Arizona State notches first win of the season in Ice Breaker nightcap

While nowhere near "must-win" territory, last weekend's games against Penn State gave the Sun Devils a rude awakening to open the season.

Friday's matchup with Notre Dame provided the opportunity for a "get right" game, and the Devils took some much needed steps in the right direction, though still not without areas of opportunity.

Tonight's game had a little extra excitement, seeing Samuel Urban get his first career start, representing the goaltender of the future for the Sun Devils.

The Irish started beating a path to the penalty box early, giving the Devils nearly 4 minutes of power play time in the first 10 minutes, but the Devils were unable to capitalize on either opportunity. Then at the 12:22 mark while on a delayed penalty call to Anthony Dowd for hooking, Will Belle was assessed a five minute major and game misconduct for head contact, giving Arizona State an abbreviated three minute major power play

Kyle Smolen came through to give the Devils the first goal of the game at the 16:11 mark, with assists going to Sam Alfano and Logan Morrell. The Devils would double their lead before the intermission break, Noah Powell getting his first goal of the season on an assist from Smolen, and the Devils held a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes.

Arizona State kept the pedal down and extended the lead even further at 53 seconds of the 2nd period when Carmelo Crandell notched his first career goal on assists from Bennett Schimek and Sean McGurn. Notre Dame woke up from their slumber and got on the board 36 seconds later courtesy of Henry Nelson on an assist from Pano Fimis. After a hooking call against Kyle Smolen Paul Fischer pulled the Irish to within 1 on the ensuing power play at 12:32 on assists from Evan Werner and Cole Knuble. Exactly one minute later, the Ben Kevan Show started. The 2025 second round pick of the New Jersey Devils got his first career goal at the 13:32 mark on assists from Sam Court and Carmelo Crandell, ultimately proving to be the game winning goal.

Kevan wasn't done, getting his second goal of the game at 17:53 of the second when Joel Kjellberg sprung him with a long pass in the open ice to bury the breakaway attempt. This goal was extra fun because the secondary assist went to Samuel Urban, getting a very rare goalie assist.

Some concern came for the Devils early in the 3rd when Urban left the game after a scrum in front of the net at the 6:46 mark. Connor Hasley came on in relief and stopped 11 of the 12 shots he faced, the only blemish coming on a goal from Carter Slaggert on assists from Sutter Muzzatti and Axel Kumlin at the 12:10 mark. The teams traded power play chances in the closing minutes but there was no further activity on the scoreboard as the Sun Devils held on for the 5-3 win, moving on to face Alaska in the championship game on Saturday night.

Alaska ground out a tough 2-1 upset win over No. 8 ranked Quinnipiac in Friday's matinee, setting up a consolation matchup between the Bobcats and Irish on Saturday afternoon.

The very deserving Three Stars of the Game were

1. Ben Kevan (2 G)
2. Carmelo Crandell (1 G, 1 A)
3. Kyle Smolen (1 G, 1 A)

Regarding Urban's early exit from the game, Coach Powers stated that Urban was dealing with cramps and attempted to play for about 5 minutes before the Devils took their timeout to sub in Hasley to close out the game. The power play remains the biggest area of opportunity as the Devils went 1-for-6 on the night, putting up an abysmal 2-for-18 to open the season. The bright spot was the emergence of the Crandell-Potter-Kevan line, putting Cullen and Ben on the same line for the first of hopefully many times.

The Sun Devils will attempt to bring home the hardware on Saturday night against Alaska. Puck drop is at 7pm and will be aired locally on Fox 10 Xtra, streaming nationally on NCHC.tv.