The puck dropped with uncertainty about the outcome of Arizona State’s 2018-19 season last October. But after winning a combined 18 games on the program’s first two full division I schedules, the Sun Devils have climbed to national prominence with a historic and successful regular season.
A 21-win turnaround in just its third full division I year has ASU awaiting a spot in the 2019 NCAA Tournament. It didn’t come easy, but the groundwork was all that was needed for the program to take flight.
“We’re not shocked at all,” co-captain Brinson Pasichnuk said. “We were expecting this.”
Even if the high expectations weren’t there from critics in the preseason, the entire locker room of ASU hockey players believed in making a tournament run. And they set the bar from the beginning.
“I knew we had a good team. I knew we were going to win some games,” head coach Greg Powers said. “We play hard, we play with a chip, we’re physical.”
It was five months ago when Ohio State entered Tempe as the then-No. 1 team in the country. In the first true test for the Sun Devils, they suffered two losses that left a nasty, new taste in their mouth.
But it was clear this year’s team could compete at a high level with the best of the best in the NCAA. There wasn’t any satisfaction in losing anymore from then on.
“The program is at a point now where we talk about being the tradition,” forward Johnny Walker said after one of the losses against OSU. “There’s no more moral wins. We expect to beat the number one team in the country. I think that’s a tribute to where this program is and how far it’s come”
The team then went out east for the first time all season for a battle against then-No. 6 Penn State to start off November. The second-newest school in NCAA D-I has become a working model from the same blueprint that coach Powers has used to build ASU.
But after two straight series of getting pushed around by the Nittany Lions, the Sun Devils went punch for punch with them the third time around. In the second game of the series, Walker became the hero with a breakaway goal to win it in overtime and history was made as ASU achieved its first victory over a top-10 team.
The emergence of Johnny Walker added more identity to the team. The young sophomore got off to a rocketing start to the season and propelled the upward trend of Sun Devil Hockey.
His knack for finding the back of the net eventually put him on top of the leaderboards as the nation’s leading goal-scorer. Walker remained in first place for over three months until he missed the final regular-season series at Minnesota, still finishing tied for second with 23 goals.
Another Big Ten opponent in Michigan State marched into Oceanside Ice Arena the following weekend after the emotional victory at PSU. The Sun Devils then protected home ice and came out with a sweep, their first against a team in that conference.
Pasichnuk said afterward, “People would always ask me when I first committed here my first two years, ‘Why did you go there? You were committed to Vermont, you had other options.’ Well, it’s funny how no one is asking me that now.”
After that series, Sun Devil Hockey was ranked in the USCHO polls for the first time ever at No. 18.
ASU improved to 9-3 overall and 4-0 at home since being swept by Ohio State. It was evident that the quirkiness of Oceanside was quickly becoming an advantage.
They not only protected it but poured it on at home offensively this season. The goal horn sounded off nearly four times a game in front of an ASU crowd.
“We all know this isn’t a division I-caliber facility, but it’s our home,” Powers said after ASU’s final home series. “And what teams in the past viewed as an obstacle, we’ve now viewed the obstacle as the way. It’s the way of success and we’ve protected home ice this year in a major way.”
Going on the road was no longer a liability either. The program went on to pick up massive, season-defining overtime wins at Harvard, thanks to Walker, and Princeton, courtesy of senior Jake Clifford.
The Sun Devils traveled to the northeast six times throughout the season, including a stretch of three trips in a row. Despite being the only independent school in D-I, the program hasn’t backed down from creating a challenging slate of games the past three years.
“With our difficulty of schedule, the amount that we travel, the back-to-back trips in some instances to the east coast, to go .500 on the road is a tremendous accomplishment, it really is,” Powers said.
And when placed in high-pressure situations, ASU showed resilience time and time again. A total of four overtime games turned into four victories alongside a moral shootout victory over then-No. 3 Minnesota State in the 2018 Desert Hockey Classic.
The hump of not being able to finish in close contests was finally conquered by the Sun Devils, with a majority of tight victories coming over schools that have competed for a national championship in the past.
“This year, I think winning pushed us so close together,” freshman PJ Marrocco said. “Winning solves a lot of problems. And when we kept winning, it was awesome.”
With a highly regarded leadership group already in place, ASU’s top 20-ranked recruiting class thrived. The freshmen were able to contribute over a quarter of the team’s points in the regular season with the highest producer of the first-year group being Calgary Flames draft pick Demetrios Koumontzis with 20 points.
In January came arguably one of the biggest moments of the season so far. ASU’s Walker and junior goaltender Joey Daccord were nominated for the coveted Hobey Baker Memorial Award that’s annually given to college hockey’s most valuable player.
It’s the first time any ASU players have been nominated. And Walker finished top-10 in the fan vote that closed on March 10.
But Daccord has been the backbone of the working parts that have made the Sun Devils so successful this past regular season. The goaltender’s stellar play tremendously helped ASU pull off the historic season and also put him on the watchlist for the Mike Richter Award that goes to the most outstanding goalie in NCAA D-I.
The Ottawa Senators draft picked could’ve gone to just about any school in the northeast if he wanted to but chose ASU knowing there was a real chance for the program to compete in a national tournament.
“Nobody outside of our program really thought we could do it and thought we’d even have a chance to be in the mix at the end of the season,” Daccord told NBC Sports. “It’s so special and it’s the reason I came here.”
His regular season concluded with 21 wins, seven shutouts and a .926 save percentage.
ASU’s “founding fathers” made a special impact down the stretch of the historic run. All of the five seniors committed to coach Powers and the program with aspirations of making the NCAA Tournament in their college careers
“21 wins, third full season of NCAA hockey, fourth overall. It’s a credit to these five guys and what they’ve built here and certainly that locker room for following,” Powers said after his team won on ASU’s senior night.
With dynamic production from Anthony Croston and Dylan Hollman especially, the senior group took the charge in making sure they had a chance to play more hockey for the Sun Devils with a postseason bid.
“When we came here, we knew it was going to be a struggle for a couple of years,” forward and former captain Dylan Hollman said. “But that was our ultimate goal, by the end of our time here, to be an NCAA Tournament-caliber team. And here we are.”
When the winningest coach in college hockey history, Jerry York, was asked if ASU was ready to play in the NCAA Tournament at the beginning of 2019, he confidently said, “Absolutely.”
Now, the Sun Devils await to hear their name called Selection Sunday, March 24th. It will be the first time an independent team receives an at-large bid since 1992.
With so many firsts, the trail ASU blazed this regular season was epically historic. But the journey is not over yet with a shot to bring a national title to the desert.
