Coincidental minors: A plethora of penalty shots to open the season

The penalty shot might be the least common play to occur in high school hockey, but it's certainly one of the most exciting, especially when it comes in a tie game.

Two penalty shots took place during games last week, each with different outcomes and affects on the game.

In Thursday's season-opener between Hanover and Manchester Memorial, the game was tied 1-1 and looked like it was going to overtime. But in the final seconds, Memorial's Zach Pelletier was hauled down as he approached the Hanover goal with the puck and was awarded a penalty shot.

"(The defender) wrapped his hand around me and I felt myself going down with him on top of me," Pelletier said. "I looked over and saw the ref put his hand up. I thought it was holding and then I saw him cross his arms and that's when the nerves started."

It was the first time Pelletier had taken a penalty shot during a game, at least as far as he could remember.

"In all my years playing hockey, I haven't," he said. "As I came to the puck, I had no idea. As I skated down, I started to look at the openings, and I thought to myself I should fake a shot and deke, so I did."

Pelletier beat Hanover goalie Gabe Loud for the game-winning goal with 11.5 seconds left and Memorial got a 2-1 win over the Marauders to open the season.

On Saturday in Nashua, St. Thomas's Hunter Saxton got a penalty shot in a different way in the second period of a scoreless game against Nashua North-Souhegan. As Saxton tried to clean up a rebound in front of the Saber Titans' goal, a player covered the puck with his hand while it was in the crease.

Saxton skated in on North-Souhegan goalie Sean Chipman, but the netminder made the save and 37 seconds later, the Saber Titans scored to take the lead.

But St. Thomas tied the game before the end of the season, and the Saints scored twice in third, including the game-winner by Saxton.

Both Memorial coach Mark Putney and St. Thomas coach Peter Harwood agreed, penalty shots aren't something that teams get to practice often.

"We don't spend a lot of time practicing it because it's not going to happen a lot," Harwood said. "We've done it once this year and I have full faith that the guy that missed that shot will score one again. It's just one of those things you see a lot on TV, but it doesn't happen a lot, so we don't practice it."

Putney said if his team practices them, it's at the end of the day, and sometimes can be more for fun than anything else.

"We'll do them a little bit, maybe at the end of a practice, just to put the goalie in that situation so he knows what he's facing," he said. "It also gives them a good opportunity for the forwards to showboat. It's not something you work on. You hope you have one of your top shooters taking a penalty shot and we did."