Jenny Lichty // The Iowa State Cyclones celebrate a goal on Jan. 17, 2020 

After an emotional senior night/weekend that sealed the departure of many faces – including the author of this article -- #20 Oklahoma (18-11-0), (11-8-0 WCHL) must look ahead.

If facing Lindenwood and UCO in 4 consecutive games wasn’t “box office” enough, the Sooners are going to finish out the regular season with a true blue-blood in the ACHA: #24 Iowa State (18-15-3), (7-8-1 CSCHL). Owners of some of the slickest threads in D1, Iowa State pops out to most Sooner fans as a regular on the football schedule. That is true… but Iowa State has been national runner-up 5 times (including on March 26, 2019) and they have one chip from 1992. Let’s talk about this season’s Cyclones.

They have lost some production from last year’s run to the National Championship game. Tony Uglem played at 1.1 points/game in last year’s regular season and he provided 5 points in 4 playoff games in Frisco. Aaron Azevedo and Trevor Sabo are major losses as well, as Azevedo was also point/game and Sabo was top 3 in Nationals scoring for them. Jump to the present day: Dylan Goggin (pictured above) is their guy now. Goggin is currently besting his points/game pace by not much but it’s an important enough boost to his production since he likely moved up a line or two.

A loss that I expected to hurt them a little more than it seems to have done is goaltender Matt Goedeke. He turned in a .918 on 720 shots faced last season. He then followed that up with a 3-1-0 record in Frisco and a .951. He was absolute dynamite, and it earned them playoff wins over Adrian and Michigan-Dearborn. Now, you may have noticed that Iowa State is on the rankings bubble and you could be comparing that to the first sentence in this paragraph. The reality is that their Nikita Kozak has done a fine job in the Cyclones’ net. On 896(!!!) shots faced, Kozak still has a .935. Couple that with the fact that the Cyclones are scoring just ~1.89 goals/game away from home and you’ve got yourself a goaltender. His record is still mathematically in danger of falling below .500, but this reminds me a whole lot of Missouri State’s Bailey Stephens.

(Editor’s note: I’m big on admitting things after the fact. I did not even know that Everett Yasinski was a Cyclone last season, and I failed to mention that in the ASU preview; Yasinski is currently an Arizona State Sun Devil, and Oklahoma defeated him 4-3 on Oct. 5, 2019).

If all losses were consolidated into one column in hockey, Iowa State would be .500. However, this paragraph is intended to highlight the Cyclones’ most impressive wins. From Oct. 18 to Nov 8, Iowa State defeated #11 Jamestown twice and #15 Illinois once. They edged #4 Ohio 4-3 just two weeks ago.

Their away schedule in total isn’t pretty if I’m being brutally honest, but it wasn’t easy on paper either. On Nov. 15-16, they just couldn’t return the favor to the Minot State Beavers, falling 3-1 on both nights. They followed up a loss to (UR) Alabama with two dubs against Illinois. They took #3 Lindenwood to a shootout last week.

Don’t sleep on this team (seems to reign true in football as well) as they have proven their worth in various games this season and are getting ultra-reliable goaltending from Nikita Kozak.

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If Oklahoma can grab two wins in Ames then things get interesting. Oklahoma would, at the end of the day, have a more impressive resume than many teams ranked ahead of them (and this is a future article topic).

I will not have coverage duties on Friday night but in true riding off into the sunset fashion, I’ll have the regular live-tweets coming in primetime on Saturday.

PROJECTED STARTERS:

Babb vs. Kozak both nights

Cover photo is credited to Jenny Lichty.

Thanks for reading.