In its opening MIAA Division 4 postseason game, the South Hadley hockey team’s penalty kill struggled to stop the offense of Littleton, allowing three power-play goals in a 7-2 loss Monday night at Nashoba Valley Olympia Rink in Boxborough.
Special teams saw a lot of ice time in the preliminary round contest; No. 35 South Hadley took eight penalties total, and 30th-seeded Littleton went to the box on five occasions by the time the final horn sounded. South Hadley netminder Devin Carleton made 34 saves in the loss.
“Going into the game, I knew [Littleton] had depth. I knew they had a good goalie. I knew their power play was pretty good. And it’s just a matter of, ‘OK guys, who’s going to work harder?’” South Hadley head coach Kevin Stefanik said. “Tonight we had not a 20-pound, not a 50, but a 100-pound weight on us.”
Littleton opened the scoring just under four minutes into the opening frame. Junior Tyler Edwards got the goal past South Hadley’s netminder at the 11:48 mark. Both teams were kept off the board for the next nine minutes until Ethan King doubled Littleton’s lead, making it 2-0 with 2:45 remaining in the first.
Littleton (11-8) peppered Carleton all game, but especially in the first period, firing 18 shots on net in the opening 15 minutes. Carleton stopped all but two in the first, and played lights out all game.
“Honestly, that game could have been 10-2, 11-2. He really put on a show,” Stefanik said on Carleton’s play.
South Hadley senior Joe Meon cut Littleton’s lead to one goal early in the second, scoring a beautiful shorthanded goal to make it 2-1 at the 11:11 mark.
“He gave everything he could and left nothing on the table. Every single time he came off the ice tonight that kid could just barely breathe,” Stefanik said. “We were on the penalty kill and it was a loose puck (with a) bad bounce. We had puck luck for once and he fought off a defender and beat the goalie on a really nice deke on a breakaway.”
It didn’t take Littleton too long to re-establish its two-goal lead; just 11 seconds later, Zachary Lizotte capitalized on the power play to make it 3-1 and put South Hadley back in a two-goal deficit.
“Their power play was dialed in,” Stefanik said. “That was the first thing I thought, this is going to be a problem if we get into penalty issues, and we did.”
Ryan McNulty scored a minute and 34 seconds later to make it 4-1, and Lizotte scored again on the power play at the 11:04 mark to give Littleton a 5-1 lead heading into the second intermission. Lizotte factored into five of Littleton seven goals.
King scored his second goal of the game just under two minutes into the third period.
South Hadley made it 6-2 at the 5:04 mark with another goal from Meon, but it was too little, too late for the Tigers.
Tyler Edwards scored Littleton’s third power-play goal of the night at the midway point of the third to close out the scoring.
The Tigers finished their season 9-9-2 overall. Littleton will play No. 3 Stoneham in the Round of 32 on Thursday.