For the past few season NMH and Westminster have meet in the opening week of the season and while it’s very early this game has had playoff implications the past three seasons as both of these teams are perennial playoff bound programs.
There wasn’t a lot of highlights in this game; it was a goalie dual between NMH’s Connor Hasley who had a 32 save shutout performance and Westminster’s Bennett Ostern. Both teams came out hard and it was as physical a prep game as you’ll see.
The only score of the game came 6 minutes into the first period where junior forward Grady Friedman got in front of a shot at his defensive blue line from a Westminster defenseman and striped the puck going end to end for a mini-breakaway coming up the right side of the ice and fired a quick release snap shot just inside the far post in stride for a beautiful goal.
The rest of the game was scoreless with both teams exchanging scoring chances but NMH’s defensive zone coverage was stout. “We focus on our defensive zone structure and special teams a lot in practice and I thought we did a nice job keeping them to the outside for lower percentage chances,” said former Prep Coach of the Year Kevin Czepiel.
Westminster fought back in the third period and had a goal that was called back because of offsides on a low wrister shot from the point from Ryan Pineault which was deflected and went in but the puck was offside when he shot it and it was immediately called no goal. Westminster applied the pressure after that moment but NMH did a nice job clearing out the net front and not giving up any second chance opportunities. With 1:52 remaining in the game Westminster called a timeout with an offensive zone faceoff and pulled their goalie but didn’t get much chances other than Brennan Horn had a quick, hard snap shot over the net but other than that not much chances in the closing minute.
“It is early in the season and we are trying to find our identity and have a long way to go but our goalie was excellent tonight and this was a quality win for our team,” admitted Coach Czepiel after the game .
NZ’s Three Stars of the Game:
1st Star: Connor Hasley Goaltender, NMH
2nd Star: Grady Friedman , Forward, NMH
3rd Star: Joseph Solimine , Forward, NMH
Game Notes
NMH is one of the best coached teams in prep hockey; they don’t have any high end prospects but they play hard, they play with structure and they are physical. They smother you in their own end and they are excellent defending around the net and keeping opponents outside. They have some speed and energy up front, they have good size and toughness on their backend and a standout in between the pipes.
Their goalie Connor Hasley is one of the best in the league and we were impressed with the development of Grady Friedman, who has taken a noticeable step forward in his game this season. Other strong performers in the game were speedy forward Joseph Solimine, a junior out of Austin Prep and defenseman Chris Throndson.
Westminster will be there in the end because they have a deep lineup, they skate and handle the puck really well on their backend which makes them a quality breakout team and they have a balanced offense with 3 lines and a good combination of size, puck skill and speed.
They had a lot of players who stood out particularly on their backend led by Ned Blanchard, Ryan Pineault, Brandon Walker and Justin Louette. Up front they had strong contributions from Jake Monroe, Brennan Horn and Vic Barakett.
After Ryan Pineault’s point shot was called back he was vocal against the ref, there was a delay in the game and then he was ushered off the ice and didn’t return for the rest of the game. This was followed by getting chirped from the NMH fans on his way to the locker room. It was a low point for an otherwise really good competitive, physical hockey game.
