After a historic start to the season, ASU hockey jumped into 2019 with a sweep against Boston College, winning 5-2 on Friday inside Oceanside Ice Arena and 2-0 on Saturday at Gila River Arena in Glendale.
Although Boston College (6-9-2) hasn’t had a special start to the season, ASU coach Greg Powers noted that Boston College is better than its record and has unbelievable team speed, saying the Eagles are easily one of the best teams the Sun Devils have played this season.
Friday
No. 15 ASU (16-7-1) returned to Tempe to take on Boston College in the first matchup this weekend, and the Sun Devils, again, had a slow start. After the Eagles scored the first goal, redshirt senior forward Dylan Hollman answered about two minutes later.
However, Boston College beat junior goaltender Joey Daccord again a few minutes later to take a 2-1 lead. Then, senior forward Anthony Croston made a wrap-around goal to tie the game at two about midway through the final period.
As time winded down, freshman forward PJ Marrocco gave ASU the lead, scoring on a rebound with less than two minutes left. That ended as the game-winning goal as Croston and freshman defenseman Jarrod Gourley added empty-net goals to finishing the scoring for the Sun Devils.
Saturday
For the second matchup, ASU and Boston College traveled to Glendale to play inside Gila River Arena. Each team had the same slow start as on Friday.
However, this time, the Sun Devils found the breakthrough with a goal from junior forward Brett Gruber with 10:45 left in the second period, and ASU wouldn’t relinquish that advantage. Although Boston College had chances at net, Daccord saved each opportunity.
Then, early in the third period freshman forward Jordan Sandhu scored a goal to give ASU a 2-0 lead against the Eagles. Boston College continued to try to get back into the game, but Daccord wouldn’t let that happen as he finished off his NCAA-leading sixth shutout of the season.
After the series, Powers couldn’t speak more highly about his goal stopper in net, describing how special it is to have a player playing like Daccord has this season.
“It is everything,” Powers said. “It was one of the key components we have been missing up until this year because we were new, and he was gaining that experience to be able to play like he is now. He came to ASU because he knew he was going to see a lot of pucks those first couple of years to get that experience. We were going to throw him back in and kind of throw him to the wolves, and it has all paid off. That kid is just tremendous.”
ASU has a road stretch upcoming as it travels to No. 20 Cornell, Boston University and Rochester Institute of Technology.
The Sun Devils won’t return home until Feb. 15 as it begins a series with American International.
Reach the reporter at nahiatt@asu.edu or follow @NATE_HIATT on Twitter.
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