Arizona State ends Miami win streak at 6

OXFORD, Ohio — Miami scored just over two minutes into its NCHC opener against Arizona State, but that’s all the offense the RedHawks would generate against the Sun Devils.

ASU netted the final four goals and handed Miami its first loss of the season, 4-1 at Cady Arena on Friday.

That snapped the RedHawks’ six-game winning streak to open the season, their longest to start a campaign since 2007.

The teams wrap up their weekend series on Saturday.

RECAP: Miami (6-1) took the early lead 30 seconds into a power play, as Kocha Delic fired a pass from the blue line to the left of the net, where Matteo Giampa controlled it then backhanded a blind pass to Doug Grimes at the top of the crease, and Grimes poked it in.

But Arizona State (3-4) tied it with 8:04 left in the first period on a man advantage of its own when Cruz Lucius threaded a pass through two defenders to Bennett Schimek, who whipped a wrister home from the left faceoff circle.

Just 2:04 later, Schimek fed Sean McGurn for a wide-open back-door wrister at the top of the crease off a 2-on-2, giving Arizona State the lead.

The score remained 2-1 until ASU’s Jack Beck ripped a power play shot from the slot past Miami goalie Matteo Drobac with 57 seconds left in regulation, and Cullen Potter tacked on an empty netter with 13 seconds remaining.

STATS: It was the third goal of the season for Grimes, who had that many in his entire two seasons at Boston University. He has six points for Miami, two more than he recorded in his 38-game Terriers career, and he led MU in shots on goal with three.

Giampa and Delic both picked up assists for their 10th points of 2025-26, tied for the team lead.

Delic has points in his first seven games with Miami. The last RedHawk with at least a seven-game point streak at any point of the season was Karch Bachman, who picked up points in eight consecutive games Nov. 22, 2019 to Jan. 10, 2020.

No RedHawk has started a season with a points streak as long as Delic’s since 2010, when Carter Camper recorded points in Miami’s first nine games (going 9-15-24 in that stretch), including goals in each of the first seven.

Giampa leads all forwards with seven helpers.

— Last Saturday was the first penalty-free game Miami had played in its history. Friday saw the RedHawks set an Anthony Noreen-era record by being shorthanded eight times.

The last time a Miami opponent had eight power plays? That was Jan. 13, 2024, the last RedHawks win in NCHC play. They are 0-39-2 against conference foes since.

— This was the 100th game in a Miami sweater for Blake Mesenburg, leading all active RedHawks. The maximum-effort senior was an alternate captain in 2024-25 and is expected to wear a letter again this season.

— The penalty kill was 6-for-8 and allowed three PPGs on five chances last Friday, meaning MU has killed off just 8 of 13 chances its last three games. The RedHawks didn’t give up a power play goal last Saturday, but then again, there were no penalties called against either team that night.

On the season, the RedHawks’ PK is just 71.4 percent, 50th out of 62 Division I teams that have played at least one game.

— Miami falls to 0-2 at Cady Arena on Halloween and 2-6 at home on the final day of October overall.

ANALYSIS: The fan side was exuberant after the Grimes goal and had visions of 7-0 dancing in his head, because Miami was clearly the better team in the opening minutes.

Especially since Arizona State was 2-4 entering this weekend, fresh off a steamer of a weekend at Augustana in which the Sun Devils were outscored, 9-4.

But the penalty kill couldn’t hold and the RedHawks had a defensive breakdown, and it was 2-1 ASU heading into the first intermission.

Miami had a number of good chances to tie it but never could, and to the Sun Devils’ credit, they shut it down defensively (the RedHawks finished with a season-low 20 shots on goal, although ASU blocked 16) and Connor Hasley was excellent in net, stopping 19 of those 20 SOG.

MU shut it down defensively as well. The RedHawks allowed a 2-on-1 and a breakaway in the first period, but Drobac denied both and went on to stop the next 20-plus shots he faced before seeing a point-blank laser whiz by from breathing distance in the final minute.

The effort by Miami was excellent, much of the execution was great, the RedHawks just didn’t get the bounces, and they shot themselves in the skate by going shorthanded eight times, and penalty killing has not been their strength, which segues to…

— Noreen had numerous animated encounters with the refs, several times animatedly reenacting plays like he had a live piranha in his suit.

(The last penalty assessed to a Miami coach was in 2019, when Enrico Blasi tore into officials at the end of a loss over a late penalty. He received a misconduct and was censured by the league.)

Miami had six power plays of its own and scored its lone goal on the man-advantage, but the RedHawks were anemic during much of their 5-on-4 time and had one PP halted 19 seconds in for an MU penalty.

— Six tripping penalties were assessed, including the last four minors. Including three straight against Miami, at 10:56, 15:34 and 19:00 of the third period. Makes it hard to generate offense late in the game.

Having completely different sets of enforcement standards by officials isn’t good for the game.

And before we get hate mail, that’s not blaming officials in any way, nor is it taking anything away from Arizona State, which played an outstanding game and made Miami’s shooting lanes look like a lumberyard with all of the active sticks in potentially dangerous areas.

Bounces didn’t go the RedHawks’ way, but that’s hockey, and ASU deserved the win.

— On Arizona State’s second goal: Casper Nassen and Charlie Michaud were defending on the 2-on-2 and both gravitated toward Schimek when the pair crossed over, and McGurn was wide open for the tap-in.

Both have been solid to start the season overall, with Nassen noticeably stronger and winning more physical battles and Michaud looking extremely confident handling the puck and making good decisions with it.

— David Deputy, who suffered a UBI after playing fewer than three minutes in the opener, returned and played well on the fourth line and as a penalty killer.

Noreen said after the game that they will try to work him into a more formidable role as he gets back to 100 percent.

— As mentioned before, Drobac — playing in his seventh straight game and his seventh collegiate game — denied a breakaway and a 2-on-1 in the first period or the scored could have been worse.

LINEUP CHANGES: Just one: Deputy replaced Brayden Morrison. Deputy missed five games with his injury. Morrison played his first game of the season last Saturday and held his own nicely.

STANDINGS: This was the NCHC opener for eight teams, so Miami is 0-1 in the league, in a tie with Colorado College, St. Cloud State and Denver, which did not begin its conference slate but lost to Alaska-Anchorage at home.

FINAL THOUGHTS: The league winning drought is huge, no doubt, and even with 21 of 28 new players on the team, there’s no way the stench of a now 41-game in-conference winless streak hasn’t permeated the freshman and transfer class.

But this wasn’t a bad loss, and if Miami continues to show the same effort as Friday, the RedHawks will win league games this season. A number of them.

Hopefully starting with Saturday’s series finale.

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VFG is headed to Belfast to cover Miami in the Friendship Four this November. We’re a completely independent website, so we bring you RedHawks hockey coverage without a dime of corporate compensation. If you like our work and have the means, please consider helping us continue to provide the best RedHawks coverage and photos by contributing via Venmo here: