Arizona State ready to adjust to conference life

This article is presented by Everything College Hockey.

You can't say Arizona State hasn't jumped in with both feet.

In its first year of competition in a real conference, they've already faced a brutally difficult schedule without playing a single NCHC game, with four of their first six games on the road, criss-crossing the country from Colorado to Arizona to Rhode Island. In these games, they've visited Air Force, always a team that's physically tough to play against, hosted Michigan, and travelled to Providence College.

The long travel is very familiar for a team whose closest Div. 1 hockey opponent is some 550 miles away. But the frequency of it, and the quality of competition, is quite new for this group.

Last season, they went to Alaska (twice), Ohio, and Pennsylvania en route to a 24-8-6 record. But they also played just 10 total road games, as many opponents are more than happy to visit Tempe in the autumn and winter months.

The reason for the change, though, seems obvious: The Sun Devils are now full-fledged members of the NCHC, the nation's most competitive top-to-bottom conference. The opponents are going to be much, much, much more difficult on a nightly basis than they were last year, when nearly half the Sun Devils' games were against the other independent programs.

"As an independent, the schedule is so sporadic. Not that you can take nights off, but we were, for an independent team, very talented," Sun Devils coach Greg Powers, who has led this program since it was still a club hockey team, told Elite Prospects. "So you can't fool kids. Last year, we went from playing a first-year program in Stonehill to, the next weekend, a top-two team in Denver. There's peaks and valleys. As much as you want to build consistency, have a consistent mindset, have identity, play to that standard, they're gonna let some habits creep in when they shouldn't. That was one of the frustrations. Now, there are no nights off."

The travel — and the high-level competition — isn't slowing down, either.

They're making another road trip this coming weekend to Northern Michigan, then visiting Colorado College for their first-ever conference games. They finally come back home in mid-November before immediately hitting the road again to visit Denver. By the holiday break, they will have played just six home games; it was 14 by the same point last season.

That was, however, not always the plan. Powers said the team and the NCHC decided in the offseason to forgo the longer onboarding process some conferences have used with new members, and throw them right into a full NCHC schedule. The Sun Devils had a full independent schedule that they scrapped relatively late in the process, forcing Powers to move some dates around while still ensuring this first month would be a bit of a grind.

"I had 24 games I had to displace," he said. "It just ended up that 8 of our first 10 were on the road. But we're gonna be weathered, and by the time we get to the home stretch of conference play, our guys are gonna know what it takes."

As part of this transition to the NCHC — which was announced in July 2023 — Arizona State has been active, and successful, in the transfer portal. We ranked their incoming transfer class as the second-best in the nation, pulling players who were big contributors to their old teams in the Big Ten, Hockey East, and the ECAC, among others. Those players know the grind of a difficult regular-season schedule and will no doubt be able to help the team weather what could be a difficult NCHC schedule.

Cruz Lucius, Artem Shlaine, and Ryan Kirwan, each scored double-digit goals last year in their respective conferences, Noah Beck ate big minutes for Clarkson in his time there. Moreover, five of the transfers Powers has secured in the last couple seasons have NCAA tournament experience, and more have been on borderline tournament teams that made deep runs into their conference championships. So the experience Kirwan, Lucius, Ty and Dylan Jackson (who also played at ASU last season), and Luke Pavicich bring to the table adds to their already-prodigious on-ice contributions.

"We wanted to go in with some experience and bring in some kids who have been through the wringers of conference play and a conference season," Powers said.

That said, ASU has had a ton of success, especially for an independent. In addition to winning 24 games last year, they've also made the NCAA tournament twice since elevating to Div. 1 nine years ago. There are long-tenured NCHC teams that don't have that level of regular-season success. And moreover, with Mullett Arena opening midway through the 2022-23 season, the Sun Devils are leveraging their facilities, campus, and general prestige in the college sports landscape plus their new conference affiliation to become a destination for top prospects.

"We're recruiting at a level we've never recruited at before," Powers said. "Everyone wants to be in a league and play for a championship. We're about a year into being able to recruit to a program that's in a league, so it's really been able to help with the uptick in where we're at."

Those kids have been committing for two or three years now, but many aren't ready to contribute at the college level, simply due to the nature of how far out kids commit these days. As such ASU only had five freshmen on the roster: defensemen Brasen Boser, Sam Court, and Hunter Mullett; goalie Zakari Brice; and, most intriguing, forward Cullen Potter.

Potter is draft-eligible this season, ranked 36th in EP's consolidated draft prospect ranking, and playing college hockey as a 17-year-old listed at 5-foot-9 and 167 pounds. Originally committed to Michigan State, he wanted to make the jump to college hockey in his draft year, and the Spartans seemingly didn't have room on the roster. When he decommitted in late spring, ASU was an attractive option and it came together quickly.

So far, Potter has looked like he belongs, at the very least. This past weekend, the skill was evident against Providence, even if he didn't have any points. He took a lot of draws, put eight total shots on goal, and attempted 10. Previously, he had a goal and a secondary assist against Michigan (in a game that ended in a very solid draw) and Air Force. For an undersized prospect who won't turn 18 until mid-January, that's pretty impressive, especially because, due to injuries elsewhere in the lineup, he's been getting the top matchups every night against a schedule with multiple NCAA tournament hopefuls.

"He's great. I don't know how this kid's not a first-rounder," Powers said. "He's 17 and makes an impact every game. Does he make a few mistakes every game? Absolutely. But we're letting him play through those because we knew a 17-year-old playing against 23- and 24-year-olds wouldn't be perfect. But the kid competes, he plays both ends of the ice.

"He's already very good, and I honestly think by Thanksgiving, he's gonna be really good. He'll get there. He's good enough to play for anyone in college hockey and make a positive impact."

It must be said in all this that ASU is just 1-4-1 to start the year, and haven't won since an 8-1 beatdown on opening night at Air Force. But their net goal difference through six games is just minus-1 (17-18), the same number as their shot difference (186-187). Add in the fact that three of their planned top-six forwards — Charlie Schoen, Shlaine, and Lucius — have missed the start of the season due to injury, and Powers likes where his team is at, leaving the record aside. Each brings something the Sun Devils have been missing these first six games. Shlaine would be their matchups center on a normal night, who would be counted on to win a ton of draws (ASU is currently winning just under 46 percent of the draws. Schoen is fast and skilled winger who put up 24 points last year. And Lucius's resume as an impact forward speaks for itself.

"Without those three, we've lost to Michigan on an empty net, beat them in a shootout, lost to Providence on an empty net, and then played well enough to get a win on Saturday," Powers said. "We're right there."

Shlaine and Schoen are expected to be back in the lineup this coming weekend, which is great news, but Lucius's timeline is expected to be a little longer. Nonetheless, the closer they get to being healthy by the time NCHC play rolls around in a couple weeks, the more likely they are to go toe-to-toe with the top teams in the best conference in the country.

"The difference between now and what we've experienced, is that if you start 1-4-1 as an independent, you're white-knuckling it because every game is so critical as an independent program," Powers said. "It's certainly not that every game isn't critical now, but we know we have the league ahead of us, so it's all about getting our guys ready for the NCHC. A couple bounces here and there, our record could easily be flipped right now."