The NC State Club Ice Hockey team capped off an undefeated regular season by winning the ACCHL championship Sunday, Feb. 17. The Wolfpack defeated St. Joseph’s, Wake Forest and UVa, out-scoring its opponents 20-5 in the tournament. The offensive dominance was a common trend in its 2018-2019 season.
“Everything’s just always been positive, good attendance at practice, no issues with anything,” head coach Mike Gazzillo said via phone. “Just honestly a special group that doesn’t come around very often. Once in a lifetime to be perfectly honest with you.”
Of the team’s 22 regular-season games, only three were decided by one-goal margins and of those only one went to overtime. NC State got consistent goaltending all season from its rotation of its four goalies. The goaltenders for NC State also put together five shutouts over the span of the season, led by three from senior goaltender Joey Hall.
“It really shows how good our defensive core is this season,” Hall said. “Not to discredit the forecheck or backcheck but a goalie can’t hold a shutout on their own. There were a lot of close calls, got bailed out by my defense a lot and I owe a lot of it to them.”
Goaltending was a crucial aspect of the Pack’s dominance but most astounding was its offense. The Wolfpack finished the season with a goal differential of plus-125 over 22 games. The team also scored 13 shorthanded goals while only giving up six.
“Well there was a couple of things that helped facilitate the offense,” Gazzillo said. “First we have a really, really good group of guys that came in that can score. And when you get a combination of playing well 5 on 5, keeping your focus, staying out of the box, not retaliating, you are becoming an elite team. And they are. I think those were definitely a contributing factor to our success.”
Leading the offense for the Pack were freshman phenom and ACC Rookie of the Year Riley Johnson and senior captain and ACC MVP Sam Banasiewicz. Johnson finished the regular season with 23 goals and 15 assists alongside three goals and assists in the playoffs, while Banasiewicz finished the regular season with 25 goals and 26 assists along with three goals and two assists in the playoffs.
Some of the key highlights from the Wolfpack’s season were three wins over UNC-Chapel Hill, all at PNC arena, and two come-from-behind victories, one over George Washington University and the other over Delaware.
All three of the wins against UNC-Chapel Hill were huge rivalry wins for the Pack supported by large crowd turnouts and highlighted by lots of physical play.
“The Backyard Brawls are always awesome,” senior alternate captain Ryan Kinney said. “Seeing all the fans packing it as much as they do, it’s always surprising, because honestly we’re a club hockey team, but there’s got to be something special when you get 5,000-plus people out there watching us. So the support is always great.”
The first “Backyard Brawl” of the season between the two teams resulted in a 9-5 victory for the Wolfpack, the second was a 7-1 victory and the final was a 5-0 victory, a special shutout for Hall.
“We were up 5-0 with a couple minutes left and I made a breakaway save,” Hall said. “Obviously we would have still won that game 5-1 at the least, but that was a great shutout for me to have. That was a very important one to me being against UNC and with all the fans there.”
The win against George Washington University was the closest NC State had come to losing this season. Heading into the second period, the Pack was down 3-0 but Banasiewicz led a comeback to tie the game in the third period. The Wolfpack also entered overtime shorthanded after sustaining a penalty after the third ended. NC State came out on top as Johnson forced a turnover at the blueline and beat the goaltender on a breakaway to seal the game for the Pack with the shorthanded goal.
“I just tried to do what I could and ended up getting a lucky bounce and the goalie went down before my shot and I scored it,” Johnson said. “That’s also where I got the ‘Superman’ nickname. I’d had that celebration in the back of my mind for a while, so I thought that was the perfect chance to break it out.”
Out of all of its games, the most special moment for the Wolfpack was when it finally secured the Admiral’s Cup with a 4-2 win over UVa.
“I saw myself reflected in the cup and it’s just an unreal feeling like, wow,” Hall said. “You can imagine how it feels, you can imagine how much it weighs, but you can’t imagine seeing yourself in that cup until you pick it up.”
NC State hockey has put together a truly remarkable season, but isn’t done yet with regionals starting on March 2.
“I think as long as we keep playing the way we’ve been playing all season, we are going to be successful,” Banasiewicz said. “If we do go in with the mentality like ‘Hey, we aren’t done yet,’ we can continue our season.”
Senior goalie Joey Hall and the NC State Ice Hockey team shake hands after the game against UNC-Chapel Hill at PNC Arena on Wednesday, Jan. 23. Hall shutout the Tar Heels, helping the Icepack to win 5-0.
