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ASU men's hockey has another bye week before taking on Princeton

The Sun Devils have a week off after their first series win against Holy Cross

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ASU junior forward Anthony Croston (18) drives down the ice during a game versus Northern Alberta Institute of Technology at Oceanside Arena in Tempe, Arizona on Saturday, Sept 30, 2017.


ASU men’s hockey (3-8-3) has another bye week ahead after achieving its first series win against Holy Cross (5-4-6) last weekend.

The Sun Devils won their first game on the road after beating Holy Cross 3-1 and proceeded to tie 3-3 in the next game

“It just gives the team a little confidence,” freshman defenseman Jacob Wilson said. “I think we’re starting to find our game, which is good and now we know how we have to play if we want to win games. We’ve just got to take that and mold our game after it.”

ASU was also able to demonstrate a stronger game in regards to shots on net last weekend as well. 

The Sun Devils tied Holy Cross in shots 31-31 in the first game and were outshot by them only 42-31 in the second. ASU has now had 30 shots or more in six games this season.

“We’ve been working on that in practice and making sure we shoot from anywhere so I think that’s carried into our game,” junior forward Joe Lappin said. 

The Sun Devils also found a lot of success while on the penalty kill. Holy Cross was given eleven power plays over the course of the two games and ASU killed them all. 

ASU was not able to capitalize on any of their power plays either, but they only had four in those two games. 

“It’s just a mindset and confidence," head coach Greg Powers said. “They’ve been confident really all year, and I think we’re now in the top 20 in the country in the penalty kill. Now, we’ve got to find a way to find some confidence on the other side of special teams and when we do, we’re going to be hard to beat.”

The Sun Devils have killed 100 percent of all penalties over the last three games, which includes the two games against Holy Cross and the second game against Penn State, for a total of 16 killed in a row and now have a season kill percentage of 84.4 percent

“When we get that stat, the coaches love it and the guys love it. For us, that’s just a stat that kind of shows hard work,” sophomore goalie Joey Daccord said. “Penalty killing isn’t always pretty, and it is just great effort by the guys. To be honest, they made my life super easy on that end. I didn’t even have to make any extraordinary saves or any saves that I shouldn’t be able to make.”

Daccord has made 30 or more saves consecutively in the last five games and in 10 of 13 games played this season. 

As for this week, ASU needs to take more advantage of the time it has off more than it did the last time there was a bye week before playing Penn State. Those games ended in 7-0 and 4-2 losses respectively. 

“Rest is good. We just have to make the most of our time off,” Powers said. “We thought we had an incredible two weeks of practice prior to Penn State and it didn’t translate into the Friday game. Sometimes, it takes time for good practices to start to consistently translate into how you play in the games. In the second game against Penn State, it started and then we had a good weekend this past weekend.”

After their weekend off, the Sun Devils will face Princeton in a two-game series at home. 

“This week we’ll mostly be working on skills and stuff – working on our shots and working on making plays,” junior forward Anthony Croston said. “Next week, we’ll get back to our systems, our game plan and how we’re going to play. Hopefully, that’ll get us to be prepared for Princeton. 

Princeton (4-5-1), on the other hand, has already played one game this week in which they lost 6-2 to Quinnipiac. They will also play one game against Dartmouth and one against Harvard over the weekend.

ASU will take on Princeton at home on Friday, Dec. 8 and Saturday, Dec. 9. 


Reach the reporter at pburnell@asu.edu or follow @paige_burnell on Twitter.   

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