Feature by Nicole Vasquez
TEMPE, Ariz -- With the Frozen Four and the 2016-17 season in the rearview mirror, Sun Devil men's ice hockey coach Greg Powers and his staff have adjusted their calendars and sights to the 2017-18 season.
Their New Year celebration came in the announcement of the 12th-best recruiting class in the nation, according to NeutralZone.net, on Wednesday, April 12. The spring signing class featured the USPHL's leading scorer Austin Lemieux, NAHL All-Star Dominic Garcia, Latvian centerman Filips Buncis and UMass-Lowell transfer Gage Hough.
When 'building the tradition', Powers and his staff look for more than statistics to determine who will slip on a Maroon and Gold sweater.
We sat down with Powers for a quick Q&A on the science behind his recruiting and what he likes about the incoming class.
Q: What is the main thing you look for in a player when recruiting him?
A: "The main thing we are looking for in a kid that comes in these doors and puts on the jersey especially this early in our program's stages is that they want to be Sun Devils. They want to want to build a program, they want to be the tradition, they want to help us build a tradition and set the foundation for many years to come and it has to be important to them. They have to want to come here over any other options that they have. I don't care what other options they have or if it's a top-5 or top-20 program -- that doesn't matter. They have to want to be here. We don't want to be a fallback option for kids. We want to be their No. 1 choice, so that's important to us that we get kids that know what it embodies what it means to be a Sun Devil."
Q: Has there been a change in the way you approach recruiting from when the team was at the club level to now?
A: "No, we always wanted to go get the best players we could. At the end of the day, I always say coaches don't win games, but they can lose games. Players win games. So, as a coach, you want to go get the best players available and get off the bus with the best players. Generally, if you get off the bus with better players than the other team, you are going to win. That was our philosophy at the club level and that's what we did and accomplished. With every class here, I think we are upgrading our talent on the ice and we are getting closer to a level playing field as far as being able to recruit kids that aren't committed. When we announced, everyone eligible to play for the most part, was committed. So we had to get kids who slid through the cracks, or for whatever reason, didn't have a commitment yet."
Q: Do you think there are any extra obstacles with recruiting by being new to DI?
A: "I think the obstacle we have is just the fear of the unknown. We are a new and in some parts out there, bit of an urban legend that there's hockey at Arizona State. It's becoming less and less and I think we are establishing ourselves in getting respect from not only our peers but just the hockey community in general. Some of the wins that we had and how competitive we were has helped with that. Every year I think those hesitations will decrease, but that just comes along with building a program from scratch and we're prepared for that."
Q: How is recruiting kids outside of North American borders different?
A: "The kids from Europe that don't speak English as their first language – you worry about that a little bit. But the two Latvian kids that we have, Filips Buncis and Gvido Jansons, speak really good English and they just have to take an exam, the TOEFL, to make sure that they can come to school in the states and understand what is being taught to them. But between Jakob Stridsberg, our Swede, and our two Latvian commits, they all three speak really good English. Those kids primarily come over here and play in North America, so they are here playing junior hockey and that's where you get to see them. They came here to get a scholarship and play Division I hockey. A lot of our international recruiting is north of the border. We go up to Canada all the time."
Q: Is there a specific junior league, like the USHL, that you focus on when you're looking for players or is it all across the board?
A: "It's everywhere. We don't want to spread ourselves and just focus on one league. The USHL is an incredible league, but for the most part, a lot of those kids are committed before they enter the USHL. So when you are building a roster of older players like we are so we can be competitive sooner, you got to go to other leagues like the NAHL and up in Alberta and British Columbia. That's what we've done -- we've got our roster completed from four our five different leagues across North America, so we've gone far and wide to find the guys we want."
Q: How cool is it to have a recruit, Patrick Kudla, with ties to two Arizona teams?
A: "It's unique that we have one of our drafted players a property of Arizona. I think it's good for them that they get to see him play a lot right here in their own backyard. I know they like that a lot. That was all just a coincidence. We committed him when he was up in Ontario before he was in the USHL. Then he got drafted and had a great year with Dubuque in the USHL. It just kind of all happened for him. Ironically, he got drafted by them after he committed to us."
Q: How big is it to have a Lemieux on the roster & what does Austin, specifically, bring into the mix?
A: "I'm sure he's battled his whole life living in his dad's shadow. Obviously, when you're arguably the best player of all time, that's going to happen. We have Austin here because we wanted Austin. He's going to be a really good college player, he's smart and we are really thrilled to have him."
Q: What excites you the most about the 2017-18 class overall?
A: "This is no insult to our previous recruiting classes because they are helping us build this program, but with more time and the ability to do really deep evaluation, the more of a level playing field we are with the other programs with the amount of uncommitted kids there are each year. This is easily the deepest class we've brought in. All three d-men are just dynamite and the guys up front are just going to be huge additions for us. So we are happy about this class. What we are really excited about is next year, we're only graduating one graduate student and one senior. This is the team that is the core we are building this program with and has improved year after year thus far. The year after this, that's when we are looking to make some headway."
Q: What stands out about the 2017-18 season?
A: "I think the most exciting thing about the schedule is that our home fans get to see so many high-caliber, Division I programs at home this season. Boston University, UMass-Lowell, Quinnipiac, Princeton, Penn State, and UMass-Amherst are all big-name, high-end programs. While we are building our program and exposing the Valley to college hockey at the highest level, there is no better way to do it than continue to expose local fans to the absolute best product possible on the ice. I think its safe to say we are doing that."
Q: The 2016-17 schedule was quite a grind, playing 12 top-20 teams for a total of 21 of 32 games…how does that prepare you for the upcoming season?
A: "I think you saw it start to prepare our young team last season with how well we played in the last month and a half of the season against really high end competition. Our players have seen it all on the ice in the very early stages of their careers, so there shouldn't be a team we face that intimidates us in any way."