan, who we know are really good, but we’ve seen teams just as good as them and beat them.”
When ASU played an unranked team, it went 8-2-1. It’s when it played ranked opponents that things went south: The Sun Devils were just 2-17-2 in those games.
Most of those ranked opponents came in the first half of the season. Newmeyer emphasized that the tough first-half schedule did help them gain confidence for the second half.
“We played some really good games against some really good teams, and I think that’s us just collectively gaining confidence and going into games with an expecting-to-win mindset (rather) than ‘Okay let’s try our best,’” Newmeyer said. “I always felt that once we turned that corner, you could see it in the game. And I think that’s what happened.”
Want to win? Stay out of the box.
As The State Press reported earlier in the season, ASU hockey struggled at times on special teams. Statistics say that the Sun Devils are much more likely to win if they give up five or fewer power play chances to their opponent.
When ASU’s opponents get five or fewer power play chances, ASU is 9-10-3. When the Sun Devils allow more than five power play chances, they’re 1-9-0.
“If you look at the top teams in the country, they’re so good on the power play and they’re so disciplined, so they don’t take many penalties,” Powers said. “They frustrate teams and make teams pay when they get undisciplined.”
In the Sun Devils’ season-opener at Notre Dame, they allowed a season-high 15 power plays. ASU lost 9-2.
“We realized right at the beginning that if we want a chance to beat these (ranked) teams, we have to be disciplined and not take any penalties,” sophomore forward and captain Dylan Hollman said.
Successful power plays bolster chances
When the Sun Devils scored even one goal on the power play, they were 7-6-2 this season. Without a power play goal, they were 3-13-1.
“There’s no question that special teams is huge,” Hollman said. “I think there were times at the beginning of the year where not only were we not scoring on the power play but we weren’t even using it to generate any momentum for us. But when our power play’s clicking, it seems like everything else just follows right after that.”
Winning comes with experience and schedule relief
Through the first half of the season (16 games from Oct. 7 to Dec. 2), the Sun Devils were outscored by their opponents 78-38 for a -40 goal differential. In the second half (16 games from Dec. 3 to Feb. 4), they outscored their opponents 53-52 for a +1 goal differential. That does include their combined 15-1 weekend in two wins over Division II Southern New Hampshire, but is still a marked improvement.
“I think when you come in with a whole new team like we did this year, there’s going to be some growing pains in the beginning,” Newmeyer said. “I think we dealt with that and continued to press forward and keep focused on ourselves. In the last half of the year you could really see that.”
Reach the reporter at matthew.layman@asu.edu or follow @Mattjlayman on Twitter.
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