Hockey: Goffstown 2 at Windham 5

Goffstown ended their spectacular regular season in Salem against a very strong Windham Jaguars team on Saturday night. Despite dropping their final two contests, the Grizzlies did win 14 games in the regular season for the first time in their program’s history. Windham jumped out to a 4-0 lead and the hole was too deep for the Grizzlies to climb out of and overcome, but that’s not the whole story.

Brett Branscum and Grady Chretien line up against the Jaguars. (Photo by Charron)

After playing maybe the worst two periods of hockey (the third period at Keene and the first period last night) during the entire season, the Grizzlies seemed to rouse from their brief hibernation and played solid hockey for a pair of periods. Which may have come just in time as the tournament begins on Wednesday night when the #7 Kingswood Knights host #10 Portsmouth-Newmarket Clipper Mules and the #8 Oyster River Bobcats host the #9 Merrimack Tomahawks.

Max had a huge goal for Goffstown in the game, to get the Grizzlies believing in their game again. (Photo by Charron)In the first period last night the Grizzlies were beaten to best spots on the ice over and over. Windham came out exactly like I thought they would, flying around the ice, trying to run over everything that moved, and going strong to the offensive zone. Windham’s Phil Tsoukalas scored a pair of goals in the opening period, both were unassisted. The second of Phil’s goals came as a Goffstown power play came to an end. The Jaguars cleared the puck the length of the ice and the puck bounced off of the end boards just to the left of Kyle LaSella. LaSella, and a hustling pair, Noah Charron and Phil Tsoukalas all got near the puck before LaSella could secure it and somehow Tsoukalas put the puck in the net. With the score 2-0 Windham and the Grizzlies looking like a prize fighter looking for his corner, the Jaguars added two more goals in the final 32+ seconds of the period. Jake Aleksa scored from Matt Crowley and Tommy Langlois with 32.7 seconds left. Then on a rather mysterious handling of the puck kind of play, Matt Crowley somehow got a puck past LaSella with 0.01 left on the clock. The first period closed with Windham leading 4-0 and holding a 12-3 advantage in shots.

[caption id="attachment_17239" align="alignleft" width="400"] Jacob Noonan the D corps will need to be a force to reckon with for tourney time. (Photo by Charron)

The Grizzlies looked as though they were a youth hockey house team playing a travel tournament in the middle of nowhere Quebec, and put into the AAA division, not that I’ve ever seen that happen.

There were two goals scored in the middle period, and Goffstown got both of them. After quick passes from Michael Fortin and Colby Gamache, Max Lajeunesse made a strong skating and stickhandling move from the left wing boards, down low, and out to the front of the net where he put the puck past Max Daly in net for Windham, at 1:32. At 8:54 Davin Granahan rocked Goffstown’s Eric DesRuisseaux from behind on the end boards and was issued a 5-minute major penalty and a 10-minute misconduct. Goffstown looked as if wouldn’t be able to take advantage, despite numerous chances, until Brett Branscum scored in a scramble out in front of the net.

Theo Milianes and Brett Lassonde assisted on the goal with 8 seconds left on the penalty. The period would end with Windham leading 4-2, but Goffstown had scored twice and led 12-2 in shots for the period.

Brett Lassonde’s skating ability could be a huge asset in the postseason. (Photo by Charron)

The third period was pretty well played by both squads. Windham got their shooting going again and threw everything at the net. Goffstown had all kinds of offensive zone pressure in the period, and twice got pucks past Daly in the net only to see them slide just inches outside of the post each time. At 6:03 Alek Tunik scored for Windham, from Nolan Cunningham to give Windham the 5-2 lead. Goffstown called a timeout and pulled LaSella from the net at 14:22 but couldn’t make a dent in the deficit. For the game, each team had 25 shots on goal with LaSella making 20 saves, and Max Daly saving 23 shots.

With the win, Windham secured the #2 seed in the tournament and Goffstown dropped from #2 to #4 with the loss and St. Thomas’s 5-2 victory over Lebanon-Stevens. As of publishing time, the brackets haven’t been released yet. So, Wednesday night Kingswood who went 8-2 down the stretch will play Portsmouth-Newmarket. Oyster River who shrugged off a 5-game losing streak over 13 days and won 5 of their last 6, will play host to Merrimack, a team that gave Keene and Goffstown fits and won their last 3 games to get in. The winners of these games will advance to the Quarter-Finals to play Keene or Windham on Saturday.

This week Goffstown played the two teams that ended up being #1 and #2 over the regular season. The Grizzlies lost by a combined score of 13-4 in the two games which doesn’t make it look very promising should they get by #5 Dover on Saturday night. Looking closer though, the Grizzlies lost two periods this week by a combined score of, 9-1, and I am hopeful that Goffstown got that out of their system. Recent weeks showed that such a breakdown was coming and hopefully for Goffstown, that has been identified and corrected. Defense wins championships and that has been a problem for the Grizzlies this year. Opponents have been allowed to get way too many good looks at shots and scoring chances against the Goffstown goaltenders in my opinion. That trend needs to change dramatically. At the same time, the Goffstown offense has been outstanding for most of the season. If Goffstown can defend their end well and use their offensive skills to possess the puck while creating chances to score, they could get to their third ever Semi-Final.

Here are the 10 teams in the Division II Ice Hockey Tournament this season.