ASU played on a bigger stage than usual in the Desert Hockey Classic, hosting Yale (7-4-2) at Gila River Arena, home of the Arizona Coyotes.
ASU's caliber of play was not quite up to NHL standards, failing to convert on five power plays and only taking 12 shots on goal in the 4-0 loss.
“We made four really dumb mistakes, and they made us pay on all four of them,” said ASU head coach Greg Powers. “We can’t afford to take the inopportune (penalties)."
Freshman goalie Ryland Pashovitz got his 13th start of the season. Coming into the game, Pashovitz had averaged 3.29 goals against per game. His Yale counterpart, freshman Alex Lyon, had a 1.79 GAA coming into the contest, also playing in his 13th game on the year.
The lone goal in the first period came on a turnover. The puck was picked up in the offensive zone by Yale freshman forward Andrew Gaus, who scored his third goal of the season. ASU posted five shots in the frame, without any on their 3:22 of time on the power play.
In the second period, there were few whistles and no penalties for several minutes until ASU’s freshman forward Jordan Masters was called for hitting from behind. Yale capitalized on the power play, securing a goal by freshman left wing Frankie DiChiara to take a 2-0 lead. It was DiChiara’s third goal of the season.
Later in the period, during four-on-four play, Yale sophomore forward John Hayden delivered a hit in front of ASU’s goal to take away the puck and fire it in for a score. It was his team-leading ninth goal of the season, and increased Yale's lead to 3-0.
ASU took an interference minor issued to Connor Schmidt at the beginning of the third period. Yale converted on that advantage as well, its second power play goal of the night, this time from freshman forward Joe Snively.
"Right away at the start of the third, down by three, you can’t take a penalty in the first 30 seconds," Powers said. "It kills any momentum that you’re trying to get.”
Yale allowed five power play opportunities the Sun Devils, who weren’t able to convert on a single one and registered only two shots on goal in those chances.
“We just weren’t shooting the puck, I don’t get it,” said Powers. “So we just have to go back to the film, show them what they did wrong and hopefully we’ll do better on Sunday.”
The Sun Devils were out-shot in the game 40-12, creating a heavy workload for Pashovitz.
“I was able to see a lot of shots out there tonight,” he said. “But there were just a couple mistakes that ended up costing us a little bit.
Pashovitz hadn’t played since last weekend’s series against St. Cloud, getting some rest in ASU’s recent loss to UConn.
“I felt pretty good," he said. "We played the last weekend against a good team so I didn’t have my best game, but overall I think I got into the game pretty quickly, got a couple shots out of the way.”
Before the Sun Devils took the ice Friday, the UConn Huskies – fresh off their 5-2 win over ASU – fell to Michigan Tech, 4-2. Michigan Tech will play the championship game Sunday against Yale, while ASU will play in the consolation game against UConn in what will be its third matchup of the season.
"Hopefully the third time's a charm against UConn," Powers said.
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