The Blue Demons cruised by Marquette in last weekend’s series, improving to 7-0 on the young season. 

DePaul has scored 54 goals as a team through their first seven games, and only surrendered 17 to their opponents. 

“I think all the guys here, we expect to go 20-0,” sophomore winger Matt Newton said. “That is what is want we expect. Everybody is competing super hard in all the practices and we expect to be one of the best teams in our league.” 

Two minutes into the game on Friday, senior winger Brock Asher scored the first of many Blue Demon goals. 

When the first period came to an end, the Blue Demons took a 3-0 lead courtesy of Newton and sophomore Danny Mannarino. 

While most things were in favor of DePaul in their 7-1 win, they committed six penalties that resulted in 12 minutes of Marquette power play time. No goals came out of those penalties, as the Blue Demons’ power play kill was effective defensively. On offense the power play proved to be in their favor. 

Head coach Dan Wood spoke on the errors and mistakes and how the team turned them into positives. 

“The big thing we’ve had is issues with penalties, but credit to our guys and our penalty kill guys,” Wood said. “They’re taking that as a way to get momentum. After we got penalties we had good shifts and scored after that, or scored on our power plays.” 

Mannarino was the leader in goal scorers in Friday’s game. He was one shy of a hat trick and improved his overall goals to four on the season. 

DePaul was outshot for the majority of the game and although one goal was let through by junior Asher Motew, he was able to make 47 saves. 

The Blue Demons, who got out in front early, made it easier for Motew to play with a lead, allowing him to have a clean night and ease the pressure of any possible goals being let in.

Still, Motew explained that the large lead throughout the game did not give him as much of an advantage as some might expect. 

 “When you get a big lead on everyone else, it is point night,” Motew said. “So the defense starts to lack, but I thought we kept it in, the last two minutes we had two block shots so the guys all game kept it in.” 

Saturday saw the same result, as the Blue Demons took a 4-2 win to complete the sweep of Marquette. 

The Blue Demons anticipated a stronger push from the Golden Eagles in the second game, but never shied away from their game plan by letting defense translate to good offense. 

DePaul will travel to Springfield, MO. to play Drury University for another weekend series beginning Friday, and look to keep their winning ways. 

Drury’s hockey program is only in its second season of being an official team, which might mean less of a challenge for DePaul. It also means there is not much to look to learn from the team in terms of what their identity may be.

“Drury is going to be a tough matchup,” Wood said. “They’re a brand new program, but fully funded by the school so they are going to be treated like a Division 1 program.” 

The next home game for DePaul will be until Nov. 4, when they host Aurora University in a weekend series.