At any point, a team must be ready for the pivotal moment of a hockey game. On Wednesday night, the /Tolland/Windham co-op coach John Hodgson believed his Bucks were not prepared to capitalize late in the second period of their CCC Division III game against Northwest Catholic.
The Bucks trailed by a goal when it went on a full two-man advantage power play at the Newington Arena. The team mounted little pressure on the Indians (7-7-2) and did not tie the score. This was instrumental in Northwest Catholic’s 4-2 win that clinched a CIAC state tournament berth.
“Unfortunately, that 5-on-3 caught us by surprise,” Hodgson said. "It would have been nice to have scored then.” That was the win it or break it point for the game.
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“We’ve practiced like three times in the past three weeks, and when we have, we’ve worked on the regular power play," the coach said. "We haven’t worked on regrouping, and we didn’t do a good job of getting it into their zone."
E.O. Smith/Tolland/Windham (3-8-2) did score a second goal, but it came with 2:44 left in the third period and 1:37 after the Indians (4-4-1 division) made it a 3-1 game. Within another two minutes, Northwest Catholic scored an empty-net goal for the 4-2 final.
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Patrick Melanson had a goal and two assists for Northwest Catholic. A.J. Massaro and Jeff Greenwood each scored once and supplied an assist. Brennan Graham had the other goal for the Indians.
Matt St. Martin and Adam Turkis, set-up by St. Martin, scored for E.O. Smith/Tolland/Windham.
The Bucks (0-5-2 division), who are 1-7-1 in 2011, kept Northwest Catholic within reach with a reliable defensive effort, but their offense struggled to threaten freshman goaltender Alex Connal. They were outshot by Northwest Catholic, Division III semifinalists last year, 23-9.
Northwest Catholic, which has been 3-0-1 in its last four games, had much more of the puck but did not force the Bucks freshman goalie Ben Lassow to have his busiest or most difficult game.
“We fell into their defensive trap,” said Indians coach Don Melanson. “We ended up standing still, trying to break out instead of moving our feet. Through the neutral zone is when we had more speed. But when we controlled the puck in their zone is when we slowed down and tried to be more fancy.”
Northwest Catholic’s defense was steady but two mistakes led directly to Bucks’ goals.
St. Martin opened the scoring 9:25 into the first period when he stole a poor breakout pass for a brief breakaway on Connal. His backhand shot snuck over Connal’s shoulder into the upper, far corner.
St. Martin had the opportunity to nearly duplicate the move with a little under three minutes of play, but Connal made the stop after an Indians’ giveaway. Northwest Catholic could not clear the puck, and Turkis snuck a shot past Connal in traffic with 2:44 left to play.
“Both of their goals were from bad turnovers by us,” Melanson said. “We had control of the puck and gave it right to them, on both goals, which kept it a very close game.”
Northwest Catholic responded to St. Martin’s goal with a power-play goal with 45.5 seconds left in the first period when Graham knocked in a rebound following a Lassow save. The Indians took a 2-1 lead when Patrick Melanson’s shot deflected off an E.O. Smith/Tolland/Windham defender’s stick 6:14 into the second period.
A rare, sloppy defensive play by the Bucks led to Northwest Catholic’s third goal at 10:39 of the third period when Massaro and Greenwood wound up alone against Lassow and moved him out of position.
“Our finishing up front wasn’t consistent,” Hodgson said. “It was hard for us to sustain pressure. We didn’t make passes to the guys who were open and, as a result, we didn’t get good chances to score.”
