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Ebbs and Flows: ASU hockey's power-play more than just a mendable number

With just 16 PPGs on the season, ASU's special teams adds other value than just scoring

20191022 hockey practice 0025

Senior defenseman Brinson Pasichnuk (39) watches a drill during practice on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2019, at Oceanside Ice Arena in Tempe, Arizona.


A number doesn't usually tell the whole story.

With just eight games left of what has been a rather propitious season, ASU has placed itself in a potentially eventful position as the team hopes to make its second consecutive NCAA tournament appearance.

ASU has struggled with finding success when on the power-play, scoring just 16 times out of 103 total opportunities this season—15.5% of the time—which doesn’t sound all that poor.

That is far behind many NCAA programs—Harvard leads the nation in PP% with 28.6, and is one of three teams that has a success rate above 28%.

ASU finds itself tied for 45th in the nation among 60 total teams in PP%.

Senior defenseman Brinson Pasichnuk, who is paired with sophomore defenseman Josh Maniscalco on the first power-play unit, has acknowledged the team's trials and tribulations with the man advantage over the duration of the season.

“What we have to do is simplify (our special teams)," Pasichnuk said. "I don’t think we did that this weekend. I think we were a bit too lackadaisical on the power play and didn’t simplify it ... I think we were just trying to get a bit too cute this weekend and trying to find that open seam that just wasn’t there.”

In the past five games alone, the team has had 13 man-advantage opportunities, but converted on just one of them.

“I think it goes in ebbs and flows," assistant head coach Mike Field said of the power-play. "It’s going to go in, sometimes it’s not, but they’re getting really good looks, taking good shots."

With 89 goals on the season, the Sun Devils sit at fifth in the nation in scoring, even with the power-play struggles.

Attaining that extra level of scoring, though, would be paramount for the remaining games in ASU’s season and their aspirations for a postseason.

“We’re working on it, we’re figuring it out,” Field said. "That (additional scoring is) huge for any team but especially when how good we are 5-on-5, if we can get that one or two goals a weekend on the power play, that would make such a big difference."

Regardless of the fact that a goal won’t come out of every power-play opportunity, players understand how key that chance can serve in turning the tides of a game in their favor.

“If you can kind of wear them down for two minutes and get them scrambling, and getting their bench saying, ‘oh, crap, they’re close’ and getting them back on our heels, I think that’s huge,” junior forward Willie Knierim said. “As long as you generate energy—(even though) obviously you want to find the back of the net—you got to take it a little bit at a time.”

Generating that energy isn’t easy against teams that are remarkable at penalty-killing, but it’s certainly possible, and ASU has been using that to its benefit.

“…What our power play is doing a good job of is they’ve given us energy,” Field said. “So, even if they don’t score, we’re in the zone, we’re buzzing around, the other team’s under a lot of stress, and it kind of gives us a boost. That’s the biggest thing that you want out of your power play; is just to give you a little bit of that energy and be an uplifting thing whether you score or not.”

Power-play goals or not, numbers don't always tell the whole story, and it appears to be the case with the Sun Devil power-play units as the 12th ranked team in the country continues to work for a punched ticket to the 2020 NCAA Tournament.

"I don’t think (we’ve scored on the power-play) in the past couple of games but it’s nothing to freak out about or worry or anything like that," Knierim said. "If we can get the power play going, and make that deadly, I think it’s just another weapon we add to our toolbox and it’s just going to propel us even further.” 


Reach the reporter at aklatsky@asu.edu and follow @averyklatsky on Twitter. 

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