Arizona State continues homestand against Miami-Ohio

After retaining the Desert Hockey Classic championship for a third straight year, Arizona State (11-10-1, 4-5-1 NCHC) will continue their month of home cooking against the RedHawks of Miami-Ohio (11-7-2, 2-6-2 NCHC).

The middle series of the longest home streak of the season brings a familiar opponent, as the Sun Devils split a road series in Ohio at the end of October, giving Miami their first loss of the season after a 6-0 start.

Since that series Miami has scuffled, going 1-5-2 in conference play; their only win coming in overtime on November 21st at home against St. Cloud State. Their non-conference performance has buoyed their outlook, becoming the first NCHC team to participate in the Friendship Four in Northern Ireland, taking home the Belpot Trophy as champions in the process. The RedHawks also played to a 3rd place finish in the Great Lakes Invitational, defeating Ferris State after a tournament-opening loss to Michigan Tech.

Their 11 wins (and counting), are their highest win total since 2017-18, and exceeds their combined win total from the last two seasons (10). The December 1st edition of the USCHO poll saw Miami return to the Top 20 since January 7, 2019. Currently ranked 30th in the NPI, the RedHawks are a team that the Sun Devils need to sweep and claim at least 5 points to keep pace for an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament.

Despite Miami's in-conference struggles, they are not a team that the Sun Devils can afford to overlook. Junior forward Matteo Giampa has been a scoring boost that the RedHawks have sorely needed the last two years, registering 9 goals and 10 assists for 19 points in 20 games played this season. For reference, Miami's scoring leaders last season were Colby Ambrosio and current Sun Devil Johnny Waldron, both registering 20 points in 34 and 28 games respectively. Giampa's 0.95 points per game average is slightly above the numbers he put up in his two seasons at Canisius, tallying 65 points (26 G-39 A) in 73 games played for the Griffins.

Freshmen forwards Ilia Morozov, Kocha Delic, and David Deputy, lead the youth movement for the RedHawks. 11 freshmen dot the roster, and these three have stood out as players with extremely bright fuures. Morozov and Delic have found their homes on the top line with Giampa, while Deputy anchors Miami's second line. A combined 20 G-21 A-41 P make them a serious threat for any goaltender they face.

To speak of this individual scoring, we must also take a holistic look at the entire RedHawks offense. One of the worst scoring teams in the 2024-25 season (1.85 goals per game, 63rd of 64 teams) while only producing 5.15 points per game, Anthony Noreen's team has rebounded in a major way, ranking 12th nationally with 3.45 goals per game, producing 9.15 points per game. 11 players have reached double digit points this season after only 9 all of last season, and scoring has come from the defense as well as the forwards. Vladislav Lukashevich has shown to be an excellent puck mover, setting up plays for the rest of the offense with a team-leading 14 assists, and Michael Quinn has quietly shown his prowess with a 4 G-9 A-13 P line.

After months and months of effort and circling, the Shika Gadzhiev Era in Oxford ended before it had a chance to begin. Coming in as a freshman from the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the USHL, Gadzhiev was never cleared for play by the NCAA, ultimately leaving the RedHawks and returning to Slovakia by way of a pit stop with the Cincinnati Cyclones of the ECHL. In his absence, Matteo Drobac performed admirably to open the season, but has allowed three or more goals in each of his last 5 games, finding himself with a 3.14 goals against average and .898 save percentage despite a 10-7-2 record. After the door closed on Gadzhiev, Miami turned to Canadian juniors and brought in Mathis Langevin from Rimouski Océanic of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. His first game of the season was a success, yielding two goals against Ferris State to clinch 3rd place in the Great Lakes Invitational. At 6'4", his size and movement is enviable, showing excellent mobility in the crease and the abilty to cover both posts with ease.

As announced yesterday, the Sun Devils took a huge blow losing Jack Beck for the rest of the season, and will also be missing Johnny Waldron after he left early on Saturday against Air Force. Sean McGurn and Anthony Dowd will likely be back in the lineup, but look for either Tony Achille to get his first ice time of the season or for Tucker Ness to move back into his hybrid defensive forward position that he took on last season, opening the door for Lincoln Kuehne to see consistent time on a defensive pairing.

These injuries and returns will put more pressure on the top line of Cruz Lucius, Bennett Schimek, and Cullen Potter. Lucius and Schimek rank 1st and 2nd in the nation in scoring with 32 and 31 points respectively, and the 88 combined points ranks as the best scoring line in the nation. They will be looking to lead the Sun Devils to a 6th consecutive home win. A weekend sweep would go a long way towards bringing the Devils into closer competition in the top half of the standings, currently sitting in 5th place with 13 points and chasing Western Michigan (17 points) who will have a tough road series at Denver.

Mullett Arena will be the place to be for all of the action this weekend, Friday's game will start at 7pm with Saturday being a 5pm matinee. Both games can be streamed nationally on NCHC.tv, while Tyler Paley and Alex Coil will carry the action on the radio for Fox Sports 910 Phoenix. Stay tuned here for recaps and to Twitter/X for live game updates all weekend long. As an addition to our weekend preview. Friday morning's episode of Echo From The Buttes will have a special guest in Matthew Buhrmann, Miami beat writer for The Hockey Writers. You can get this episode and all previous episodes on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, iHeart, and YouTube.