ASU Hockey: 2017-18 Season Preview

ASU Hockey is about to begin its second full NCAA Division I season taking on some of the nation’s top teams again this year.

This year, ASU hockey dives into its second full D-I schedule in program history. The Sun Devils are set to play six, potentially seven, currently ranked teams this regular season, according to uscho.com.

ASU will play 34 regular season games this season. There are 16 home games on the schedule, including three at Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona.

The Sun Devils have a two-game series against No. 10 Penn State on Nov. 17 and 18, and their game on Jan. 20 against No. 17 Quinnipiac will be the three games played at Gila River Arena.

“It’s by design,” head coach Greg Powers said about the tough schedule. “We have shown that we are not afraid to play anybody. It’s only going to make us better, so we want to play the best teams we possibly can.”

Powers will be going into his tenth overall season as a coach for Sun Devil Hockey and his third as head coach with the NCAA D-I Hockey team. Last season, Powers led the team to a 10-19-3 record in the team’s first season with a full D-I schedule.

Greg Powers and the Sun Devils won their first ever AHCA D-I National Championship in the 2013-2014 season. He has a 184-69-17 career record and is an Arizona State alum, having graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in 1999.

Assistant coaches Mike Field and Alex Hicks will join Powers, along with volunteer coach Andrew Matheson. The Sun Devils have Adam Blossey as director of operations and Garnet Exelby, a former NHL defenseman, as their strength and conditioning coach. The team also added equipment manager Jon Laughner over the summer.

Leadership

Redshirt junior forward Dylan Hollman will be wearing the ‘C’ on his sweater for the second straight season. He will be joined by alternate captains, junior center Anthony Croston and redshirt junior right wing Louie Rowe.

“It’s a tough job getting a leadership role in a new program where you’re trying to establish a culture and an identity,” Powers said. “Those guys have helped us establish it. They do everything right on and off the ice; great students, great leaders. They deserve to get the letters again.”

All three captains played in every game of last year’s 32-game regular season. Each of them understand the importance of his role to the team.

Assistant captain Anthony Croston picked up fire in the second half of last year’s season. The Phoenix-native led the team in goals (10) and plus-minus rating (+3), and tied for the lead in points (21).

“It’s a big role to have,” Croston said about having the ‘A’ patch. “We’re an up-and-coming program.”

Croston is wanting to help make the program go in the right direction. “The end goal is to win national championships right now,” he said.

Dylan Hollman played his first season for the Sun Devils last year after sitting out the 2015-16 season due to NCAA rules after transferring from UMass-Lowell. The captain finished with five goals and tied for the team lead in assists with 12.

“The expectation to win this year is way higher than it was last year,” Hollman said. “We are a bigger and stronger team this year so we want to use our physicality and strength. I think we can really overpower a lot of teams and hopefully we can do that on every Friday and Saturday of every series.”

Louie Rowe brings a lot of size to ASU Hockey standing at 6-foot-6 and weighing 235 pounds. He was fifth on the team in total scoring in 2016-17, tallying seven goals and 10 assists.

Rowe is ready to continue playing alongside Hollman and Croston as the three of them usually share a line.

“I think we have a ton of chemistry,” he said. “We really had a lot of success at the end of last season and started picking up more leadership roles. Our confidence is up and our chemistry is always there, so we are feeling it right now.”

Fresh Faces

The Sun Devils welcome 10 newcomers to Arizona State. Eight freshmen will be getting ice time this 2017-18 season along with Gage Hough, a graduate transfer from UMass-Lowell.

Forward Austin Lemieux has decided to redshirt and will not play this season. He is the son of Pittsburgh Penguins legend Mario Lemieux.

The nine freshmen give the Sun Devils the ninth-best recruiting class in the nation, according to neutralzone.net. Powers wants his new players to buy into the team’s identity, which he describes as “hard and heavy”, and “fast and strong”.

“A lot of these guys had choices and other options to go to school elsewhere,” Powers said. “The opportunities to come here and play right away and serve a purpose play a significant role.”

One of the nine freshmen the Sun Devils expect to make an early impact is Phoenix-native Johnny Walker. He won the 2017 Clark Cup with the Chicago Steel as their captain in the USHL.

“Johnny’s a great player,” Powers said. “He brings more than just his skillset to the table. I think he takes a tremendous amount of pride in putting that jersey on because he’s from here.

Arizona State also added two Latvian skaters over the offseason.

Freshman forward Filips Buncis is from Jelgava, Latvia. He was the captain for the Johnstown Tomahawks during the 2016-17 season, becoming the first European captain in that program’s history. He finished with 11 goals and 25 assists in 46 games for the Tomahawks.

The Sun Devils signed Gvido Jansons, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound defenseman out of Grobina, Latvia. He played in the 2016 World Junior Championships for Team Latvia and scored the most goals by a defenseman (19) in the 2016 NAHL season.

Between the Pipes

Arizona State will have three goalies on the roster this season. The Sun Devils bring back sophomore Joey Daccord and junior Ryland Pashovitz while adding freshman Mike DePhillips.

Joey Daccord finished the 2016-17 season as the best goaltender for the Sun Devils. As a true freshman, he put up a 3-8-1 record, allowing 4.03 goals a game with a .892 save percentage.

He made a program-best 53 saves for the 4-2 win over No. 17 Quinnipiac last season, a team the Sun Devils will meet again this season. In the final NCAA game of the 16-17 season, he posted 54 saves in a 2-2 tie and double overtime win over then-No. 9 Western Michigan.

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“I’m feeling really good,” Daccord said about the upcoming season. “I had a good summer of training, skating, and working out on and off the ice.”

Daccord was drafted 199th overall in the seventh round of the 2015 NHL Entry Draft by the Ottawa Senators. He is the first Sun Devil to be drafted to the NHL with only Arizona State collegiate experience.

Ryland Pashovitz adds depth in net for the Sun Devils. He finished his sophomore season with a 2-6-0 record, a .880 save percentage and 4.64 goals against average.

Pashovitz started three-straight games against top-10 opponents from Jan. 6-13, which included 70 total saves in back-to-back games vs. then-No. 3 Denver. Look for him to split time with Daccord.

Daccord and Pashovitz are happy to welcome freshman Mike DePhillips into the goalie mix for the Sun Devils. DePhillips spent the 2016-17 season with the PAL Jr. Islanders in the USPHL Premier league.

Tournaments

The Sun Devils will travel to Pittsburgh for the Three Rivers Classic from Dec. 29-30. The other teams include No. 11 Providence Friars, Robert Morris and Lake Superior State.

ASU will play the Friars first, and then the second game will be determined by win or loss.

Just a week later is the Ice Vegas Invitational from Jan. 5-6. ASU joins Northern Michigan, No. 13 Boston College and Michigan Tech for hockey in the city that never sleeps. The Sun Devils will take on Northern Michigan for their first game, and then the second is also determined by win or loss.

Arizona State will not be making an appearance at the third-annual Desert Hockey Classic this season.

Notable Games

• No. 17 Air Force – Oct. 13-14 / Colorado Springs, Colo.
• Alabama-Huntsville – Nov. 3-4 / Tempe, Ariz. / Oceanside Ice Arena
• No. 10 Penn State – Nov. 17-18 / Glendale, Ariz. / Gila River Arena
• No. 5 UMass-Lowell – Jan. 12-13 / Tempe, Ariz. / Oceanside Ice Arena
• No. 14 Quinnipiac
  • Jan. 19 – Tempe, Ariz. / Oceanside Ice Arena
  • Jan. 20 – Glendale, Ariz. / Gila River Arena
• No. 2 Boston University – Jan. 26-27 / Tempe, Ariz. / Oceanside Ice Arena
• Michigan – Feb. 23-24 / Ann Arbor, Mich.

“We can expect great things this year and we are going to get off on a great start,” sophomore defenseman Brinson Pasichnuk said.

Next: ASU Hockey: The Sun Devils earn exhibition win over NAIT

ASU will start off the NCAA regular season this weekend on Oct. 6 and 7 with a two-game home series against UMass-Amherst. Both games will have the puck dropped at 7:05 p.m. MST on Friday and Saturday.