Sophomore goalie Robert Levin makes a dramatic stop as the ice flies on Jan. 22, 2015, at Oceanside Arena in Tempe. (J. Bauer-Leffler/The State Press)As announced Friday afternoon by head coach Greg Powers, superstar sophomore goalie Robert Levin will not play in the national tournament next week after suffering an ACL injury.
During the team’s away series, Levin went down in the final period of Saturday’s game against Arizona. It seemed to have been serious when the trainer came out to help him, but he remained on the ice and it did not seem as serious after the game.
“In the second period I just tweaked my knee a little bit,” Levin said after Saturday’s game. “Then in the third, when I made that save, it just popped out and it just hurt but I’m fine.”
It ended up being very serious, Levin has not practiced since that game and after undergoing an MRI discovered he had torn his ACL.
He injured himself during the last game of the semester. Even though the team had already secured their spot in the tournament Powers does not regret playing Levin.
“We spoke that morning, and Rob and I decided that he should play,” Powers said. “We don’t play games worrying about injury.”
Last year, Levin played all four games at the national tournament, only letting in four goals, as the team won their first every ACHA National Championship. He had a very strong season and is one of the main reasons the team is returning the tournament and secured that No. 1 spot.
He finished the season as the fifth ranked goalie in ACHA for his 1.78 GAA over the 33 games he played and the first for shutouts, with nine, more than his eight last season including the tournament. He helped lead the Sun Devils to this point and they will now have to continue on the ice without him.
This is a huge loss for ASU and creates quite a challenge going into the ACHA national tournament in a short seven days. The team has two goalies to turn to, sophomore Lucas Felbel and freshman Jordan Gluck.
Together, Gluck and Felbel have played a total of six games this semester.
Felbel has only played one complete game and about two-thirds of the other two, averaging 1.67 goals scored against. He led the team to two victories, one with the help of Levin and one on his own, this season.
Unlike Felbel, Gluck has played three complete games averaging 2.33 goals scored against. This average might not stand out in comparison to Levin, but he did lead the team to victory against three teams, one of which, Colorado, the Sun Devils might face next week.
Losing Levin does create a hurdle for the team going into the most important week of the season, but the team and Powers seem very confident.
“We always pay very close attention to the D Zone no matter who is in net. We’ll continue to focus on our back end out,” Powers said.
The team has one week left to practice before they head to Cleveland for the tournament.
Reach the reporter at kewens@asu.edu or follow @katlynewens on Twitter.
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