WIthington Wins One for the Westies

Usually when one hockey team has a significant edge in shots, it will win the game. While that's typical, things doesn't always work out the way they should. Take Wednesday afternoon's Southern Connecticut Conference Division I contest between North Haven and West Haven at the Northford Ice Pavilion. Until the Blue Devils scored the only goal of the first period with 14 minutes, 48 seconds gone, North Haven stacked up a commanding 14-1 edge in shots.

It was much the same story in the second period. Despite being outshot 12-8, the Westies skated off with a 2-0 lead. The final stats show North Haven ending with a 31-14 advantage on the shot chart, but West Haven coming away with a 4-0 shutout victory in a Southern Connecticut Conference—Division 1 victory at the Northford Ice Pavilion.

North Haven (now 2-1) began the season with consecutive shut-out wins over North Branford (12-0) and Simsbury (5-1). The Indians not only outscored its opponents by a combined 17-0 margin, it went 104 minutes, 48 seconds without allowing a goal.

After outplaying the 1-0-1 Westies during all but 12 seconds of the first period, the Indians finally surrendered a score when the Blue Devils' Adam Mink took a mid-ice feed from teammate Mike Troiano, broke in alone on NHHS netminder Mike Amerone, and whipped the puck through his legs (aka the 5 Hole)  with a wrist shot from the top of the face-off circle. Passes from senior Captain Ryan Hansen and Troiano set up the go-ahead goal.

It was much the same in the second period, with North Haven controlling the play and West Haven adding a goal when Jeff Norton, who was camped in front of the net, gathered in a short pass from Brandon Cangiano and flipped it by Amerone at 8:35.

Earlier in the period, West Haven goalie J.P. Withington came up with an acrobatic move to reach behind himself and grab and Indian shot before it crossed the goal line.  Shortly thereafter, Withington stood tall and put an exclamation mark on his dazzling display in goal as he foiled a North Haven 2-on-0 break away. Midway into the second period, North Haven had an incredible 22-4 edge in shots and still had not gotten the puck past Withintgton.

"The difference in the first period was J.P, and the difference in the second period was J.P." said North Haven Coach Mike Violano.

The game's key goal came from Troiano at 7:53 of the third period (with help from teammates Mink and Hansen), visibly taking the wind out of North Haven's sails. After that goal, the Indians' energy was replaced by frustration at its inability to get the puck by the Blue Devils' talented 6-foot 4-inch goalie.

The winners closed out the scoring with Dean Allings' unassisted score at 8:56.

According to West Haven Coach Joe Morrell, "We're not going to win many games taking olnly 14 shots. Seeing how well J.P., had played, I told my guys between the seconds and third period that they were going to have to look J.P. in the eyes if we lost. For most of the first two periods, North Haven bottled us up and didn't let us do what we wanted to do with the puck, but during the same time, J.P. was outstanding. He was focused 100% and literally stood on his head to make some stops."

His NHHS counterpart, Mike Violano conceded that by the third  period, his skaters were frustrated and began to panic that they could not get the puck past Withington.

He said, "We were trying to do too much as individuals and not enough as a team. By the third period, we had stopped skating with energy and were cycling for no real reason. After taking 26 shots in the first two periods, we took only 5 shots in the third period. When we had control of the puck, we didn't seem to know what to do with it. Give J.P. a lot of credit. About half of our shots were high quality shots.  Several were from the point and there were a number of rebounds. We moved the puck well for two period but give J.P. credit. We were totally frustrated by our inability to score on him."

Morrell acknowledged that his team does not have the overwhelming fire power it had last year. As a result, he revealed that he has told his players that they had to play tight defense and hope Withington could come up big and win games for them.

He added, "North Haven is a solid team with four lines that aren't much different from each other. We have 4 or defensemen that have only played in 3 varsity games. The pressure is on us to stay close and let J.P. do his thing in goal. We know that people are saying that this will be a down year for West Haven and all we have is J.P. After tying Greenwich in our first game, all we have done is defeated good teams from Darien and North Haven by outscoring them 10-4. Tonight, we got outshot by a wide margin but we never stopped hustling and we finally beat North Haven to the punch."