No. 12 Arizona State was picked to finish in eighth place out of nine teams in the NCHC before the season started, and a 3-7-1 start to the year seemed to back up the preseason ranking. With injuries hitting the Sun Devils relentlessly in the opening month of the year, it was only a matter of time before they would pick up steam and string together wins, but very few expected them to make a run like they did, finishing second in the conference and hosting the first round at Mullet Arena.

ASU (21-13-2, 16-9-1 NCHC) swept Minnesota Duluth (13-20-3, 9-15-2) in the quarterfinal round of the NCHC tournament in two games, punching its ticket to the semi-finals in St. Paul, Minnesota. Senior forward and goal leader in the NCHC Ryan Kirwan added another goal to his tally, scoring the overtime winner to secure the 6-5 victory.

Head coach Greg Powers called out the veteran leaders of the team after last night’s sloppy play, and they stepped up Saturday night. All six goals were scored by an upperclassman, and ASU has punched its ticket to St. Paul, Minnesota for the semi-final round of the NCHC tournament.

“All the guys who lead us scored tonight,” head coach Greg Powers said. “We built this team the way we do so we could give our fans and the community something to be excited about. Pretty much everybody outside our room didn’t believe we could do this, and we lived up to our internal expectations. We’re two games away and excited to go up there and continue to prove people wrong.”

After the first period ended with ASU down 3-0, Powers decided to switch it up in the crease, replacing senior Luke Pavicich with junior Gibson Homer, who hadn’t played in two weeks. Homer stopped 32 of 34 shots faced, holding off a handful of scoring chances from Duluth in overtime. The tandem goaltending for Arizona State has pulled the Sun Devils through rough patches throughout the season, and they came through again when the team needed them the most.

“I just wanted to see if I could give the guys a little energy,” Powers observed. “Gibby went in and had a big breakaway save, and he held us in it in overtime. We were flat to start, and the way he held us in is incredibly admirable, and we found a way in the end.”

Graduate forward Artem Shlaine is a finalist for NCHC Player of the Year, and tonight he showed why. His two-goal performance kept Arizona State in the game and both goals brought Mullet Arena to life, as he’s continued to deliver in big moments. His play on the ice and veteran presence in the locker room has helped his teammates in different ways, and his impact on the program in his lone year as a Sun Devil will be remembered for years to come.

“Everybody can now truly understand why I was so grumpy the first six games we didn’t have him,” Powers noted. “I knew how he was going to be the centerpiece of this team with his leadership and the way he plays. He’s the 200-foot center who wins big faceoffs and lives for the big moment. He proved that tonight, and he’s a hell of a kid.”

ASU has battled through adversity throughout the season, and tonight’s game is another example of the team’s resiliency. The Sun Devils continued to fight through everything that was thrown at them, but the job is far from over. The semi-final round will be a battle, and the Sun Devils will likely need to win both the semi-finals and the championship to receive the auto-bid into the NCAA tournament. They currently sit at No. 15 in the PairWise rankings, with two auto-bid conference champions behind them in the rankings.

“We’ve had some pretty big comebacks here,” Powers acknowledged. “We knew it was nothing we couldn’t accomplish, but the power play pulled through for us to tie it, and the kill was huge for us at the end of regulation. It was a resilient effort, and the fans were unbelievable. The place was rocking as it always is, but to be able to win our last game at home and walk off the ice in front of them and get them excited for next season was a special thing.”

With the Arizona Coyotes playing its final year here in 2024 before moving to Utah, the Arizona hockey community was left with a gaping hole in its chest. In his 15 years as head coach of ASU, Greg Powers has given hockey fans in the Valley something to look forward to, especially in the first year without Coyotes hockey.

While there may not be an NHL team in Arizona right now, hockey in the state is as strong as ever, with ASU advancing in the NCHC tournament. It will likely take a conference championship and auto-bid for the Sun Devils to appear in the NCAA tournament, but they’ll be representing much more than just the name on their jersey every time they take the ice for the rest of the year.

“It means everything,” Powers professed. “I live in the hockey community, and my whole family is a big part of the Junior Coyotes program. To lose the NHL here really sucked for so many good people, so to give to that community and group of people and make them proud of what we’re trying to build here means everything.”

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