OXFORD, Ohio — It’s tough to win on 11 shots.
No. 12 Arizona State’s shut-down defense stymied Miami, holding the RedHawks to their lowest shot total in nearly eight years in a 4-1 Sun Devils win at Cady Arena on Saturday.
MU (3-21-2) is off next weekend and returns to action Feb. 14-15 at Colorado College before returning home to host Denver.
RECAP: Kyle Smolen scored on the power play seven minutes into the first period, and Sam Court found the net with 5:38 left in the opening frame to give Arizona State (16-9-1) a 2-0 lead.
Former Miami commit Brasen Boeser extended the Sun Devils’ lead to three midway through the second period, and Cruz Lucius made it 4-0 seven minutes into the final stanza.
Spencer Cox buried a shot from the left side of net in the final second of regulation to spoil the ASU shutout.
STATS: Cox’s goal was his first of the season and his second as a RedHawk.
His other marker in a Miami sweater was at North Dakota on Nov. 17, 2023.
Ambrosio picked up the lone assist, his third point in five games.
We’ll give the RedHawks a reprieve for a night on the negative stats, except…this was 18 straight losses for Miami. MU set the school record with its 17th consecutive ‘L’ on Friday.
— Since it was referenced above, the last time the RedHawks were held to 11 shots was March 4, 2017 vs. North Dakota. The fewest SOG Miami has finished with in program history is 10 vs. Northern Michigan on Nov. 26, 1979 and Jan. 15, 2000 at Michigan.
ANALYSIS: On the scoreboard, this wasn’t a competitive game.
Less than fifteen minutes in as stragglers were still finding their seats, Arizona State went up 2-0, and since Miami has scored more than one goal once in its last six games, the outcome seemed inevitable.
And it must be said that the Sun Devils were extremely impressive, one of the best teams Miami has faced this season. There was no room for the RedHawks to move the few times they were able to sustain offensive zone pressure.
Sticks and bodies everywhere, especially in shooting lanes. Completing consecutive passes was a chore. Arizona State is well coached and is going to be a force in the NCHC, now that it’s a member.
But the two biggest storylines from this game were a hit on Artem Schlaine and Miami skaters’ ice time.
In the first period, Shlaine was rocked by Cox in the bench-side defensive zone and slammed into the boards. An ambulance was yelled for by someone on one of the ice within a minute, as Schlaine lay motionless, face down on the ice.
Cox was not penalized, and a couple of Arizona State skaters took runs — not dirty ones, mind you — for the balance of the period but no line brawls or scenes out of the 1970s Boston Bruins archive resulted.
Fortunately, news started spreading by second intermission that Shlaine was fine, and ultimately it appears be play next weekend against Denver.
And ultimately Cox scored with 0.6 seconds left in regulation to break the shutout.
Somehow he wasn’t asked about any of this in the postgame presser despite being offered up as the player representative in the interview room.
The other key storyline to this game was how ice time was distrubuted.
Miami coach Anthony Noreen has said repeatedly, both in nuance and — more recently — very directly, that the guys that are busting it will play and those who aren’t will sit or see their ice time curtailed.
College Hockey News posted the ice times for every skater in this game, and Ambrosio was easily tops among Miami forwards at 22 minutes plus.
Second? John Emmons at 17:27. More on him later.
Casper Nassen, Brayden Morrison and captain Ryan Sullivan (of course) were all over 15 minutes. Freshman Teodor Forssander is also seeing a major uptick in his playing time, and all four are now logging significant power play minutes.
The forward lines are almost flipped from the start of the season.
On defense, Dylan Moulton has earned assistant captain status and led the team with 23:51 TOI. He scored his first goal of the season on Friday and called out his team’s effort in the postgame presser.
Zane Demsey took a penalty in the first period and Arizona State scored on the ensuing power play. Demsey didn’t take a shift the final two frames, as he was on the ice for just 2:01 including the other first-period goal and finished minus-1.
Same has been true in net, as expected third goalie Brett Miller has started three of the last five games.
As we’ve said before, with 12 players now locked into this program for 2025-26 and Noreen having repeatedly said he’ll be trimming his roster by at least two spots (it’s 29 now and he wants it at 26-27), the balance of this season is a showcase for next season.
— On Emmons: He averaged less than half a point per game with Minot the past two seasons in the NAHL, which is a major step below the USHL, and he was listed on the top line on Saturday and is also logging ice time on both the power play and penalty kill.
Even during a 100-day losing streak, one of the most enjoyable aspects of college hockey is seeing a player like Emmons force his way up the line chart, by hammering opponents along the boards, fighting in the corners to win those key 50-50 boards battles and using his speed to create chances in the offensive zone.
Emmons has dressed for seven straight games and nine of Miami’s last 11, and every line he skated on has been one of the best each night all season.
LINEUP CHANGES: Goalie Ethan Dahlmeir made his second start in nine games, having battled injury for the past two months.
Miller had started three of the RedHawks’ last four contests.
Up front, Tanyon Bajzer replaced Raimonds Vitolins. Vitolins did not look 100 percent on Friday.
Miami did not make any changes on defense.
Johnny Waldron and Nick Donato were unavailable due to injury, and William Hallen probably won’t return this season.
STANDINGS: Miami was tied with RIT for second-last in the NCAA after Friday’s games but is back to 63rd out of 64 teams outright, ahead of only Mercyhurst.
At 0-16 in the NCHC and with just one conference point, the RedHawks can do no better than tie North Dakota for fourth place in the Penrose race (and the top four spots earn home-ice advantage for the NCHC Tournament.
We’re going to skip grades for this one.
FINAL THOUGHTS: This site has never existed as clickbait, we don’t chase hits, we don’t take artificial stances to rile people and rack up views.
And I love the physicality of hockey but also hate dirty hits and never want to see anyone hurt, but unfortunately sometimes it still happens.
We’re so glad Shlaine is fine and it sounds like he play next weekend. In terms of perceived real-time injury seriousness in the history of this rink, this ranks in the top two along with Will Weber’s skate-to-neck injury in the early 2010s that missed his jugular by a quarter of an inch.
Following this game, several keyboard warriors practically lobbied for the guillotine (one genius actually said Cox should be banned from hockey for life).
Technical issues with Goggin’s replay system this weekend didn’t help, as officials were not allowed to review plays from the streaming feed per NCAA rules, although all four officials are permitted to confer.
The refs (and linesmen) had the ability to consult and ultimately didn’t assess a penalty and I agree. Cox never targeted the head, Shlaine possessed the puck (so not interference), he was perpendicular and well away from the boards (so not boarding).
Charging can be assessed if a skater takes two or more strides into an opponent, but Cox was gliding more than striding.
Cox is a professional at dishing out punishing hits, but he has zero history of dirty play (one minor penalty this season and 18 PIM as a RedHawk).
He sought out Arizona State coach Greg Powers after the game to see how Shlaine was doing and every Sun Devil shook his hand at center ice.
Cox also has one of the highest grade-point averages on the team. He’s the anti-Jack Johnson.
Hockey is a violent game, and unfortunately players sometimes are injured on clean plays, and that’s what happened in this case.
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