Special teams, defense lead Hanover boys hockey to win over Bishop Guertin

TYNGSBOROUGH, Mass. - The Hanover High School boys hockey team was on its heels, facing a barrage from Bishop Guertin's power play unit during Saturday afternoon's game.

But the Marauders found an opening, got the puck out of their end, and got fresh penalty killers on the ice, and remarkably, they went on the offensive.

Hanover forced a turnover in Bishop Guertin's end and Cameron Woods found the back of the net for a shorthanded goal that gave the Marauders a 2-1 lead late in the second period. Hanover added a power play goal with 21.8 seconds to go in the period and the defense kept the Cardinals out of the net in the third for a 3-1 win in a Division I game at Skate 3.

Woods had two goals for the Marauders (8-1), opening the scoring 2:23 into the game and adding the shorthanded tally with 3:19 left in the second. Matt Gardner also scored a power play goal while Elias Zinman had two assists and Harris LaRock made 29 saves.

"The special teams were a big part of the win," Hanover coach Dick Dodds said. "We’ve had a pretty successful percentage on the power play. It was nice to see them turn that in, and obviously, it was a big one for us. And the shorthanded goal was huge. For whatever the reason, the group seems to rise to the special teams occasion."

Hanover has allowed just one power play goal all season, according to Dodds, and the shorthanded goal was the second of the year, meaning the Marauders' penalty killers have score more goals than they've allowed. They successfully killed off three Bishop Guertin power plays on Saturday.

"We have a lot of skill with controlling the puck and our defense is very strong," Woods said. "For power plays, we just take our time with it, pass it around and look for an opportunity, and score."

Liam Nye had the lone goal for Bishop Guertin (5-2-1), as he scored with 9:09 left in the first period to tie the game 1-1. Ben Young assisted on the goal and Colin Greitas made 20 saves for the Cardinals, who controlled possession for most of the game, but couldn't get many solid chances.

"They didn’t play with a lot of urgency," Bishop Guertin coach Gary Bishop said. "You get games like this, you better have a sense of urgency or the other team is going to come out with a sense of urgency and this is what happens. We played well territorially, we had chances, but when we needed to finish, we didn’t go to the net. We have up a couple of soft goals. You can dominate all game long, but you give up soft goals and don’t finish yourself, this is the result."

The Cardinals looked like they would have a chance to get one of the goals back early in the third, when Hanover's Tono Correa went to the box for hooking. But 46 seconds later, Doug Barker was called for a cross check and the teams were 4-on-4 for the next 1:14.

Bishop Guertin kept the pressure on Hanover's defense, but Ryan Flynn was called for elbowing with 4:53 remaining, wiping out two more minutes off the clock.

"The story has to be our team defense," Dodds said. "Our goaltender had a great game and he’s done it for us all year long. He deserves a lot of credit, but our entire group, we focused all week on team defense, from the goaltender on out. I think the kids really responded and we did a much better job in our own end than we have all year long."