It’s tough to predict how much further Arizona State’s first season as a conference member can go.
The Sun Devils are 15th in the PairWise Rankings and will need to keep helping themselves as the NCHC playoffs progress.
But regardless of which side of the NCAA tournament bubble the Sun Devils land on, they already know what this season has meant for their program.
At 21-13-2, Arizona State has recovered well from a 1-4-1 start and has navigated admirably an injury-riddled season. Doing so as a first-year member of arguably the country’s strongest college hockey conference is no small feat. More than that, it has set the Sun Devils up for continued success and has informed coach Greg Powers’s recruiting process going forward.
“We knew it would enhance our student-athlete experience in every way,” Powers said during a NCHC media call Tuesday, when asked about ASU’s inaugural season as a league member. “In just the competitive nature of being in a league and developing rivalries and playing a team more than one weekend on the season, it’s unbelievable. To have standings to update and teams to chase or stay ahead of or whatever it is, it’s something we’d never experienced, but we experienced it this year.
“Usually, other than the year we made the (NCAA) tournament (in 2019) and the year we were going to but it got canceled (in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic), we’ve been done right now and watched the games on TV. Last year, I was at the Frozen Faceoff (the NCHC’s semifinal and championship rounds) and went up and watched it in person, and we watched all these conference tournaments where teams play on big stages, and I felt, a lot of times, that we were good enough to be there but just didn’t have the opportunity because we were an independent. Being in a league has changed the trajectory of our program in a really positive way.”
And it has helped draw top-tier talent to the Sonoran desert. Graduate student Artem Shlaine is one such player, having posted 16 goals and 37 points thus far in his fifth collegiate season, following stints at Connecticut and then Northern Michigan.
“The biggest sales pitch for me, knowing I’ve been in the portal twice already, it’s not about the bright and shiny new arena, or the other bonus stuff,” Shlaine said of what brought him to Tempe and ASU, which was picked in the 2024-25 NCHC preseason media poll to finish eighth in the nine-team league.
“For me, it’s about the coaches, the coaching staff, the staff and the players in the locker room. Looking at the roster, right away you could see the potential of that team and that we were going to be really good, and I don’t know how other people didn’t see it, and they missed it and it’s on them, but I think we’re proving people wrong. That’s what drives and motivates us: We’re proving our followers right and proving the people who didn’t believe in us wrong.
“Overall, when I just started talking to the coaches, (it was) that belief in me as a player that they would give me an opportunity, and I think they were honest and kind of gave me an opportunity and I think I ran with it, and I’m really happy with how this season has gone, but we’re not done yet and we’re going (to St. Paul, Minn.) to win this thing.”
That’s a feeling shared around the home dressing room inside Mullett Arena, ahead of ASU’s trip this week to the Twin Cities. The second-seeded Sun Devils will play Friday’s second NCHC semifinal game, facing defending national champion Denver.
No matter how this weekend and a potential NCAA tournament run will treat the Sun Devils, Powers believes his program will only move now from strength to strength.
“Kids want to compete for championships, and if we were not in the NCHC, in this specific league especially, the kid you just talked to, he wouldn’t be here,” Powers said of Shlaine, among ASU’s several gets from previous NCAA stops. “Ryan Kirwan wanted to play in the NCHC, so did Cruz Lucius and Bennett Schimek and Luke Pavicich and Noah Beck. It has changed the trajectory of our program on many levels.”
TTFN, kind of
This week marks my last conference column of my 18th season at USCHO.com. If my career in journalism (which began here) was a person, it could vote. Madness.
Thank you to all of my colleagues for all their amazing work this season. This also goes for Matt Mackinder, our managing editor who makes keeping everything here humming along look easy.
I won’t be attending the NCHC Frozen Faceoff or the Frozen Four (can we please have one of them renamed?), but I’ll still have a few more USCHO.com bylines this season. I have two Hockey Humanitarian Award finalist feature stories on the way, plus previews on NCHC teams playing for however long they make a run in the NCAA tournament.
Thanks for reading, everyone.
