Masuk Hockey Loses On Home Ice

The Masuk Panther hockey team suffered a defeat at the hands of the Newtown Nighthawks Wednesday night at the Rinks at Shelton, falling 4-1. A lack of puck control and a steady stream of Nighthawk shots through the first two periods of the game put Masuk in a bit of a hole that was difficult to come back from, despite much-improved play in the 3^rd.

“At times we looked okay and other times it wasn’t what it needed to be,” said Masuk coach Andrew Townsend. “The third period was much better, we won the third period 1-0, but we got down with soft goals given up and floated around defensively.”

The first two periods saw Newtown dominate the action and the puck, peppering Masuk goalie Tom Swift with 26 shots (compared to 10 for the Panthers), and scoring four times. Masuk wasn’t able to get anything going offensively, using an icing call at 3:03 to catch their breath and regroup.

Newtown’s Ed Issacs scored twice, once in each of the first two periods, to lead the Nighthawks.

Coming into the third, the Panthers began to show a little life and aggressiveness on the offensive end. Down 4-0, Masuk finally got on the board with an unassisted power play goal by Drew Madison at 12:49.

During their two previous power play opportunities, Masuk failed to score on just three shots. Coach Townsend appreciated the increase in intensity, but recognized that it came too late.

“Story for us all year. We’re so young ... out of the 13 skaters we have, 10 are freshmen and sophomores. It’s just growing pains right now this year. We’ll get better,” he said.

Another bright spot for this young Panther team was goalie Tom Swift. After letting in 4 goals in the first 2 periods, Swift shut Newtown out in the 3^rd.  He also had two nifty saves in the span of 30 seconds, one off a Nighthawk slaphot at 7:11, followed up by a big stop off a 3-on-2 at 7:41. In total, Swift had 32 saves.

“He’s been playing pretty well for us throughout most of the year," Townsend said. "Tommy battled all night, he never gave up, and that’s all I’m looking for right there is just to compete.”

Masuk only threatened one other time, a chip shot at the net that just missed the mark by Sean Shevlin. In the end, Newtown took home the win.

“We knew coming in it was going to be a down year. We’ve got to build back up, get our numbers back up,” said Townsend. “All I stress is simple hockey, make the simple play, don’t try to do too much.” 

When asked about their next game (at Norwich Ice Rink on Saturday to take on St. Bernard-Bacon-NFA), coach Townsend was optimistic.

“We’re gonna stress the same things, just play hard and simple hockey and see what happens. We’re aiming for 5 or 6 wins this year, and we’re halfway there. We’ll see what happens the rest of the year.”

With the loss, Masuk dropped to 3-10 on the season. Their next home game will be on Monday, February 14^th against 9^th-ranked Guilford.