Boston, MA – From the Bruins practice facility of Warrior Ice Arena it was a sea of red and white jerseys tonight: in a top shelf matchup we had the Knights of Catholic Memorial taking on the Pioneers of St. John’s Shrewsbury. This game featured two of the teams we picked preseason as Top 25 squads in D1. At this point in the season, CM already had a game under their belt while SJS was just getting game action underway for the season. It should be noted that this game was played in two 22:30 halves, like many of the conferences have defaulted to in this pandemic alerted season.
The first period featured a ton of back and forth action: it was wide open ice, passes to space and finding lanes to the net. The defenses on both sides did a nice job of limiting what happened within the house and that led to very little scoring overall. Both teams showed some wheels in different stretches but both sides had quality chances. The only one who was able to bury was Catholic Memorial’s Michael Birch coming off a scramble out front with only six minutes of time elapsed in the period. After the goal St. John’s Shrewsbury did make a push back, but were unable to find the back of the net. On the plus side they entered the back half with 34 seconds of power play time.
As the second half got underway that spillover power play time did not yield any results and actually CM benefitted from a momentum boost as two minutes into the frame sophomore forward Michael Spinelli was able to snap one home at close range to make it 2-0 Knights. The Pioneers did not abandon their game plan: they played with tight defensive layers and were very active with their sticks to deny odd man rushes. They clamped down after that second goal and senior netminder Ryan Dailida shut the door from there on. About six minutes later SJS got on the board as senior Jason Spiegelman read a pass in the neutral zone and blew by the defense slipping one home to make it 2-1. About a minute later would come the equalizer as a netfront scramble ensued and the puck popped loose to junior forward Evan Parente who stuffed it home: 2-2. CM began to take more possession and put a few high quality chances on Dailida, but he left shooters staring at the rafters. SJS finished off the comeback with four minutes to go in the game as sophomore F Brett Edgren drifted into open ice and fired one home off the pipe and in from close range. 3-2 was your final.
Three Stars:
- F Brett Edgren, St. John’s Shrewsbury
- G Ryan Dailida, St. John’s Shrewsbury
- F Aidan Tripp, Catholic Memorial
