Going into this weekend, the Arizona State Sun Devils (5-3) were 1-4-1 in their young division one history against the Quinnipiac Bobcats (4-3), who are currently ranked ninth in the country.
However, tonight’s dominant 4-1 victory by ASU put an exclamation point on a weekend sweep of the Bobcats, in which the Sun Devils outscored them 9-4 cumulatively.
“That was just a really good 60-minute effort by our guys, about as good as you can expect them to play,” coach Greg Powers said. “We play like that, we’re going to win a lot of games. It’s that simple- that’s the effort across the board, top to bottom in every way that we knew we had in us, and we brought it out tonight.”
Last night’s 5-3 victory may have felt significant at the time, but as Powers explained, it would go on to be meaningless if ASU didn’t take care of business again on Saturday.
This isn’t to say a series split with a top 10 team wouldn’t add value to ASU’s case to be ranked, or to eventually make another NCAA tournament appearance this season, but the Sun Devils felt they needed this sweep to truly avenge losing the program’s first NCAA tournament game to this same QU team seven short months ago.
“We have a ton of respect for that program,” Powers said, “and I have a ton of respect for (Bobcats head coach) Rand (Pecknold), they’re really good and they’re going to win a lot of games this year too, but we wanted to sweep them because they knocked us out. One win wasn’t going to be enough. The only way to feel whole again was to go out and have the kind of effort we did tonight.”
Throughout the contest, it seemed like the teams had done a type of “Freaky Friday” role reversal, as ASU played much more like a top 10 team, while QU played much more like an unranked one- especially considering the previous game’s result.
“We possessed the puck tonight,” Powers commented. “Our guys really took care of the puck and managed the puck better than I think we probably ever have.”
The Sun Devils pulled out a wire-to-wire victory, nearly doubling QU’s total shots- the final count was 38-20 ASU- and never looking back once they got the scoring started 8:54 into the game.
It was none other than redshirt sophomore Austin Lemieux, son of Pittsburgh Penguins legend Mario, who tallied the game’s first score, and his first goal of the season for that matter.
True freshman Logan Jenuwine, who scored twice Friday night off of great feeds from teammates, took the set-up role this time around, as it was his break down the left side and perfect cross-ice pass that helped get ASU on the board.
“The chemistry’s there with me and Jenuwine,” Lemieux stated.
Although he didn’t directly set up either of those two Jenuwine goals on Friday, he picked up a hockey assist on both of them, and thanks to that finished the weekend with three points.
After ASU took that initial lead in tonight’s contest, another goal was in short order from none other than junior defenseman Jacob Wilson, arguably the MVP of this weekend’s series.
On an offensive zone attack just two minutes after the first goal, junior forward James Sanchez hit Wilson on a nice pass from the sideboards and Wilson ripped one home from point-blank range between the faceoff circles. This gave the Sun Devils a 2-0 lead barely over halfway through the opening frame.
“Just go to the net, go hard, shoot it on net, good things happen,” Wilson said.
Beyond recording a goal and assist in each game this weekend, Wilson was a stout defensive presence, especially tonight, constantly deflecting passes that came towards ASU’s goal and coming away with loose pucks to generate offense from the defensive zone.
He did not get to play in ASU’s loss at last year’s NCAA tournament, which made the weekend that much more satisfying for the defensive captain.
“It’s a little sweeter being able to play this year against them,” Wilson said, “so, very happy with the win and the way everybody played.”
Besides Wilson, every Sun Devil goal scorer tonight was someone who had not scored in Friday night’s contest. That means seven different players scored ASU’s nine goals this weekend- not bad against a program with the pedigree of Quinnipiac.
“We had balanced scoring this weekend,” Powers commented, “and we wanted our (defenders) to get involved against these guys and they did. When we’re up running a five-man offense like that every time we’re on the ice we’re tough to stop, and it’s fun to watch.”
The Sun Devils proved both tough to stop and fun to watch in the second, as junior forward Johnny Walker scored a rebound goal off a shot from Sanchez to put extend their lead to 3-0. It was Walker’s team-high fifth goal of the season, which was a welcome sight for Sun Devil fans after his quiet showing Friday.
Although the Bobcats would finally score one just over three minutes later, when sophomore forward Michael Lombardi tucked home his second goal of the season 11:41 into the second, the Sun Devils wouldn’t lose their three-goal lead for long.
QU would go on a power-play shortly after scoring, but ASU wouldn’t let that be a turning point, as sophomore P.J. Marrocco, who had two assists in Friday night’s game, got a shorthanded breakaway and masterfully picked his spot to score his goal of the season. It came off a great lead pass from senior defenseman Brinson Pasichnuk, who got the assist, and Powers simply commented, “it was pretty sick.”
The Sun Devils refused to let the Bobcats back into the game in the final frame as well, continuing to get shots and keep the puck in the Bobcats zone for the majority of the final 20 minutes, even if there were no goals in the final frame to show for it.
“Once we put together that first 40 (minutes) the way we did, we were really good,” Powers said. “I’d be hard-pressed to know if we’ve ever played better than that.”
ASU will return to action next weekend when they head north to visit Alaska-Fairbanks for games Friday and Saturday, both scheduled for a 9:07 p.m. puck drop Arizona time.
