Westboro, MA – We popped out to Northstar Ice Sports to catch the Round of 32 matchup between the Winchester Red & Black and the Wachusett Mountaineers. Coming into this one, we had one question in mind: How important is strength of schedule, and how much of an impact does it have come tournament time? Winchester played one of the tougher schedules for a public school in any division and finished the year with an 11-9-2 record, with 54 GF and 47 GA. Wachusett entered the game 18-1-1 with 125 GF and just 35 GA, having played one of the easier schedules in all of Division 1.
The first period started out with hard-hitting and fast play from both squads. Wachusett was beating Winchester to pucks and hemming them into their defensive zone. Winchester was sending their forwards to the neutral zone, trying stretch passes instead of a typical breakout, and due to Wachusett’s high-pressure forecheck, it was not working efficiently. We will come back to Winchester’s breakout later in the game. Wachusett was getting Grade A scoring chances in the first few minutes, only to be denied by Graham Emerick time after time. Just as it seemed like Wachusett might put one home, Winchester went down the ice with numbers. Ben Wright shot it low, and senior Gus Gustafson tapped the rebound into an open net, making it 1-0 Winchester under three minutes into the game. It did not take Wachusett long to counter. Senior captain Cody Penniman came over the blue line on a 2-on-1 and threw a beautiful pass to Travis Laidlaw, who waited for the goalie to go down and commit before beating him short side, top corner. The period carried on with the teams trading heavy hits. Winchester began to get some offensive zone time, and Wachusett continued their heavy forechecking, accompanied by shots from the slot. Winchester got their lead back with three minutes left on a 2-on-1, with Caiden Brady dishing it to Eli Krogmeier, who scored on a one-timer. In the final minute of the period, Wachusett went on the power play. Winchester’s Caiden Brady caught Wachusett’s power-play unit sleeping and picked the pocket of a defender in the neutral zone, then went in on a breakaway and beat the goalie with an outstanding forehand-backhand deke, giving his team a 3-1 lead with 45 seconds left. The first period ended 3-1 in favor of Winchester; however, without Graham Emerick between the pipes, it could have easily been a 3-3 game.
The second period began with Wachusett still on their power play, getting some serious scoring chances but couldn’t put one in. Wachusett gained real momentum and dominated the opening portion of the period with continued pressure and shots. Wachusett was finally able to get one over the goal line when Ryan Flaherty skated the puck to just above the middle of the slot, used an inside-outside skating deke while protecting the puck to get around the defender, used that defender as a screen before firing a shot far side from inside the right circle, making it a 3-2 game. The goal came around three minutes into the period and gave Wachusett’s bench life again. As the period went on, it appeared that Wachusett was knocking on the door of tying the game until Gus Gustafson came down the ice as his teammate flipped the puck toward him; he batted it down into open ice, split the defense, and went forehand-backhand while getting hooked on a breakaway, somehow still putting it in the back of the net making it a 4-2 game. Not only was it one of the nicer goals we’ve seen, but it completely shifted the momentum of the game. From that point on, Winchester’s breakout – or more simply, their stretch passes – finally started to connect, and they were getting the bounces even when the passes weren’t perfect. Winchester kept going on fast breaks that consistently stressed Wachusett’s defense, which led to some penalties and even a penalty shot that was about an inch away from going in. With momentum surging in Winchester’s direction, Joe Vaccari won a faceoff in the offensive zone and passed it to his brother Anthony Vaccari, who took the puck toward the left post at a steep angle, faked a shot in tight, stickhandled around the goalie who bit on the fake shot, and then wrapped it around him toward the right post to put Winchester up 5-2 in dominant fashion. The rest of the second period proved uneventful besides a few rowdy scrums after the whistles.
The third period was a roller coaster from start to finish. Wachusett came into the third with a power play, and it resembled the beginning of the second period. They had many chances and almost scored multiple times, only to be stopped by Winchester’s brick wall. Soon after the power play ended, Wachusett’s sophomore Colin Carlson shot a laser through traffic from the blue line, beating the goalie top corner and making it a 5-3 game with a little over 12 minutes left in regulation. At this point, the momentum multiplied back into Wachusett’s favor and they continued to get chances, including an unsuccessful breakaway. Around the 10-minute mark, Wachusett got another power play, giving them the chance to make it a one-goal game. However, in the middle of this power play, a Wachusett player took an untimely, undisciplined penalty, cross-checking a Winchester player in the face and getting a five-minute major with under nine minutes left in the game. In weird fashion, Winchester dominated puck possession in the 30 seconds of 4-on-4 hockey, but somehow Wachusett dominated a good portion of their 4+ minute penalty kill. Their forecheckers were causing turnovers and passing it to the front of the net. A few of these passes worked, and players were getting wide-open scoring chances in the slot, and one Wachusett penalty killer took the puck from the corner to the slot untouched and almost scored. Their penalty kill was the embodiment of not giving up and not feeling down about the circumstances. As the time started to dwindle down, it became evident that a comeback was not coming to fruition. Then, what seemed to be out of nowhere, Wachusett senior Matt Brousseau put in a rebound with 26 seconds remaining to make it 5-4. Winchester then won the faceoff and got the puck deep. Wachusett came down the ice with under 10 seconds left, and one of their players put a shot on net from above the circles. The rink went dead silent for a moment, but Graham Emerick made the biggest save of the game to ensure Winchester moved on to the Sweet 16.
Three Stars:
- F Gus Gustafsson, Winchester
- G Graham Emerick, Winchester
- F Ryan Flaherty, Wachusett