Arizona State Are In Good Hands With Former NHL Coach Dave Hakstol

LOWELL, Massachusetts — It was only a little more than 24 hours between when new Arizona State coach Dave Hakstol met his team for the first time at practice on Thursday and puck drop for his first game back behind a college bench in more than a decade.

You wouldn't know it from the start of his tenure.

ASU looked energized and engaged, having finally reached the end of a months-long journey brought on by the tragic heat-related collapse at an outdoor workout of defenseman Matthew Mayich, who remains on life support since Aug. 20.

On Friday, the Sun Devils opened up a three-goal, first-period lead and held on for a 5-3 win. Not pretty, but given the circumstances, more than sufficient.

"We did some things that we have to clean up, some things that we can address ourselves immediately," Hakstol said. "And then there's other things that we have to work through over time, and build into our game. It's gonna take a little bit."

But that's only natural. It's been a whirlwind week for Arizona State. Rumors circulated for several days that they might hire former North Dakota coach Brad Berry, ex-Northern Michigan coach Grant Potulny, or current Ontario Reign assistant coach Mike Haviland, among others. In the end, Hakstol, former coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, Seattle Kraken, and University of North Dakota, earned the job amid the program's ongoing controversy.

Nearly two months after Mayich, a St. Louis Blues draft pick, collapsed, former ASU coach Greg Powers — only recently placed on administrative leave — negotiated a mutual departure from the program, allowing Hakstol to officially come aboard as the full-time head coach on Thursday morning.

But rumors started to bubble up a little before that, and it was clear Hakstol was brought in not just to be a coach, but also to be a steady hand on the wheel for a program that needs some serious stabilizing.

"My job is to lead," Hakstol said. "My job is to lead this group; that's what a head coach's job is. We lead off the ice, we lead on the ice. We try to help guys grow individually on and off the ice. We want our team to grow collectively. So that's where my focus is. That's very clear to me."

Hakstol left an assistant's job with the Colorado Avalanche to rejoin the college coaching rankings for the first time since 2014-15. Previously, he led North Dakota, his alma mater, to seven Frozen Four appearances in 11 seasons.

He also hired former UND player Matt Greene, most recently a development coach with the Los Angeles Kings, to be an assistant behind the ASU bench. Word is that won't be the last former Fighting Hawks hire to come to Tempe, which might soon become something of a Grand Forks South.

But more immediately, Hakstol takes over a team in turmoil, with rumors of players opting to sit out last weekend's games amid disagreements with the previous coaching staff and the weight of everything they and Mayich have been through these past few months.

Hakstol, who only joined his team for his first practice on Thursday afternoon, sees his job as hitting the ground running and taking things as they come. He said he didn't get a chance to watch much film from ASU's four previous games this season — before he left, the Avalanche played five games in eight days, including a back-to-back with the Dallas Stars immediately before Hakstol got on a plane to Massachusetts — so the fact that the team won, played with some amount of urgency and poise, and came together clearly felt good.

But beyond that, everyone involved was sensitive to the timing and difficulty of the transition, both for the program and the players. While Hakstol didn't want to discuss when he was first approached about the opportunity, he made it clear everyone was on the same page about handling things properly.

"One of the things that was important to everybody involved was to communicate really well and do things the right way with the business, and I think we all did that," Hakstol said. "We worked through a very unique situation with the timing. All of us, Matt and myself stepping onto the bench tonight with [assistant coach Jimmy Mullin]. I don't know when that has happened before, coming in after something like this occurred, but we all did it in the right way."

Not that any hockey coach would ever say this kind of thing, but wins and losses feel like they're kinda beside the point for ASU this season. The players have been through so much already, so expecting little more than good nightly efforts would be understandable. Especially because, until Thursday, Hakstol hadn't met any players from the team he's now running. That may be somewhat commonplace in the NHL, but in college hockey, it's incredibly rare.

Fortunately for the team, the schedule is already aligned such that ASU doesn't have a game next weekend. Hakstol has a plan of attack for how to get his team ready to begin NCHC play and, hopefully, calm down all the outside noise: something of a training camp in the middle of October that will allow everyone in the program to truly get on the same page.

"I've got in my mind a schedule, probably, a minimum of six real good practices before we start to dial in on what we need to do against St. Cloud," Hakstol said. "So that gives us a lot of time just to focus on ourselves, which would be really valuable."

But there may also be a real "rally around the flag" motivation to win as much as possible, not just for each other after a contentious start to the season (which included an anonymous open letter from seven players calling for Powers to be put on administrative leave, which ASU's administration failed to do for more than a month) but of course, for Mayich as well.

Friday's game was a good start.

"There's nothing easy about, and there's certainly nothing typical about, the timing of this," Hakstol said. "But like I said, walking into the room yesterday, I felt really good about it. I'm gonna enjoy this process."

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