Sun Devil Hockey gears up to host the 2025 Ice Breaker Tournament

The opening weekend of the season has come and gone, and the Sun Devils received a harsh welcome to the new year in the form of national champion favorite Penn State, losing by 6-3 and 4-2 scores to start the season 0-2-0. Even with the losses, the Devils did not falter in the polls, only slipping one spot to No. 15 in the latest USCHO poll.

Up next for the Sun Devils is the highly sought after Ice Breaker Tournament, considered to be the annual start of the college hockey season.

What is the Ice Breaker Tournament? First played in 1997, College Hockey Inc. first envisioned this tournament as an exhibition to showcase four highly ranked teams at the start of the season, each representing a different conference in the college hockey landscape.

After the first tournament, it was included as part of the regular season and considered exempt from scheduling limitations, meaning teams are eligible to play up to 36 games as part of their regular season schedule instead of the usual 34. As such, this tournament has been a goal for many programs across college hockey, both to play in and host.

Arizona State submitted their candidacy to host when Mullett Arena opened in 2022, and College Hockey Inc. awarded the 2025 edition to the Sun Devils last December. Completing the four team field will be Quinnipiac (ECAC Hockey), Notre Dame (Big Ten Hockey), and Alaska (Independent). An NCHC team has been included in the Ice Breaker field in every edition since 2014, with the last three champions coming from the NCHC (Denver 2022, North Dakota 2023, Omaha 2024).

Spread out over two days, Quinnipiac and Alaska will open the tournament on Friday, followed by a clash between the Sun Devils and the Fighting Irish. Opponents for Saturday's consolation and championship games will be decided based on the results of Friday's games.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Without any further ado, let's take a look at the opponent for the Sun Devils on Friday night. The Fighting Irish will be playing their first games in the Brock Sheahan era following the retirement of Jeff Jackson. The Irish had a touch season in 2024-25, struggling to a 12-25-1 record and a last place finish in the Big Ten with a 4-19-1 record. Predicted to finish last in the Big Ten again, the Golden Domers are hoping that the change at head coach can improve their fortunes.

Cole Knuble (son of Stanley Cup champion Mike Knuble) and Danny Nelson return the offensive power for the Irish. Knuble led the team in scoring last season with 39 points (12 goals, 27 assists), with Nelson establishing career highs with 13 goals and 13 assists for 26 points. Outside of those two however, the Irish struggled on offense from the forwards last season. 2.7 goals per game ranked last in the Big Ten and 37th nationally. New additions Sutter Muzzatti, Evan Werner, Cole Brown and Pano Fimis could provide some help to spread out the scoring.

Defensively, the Irish return a solid core. Paul Fischer provides a bit of a two-way threat, registering two goals, 19 assists and 21 points last season. Axel Kumlin brings even more of an offensive edge to his game, also tallying 21 points last season with 6 goals and 15 assists. Henry Nelson, Jimmy Jurcev and Michael Mastrodomenico round out a deep blue line for Notre Dame.

Goaltending will be the weak area for Notre Dame. Nicholas Kempf returns as the incumbent starter in net, recording a 2-10-1 record in 13 games with a 3.74 goals against average and .895 save percentage. Incoming transfer from Yale Luke Pearson will challenge him for the starting job in net, coming to South Bend with a career 7-18-5 record, 2.61 GAA and .911 SV% in 34 games.

The Sun Devils showed 40 minutes of solid offense last weekend against a highly talented Penn State team, and if they can extend that level of play for all 60 minutes against a subpar Notre Dame team, should advance handily to Saturday's championship against either Quinnipiac or Alaska.

Quinnipiac/Alaska

The standard of the ECAC, Quinnipiac comes in to this season as heavy favorites to take home a 6th consecutive Cleary Cup as conference regular season champions. The regular season success has not always translated to postseason success. The Bobcats have won or shared 9 regular season titles since the 2012-13 season, but have only claimed one Whitelaw Cup (2016) as the conference tournament champion. Rand Pecknold's team did finally break through to win their first ever national championship in 2023 on an overtime goal by Jacob Quillan, after coming up short in 2013 and 2016.

Now in his 32nd season behind the bench in Hamden, Pecknold is the only head coach the Bobcats have known since moving to Division I as a founding member of the former Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (now Atlantic Hockey America) in 1998-99. Starting the season with a 4-3 win at Boston College, the Bobcats return four-30 point scorers in Jeremy Wilmer, Mason Marcellus, Andon Cerbone and Aaron Schwartz. Charlie Leddy and Elliott Groenewold play elite level defense, but the defensive depth raises a question mark as the Bobcats will have many new faces manning the blue line. Matej Marinov locks down the net, playing to an impressive 12-3-0 record with a 1.75 GAA and .928 SV% in 17 games last season.

The last time the Sun Devils and Nanooks shared the ice, Tucker Ness and Dawson Bruneski provided the fireworks with a rare fight late in the game. Fighting is outlawed at the college level, with game disqualifications and suspensions handed out to both players for their actions. Fans of both programs hope that cooler heads will prevail if these teams meet in Saturday's game.

As an independent program, Alaska has a unique road to every season. With no postseason tournament in which to gain an automatic bid, the Nanooks will need to make the most of their regular season before settling in to "league play" against the remaining independents in January. Erik Largen, now in his 7th season, has shown that he is capable of getting his team to play to their highest potential, nearly claiming an at large bid in the 2022-23 season.

This season poses a challenge right from the start with the Nanooks losing their top three scorers from last season. Chase Dafoe is the leading returning scorer, putting up 11 goals and 6 assists for 17 points in 32 games last season. Braden Birnie is expected to be a top contributer offensively, joined by Peyton Platter and Haden Kruse. Lassi Lethi returns as the top goaltender for the Nanooks, and will be backed up by former Sun Devil Zak Brice.

Don't miss any of the action from the unofficial opening of the college hockey season at Mullett Arena. The Sun Devils will play the 7pm game both nights regardless of results, with non-ASU games starting at 3pm. All four games will be carried on NCHC.tv via the Ice Breaker Pass, with both games for the Sun Devils broadcast locally on Fox 10 Xtra (My45).