ASU hockey's penalty kill unit was quite busy in the Sun Devils’ season opener at Notre Dame on Friday.
After the Sun Devils played their Maroon and Gold scrimmage in Tempe last weekend, head coach Greg Powers told reporters that he had asked the officials to “call everything and anything they could so we could get special teams working.”
By the look of Friday’s 9-2 loss to the Fighting Irish, one might have thought Powers had done that again. There were 29 total penalties in the blowout.
Sums up the night here in South Bend... #PartyBox pic.twitter.com/DYapGc5nEc
— Sun Devil Hockey (@SunDevilHockey) October 8, 2016
"The last thing I would call tonight is a hockey game," said Powers. "When you have four full 5-on-3's called against you against one of the top five teams in the country, you don't stand a chance. We battled back in that first period to cut it to two, went in the room and made some adjustments that we didn't even get a chance to implement because of being in the box all night.
"I've been around this game my entire life and I've never seen what we all saw tonight. All we can do is erase it and start over. That wasn't a hockey game and that wasn't indicative of the work our guys have put in, and they deserve better."
Six of Notre Dame’s nine goals were on the power play, and as if the penalties and the final score aren’t staggering enough, the Fighting Irish outshot ASU 51-19. They also led 50-21 at the faceoff dot.
Still, during the rarity that was full-strength hockey in South Bend, ASU was outscored just 3-2.
"I've been around hockey 36 years and I've never seen that," Powers said.
Notre Dame scored the game’s first tally just 33 seconds into the contest, an even strength goal from junior forward Anders Bjork. Bjork and junior defenseman Jordan Gross both had goals later in the frame.
But ASU did manage to get on the board before the first intermission, posting its first goal of the season from freshman forward Tyler Busch.
With a 3-1 lead after a period of play, Notre Dame went on to score three power play goals in the second period from Bobby Nardella, Andrew Oglevie and Dylan Malmquist.
ASU trailed 6-1 after two periods.
The Sun Devils got on the board again with a goal from sophomore defenseman Nicholas Gushue in the third, but three more goals from Notre Dame made it a 9-2 final score. But perhaps the biggest storyline of the third period – besides more penalties – was the melee with less than a minute to go.
Sun Devil junior defenseman Edward McGovern went for a hit on Notre Dame sophomore forward Joe Wegwerth, but appeared to make shoulder-to-head contact.
Wegwerth went down to the ground and stayed there for some time.
Meanwhile, both teams’ on-ice personnel quickly swarmed the corner as a violent scrum ensued. Within seconds, McGovern and junior forward Bo Brauer were tied up, and McGovern quickly had pinned Brauer to the ground and began delivering hits to his head and face.
After the refs broke things apart, Wegwerth left the ice on his own power.
McGovern was disqualified from the game and given game misconduct, facemasking and contact to the head penalties.
According to the NCAA rule book, McGovern's disqualification penalty warrants an automatic suspension from his team's next game, which is a rematch tomorrow evening at Notre Dame.
After this two-game set, the Sun Devils return home to play Air Force at Gila River Arena for two games next weekend.
Reach the reporter at matthew.layman@asu.edu or follow @Mattjlayman on Twitter.
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