After winning 11 out of its last 12 games dating back to Jan. 11, the ASU men’s hockey team will head to Wisconsin in what will be their final series of the 2019-20 season.
The series means more than just a mere two potential wins for ASU, as it could determine whether the Sun Devils will make their second NCAA tournament appearance in as many years.
Fortunately for the Sun Devils (22-9-3), they are in control of their own destiny and have the opportunity to give themselves the best chance to make the tournament against a Wisconsin team that has won just three of their past 10 games.
Senior forward Brett Gruber, a native of Appleton, Wisconsin, is looking forward to his last regular-season series as a Sun Devil.
“It’s really meaningful for me just because it’s the last two regular-season games I’ll play,” Gruber said. “But, I am going to try and approach it like every other weekend and just focus on each game and trying to get two wins.”
Statistically, the Sun Devils have been the better team this season, as they’ve scored more goals and allowed fewer than Wisconsin has since the beginning of the season. But, the Badgers are a highly skilled team, boasting 12 players that have been drafted by NHL teams, including 2019 first-round forwards Cole Caufield—the team’s leading point scorer—and Alex Turcotte.
“They’re a really skilled team and that’s why they have 12 draft picks,” Gruber said. “I think we have to play our game, and I think we’re a really tough team to play against. If we can continue the way we’re playing, I think we’ll be just fine.”
Wisconsin (11-18-1, 6-15-1-1 Big 10) is ranked at No. 37 in the PairWise Rankings, the official metric to determine which teams make the 16-team tournament at the end of the regular season.
While they have just a 4% chance of making the tournament, ASU is not taking Wisconsin heedlessly, and sophomore goaltender Evan DeBrouwer sees the matchups as a big test for the team.
“(I)t’s going to be a huge weekend, and they’re a really good team,” DeBrouwer said. “Where they stand in the PairWise isn’t really (indicative) of how good they are. We’re going to have to be really good.”
ASU dropped games against lesser teams, notably Mercyhurst, Alaska Fairbanks and Nebraska Omaha, in the first half of the season.
Now, they are a much more efficient team, especially on the power-play—which sits at 19%—and the penalty kill, which has successfully killed the past 41 consecutive penalties.
“The buy-in has been incredible,” DeBrouwer said of the team’s penalty kill. “I think (senior defenseman Brinson Pasichnuk) has blocked more shots than I have over that stretch. The buy-in is just incredible and penalty killing is all about (competition), and that is what our team is best at.”
Junior forward James Sanchez, a member of the team’s top power-play unit, has also contributed to the increase of ASU’s special team effectiveness.
“I think we’re all just very comfortable with each other, and it’s just repetitive,” Sanchez said. “We do the same reps in practice, and we don’t change too much up. We try to create our own space, create our own room and just play hockey.”
As a much-improved team since the start of the year, ASU knows what it will take to end the season strong, especially after the last series of the 2018-19 season, in which they lost both games at Minnesota despite knowing that they’d receive a bid to the tournament.
“(Minnesota) was a learning experience for us last year,” Gruber said. “Last year we kind of knew we were in the tournament, and so we took that last weekend lightly. This year, there are no guarantees in anything … we’re going to give it our all for the last two games.”
As the only returning goaltender from last year’s roster, DeBrouwer saw how ASU’s season began and consequently ended in the tournament loss to Quinnipiac.
But, he is optimistic about the team’s chances of getting another opportunity to return to the tournament and compete for a national championship. That quest, DeBrouwer said, starts with playing Wisconsin this weekend.
“We’re pretty fired up,” DeBrouwer said. “We’re so close, you can almost taste it. Just coming into this weekend, I don’t think there’s any doubt in our minds that we’re going to get the job done. If we do get the job done, our destiny is in our own hands.”
Reach the reporter at aklatsky@asu.edu and follow @averyklatsky on Twitter.
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