The Blaze

By Charlie Feinerman

Inside of a packed Oceanside Arena on Friday night, a penalty, goal and fight laden game came down to the wire as a thrilling third period resulted in a five to four triumph for the Arizona State Sun Devils over their arch-rival University of Arizona Ice Cats on ASU’s Hall of Fame induction night.

Both teams started off the game sloppy, as neither team seemed to be able to sustain possession of the puck once past the blue line. Arizona State’s struggles continued long into the first period, as the Sun Devils failed to get a shot for the first seven minutes and twenty seconds of the game. The Sun Devils’ first three shots came on a series of rebounds off the pads of Arizona’s Goaltender Steven Sisler, the latter of the three was tapped into the net by forward Joe Demeria for the game’s first goal.

The Ice Cats would answer quickly, as less than a minute later with Sun Devil goalie Mark Shacker spread across the crease, Arizona forward Jared Lowell would backhand a loose puck into a virtually empty net to tie the game at one goal apiece.

The sloppy play would continue through the period, as the two rivals would trade uneventful possessions for the next several minutes. With Demeria in the box for the Sun Devils and plenty of traffic in front of the net, Arizona defenseman Mike Basist would score a go-ahead goal for the Ice Cats on a slap shot from just inside the blue line. The goal gave Ice Cat captain Jordan Schupan his second assist of the game.

The rest of the first period was quiet until the last few seconds when Mark Shacker saved an Ice Cat breakaway attempt to end the period. The Ice Cats went into the locker room with a two to one lead, dominating the shot category with 12 shots on goal to Arizona State’s six.

Both teams would continue to play a sloppy game in the second period, as penalties and neutral ice turnovers were abundant. Five minutes into the period, Arizona Defenseman Jonathon Watanabe would leave the penalty box after a minor holding penalty and immediately clear the puck down the ice. Arizona State goaltender Mark Shacker and the rest of the Sun Devils on the ice expected icing to be called on the play. However, the icing was waved off and Ice Cat forward Blake Richards raced to the puck behind the Sun Devil net. Richards would make a fantastic no look pass to the front of the net where a streaking Watanabe would wrist the puck top shelf past Shacker to send the Ice Cats to a three to one advantage, the goal came only 14 seconds removed from Watanabe’s trip to the penalty box.

The Ice Cats noticeably started to play a lot more defensive in order to hold on to their lead. But with just over eight minutes left in the period, Arizona State defenseman Darcy Charrois would take a slap shot along the boards from just inside the blue line. The shot would be deflected near the net by Mark Chadwick and would bounce off of Steven Sisler’s glove and into the net, bringing the Sun Devils within one goal.

With just under four minutes left in the second period, the Ice Cats saw a potential goal get waved off when Sun Devil Defenseman Jason Maltese knocked the net of its hinges before an airborne puck could drop into it. Maltese was given a delay of game penalty, which gave the already shorthanded Devils even more of a disadvantage.

However, the Sun Devils would finish off the period strong, killing off the five on three power play and continue to escape the second period still down only one goal, even after out-shooting Arizona eleven to five in the period.

The third period was just as sloppy as the others for the first twelve minutes, as neither team really seemed to be able to get anything going. But then, with a four on three power play, Sun Devil forward Colin Hekle wristed one past Sisler from the slot to knot the game at three goals apiece.

Capitalizing on their newly gained momentum the Sun Devils took the puck right into the Ice Cats’ zone off the next faceoff and Troy Jonathon Scott fired a wrist shot that got over Sisler’s blocker and into the twine, propelling the Sun Devils into the lead four to three.

With the momentum still behind them, Arizona State would strike again one minute and twenty seconds later when Jason Maltese took a quick snapshot from the slot that curved over Sisler’s glove and into the top right corner of the goal, as the Sun Devils led five to three.

With five minutes and forty-two seconds left in the game Arizona was in search of a momentum boost, so freshman defender Mike Basist tried to give them one. He picked a fight with several Sun Devils to try and spark his team, only to get beaten to the ground, which sent the Sun Devil faithful in the crowd into a frenzy.

However, Basist’s tactics seemed to inspire his team like he had planned. Only thirteen seconds after the fights took place, Arizona captain Brian Slugacki would score a power play goal on a slap shot from the high slot, pulling the Ice Cats within one goal.

But the Ice Cat comeback attempt would fall short, as the Sun Devils would beat them by a final score of five to four after surviving the final minute shorthanded, six men to five.

After the game, a benches clearing brawl would bring to the front the bad blood between the two rivals, as even Sun Devil Head Coach Greg Powers had to be restrained by the referees from attacking an Arizona coach.

Powers had told his team in the third period to “run [Arizona] out of the building,” and ASU did just that.

And so the Sun Devils successfully come out of their first two games of this season undefeated, as they sit at two and zero, following their two victories over the University of Arizona.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 2nd, 2010 at 4:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.