New England Hockey Hub

 

Gorham, ME – Unbeaten Greely marched into USM ice rink Tuesday night ready to take on a struggling Westbrook High School in Boys’ HS hockey action.

Greely controlled the flow of the game for the majority of the game, winning 2-1.

The Rangers held possession of the puck for at least 80% of the game and the end result was not indicative of the way the game was played out.

Greely’s dominance started in the faceoff circle where they won a vast majority of the draws and their superiority permeated virtually every aspect of the game. They played a neat and organized brand of hockey and it’s rooted in solid goaltending and excellent communication and passing from the defensemen.

The defense is active in on breakouts and is well utilized in the offensive zone. They made intelligent plays all night and that gave the offense the ability to cycle and flow freely. With the exception of a few violations for forwards being in Westbrook’s crease, Greely made few mistakes all night.

Westbrook also played a solid and relatively flawless game.

The only problem was they spent the majority of their time fending of attacking Rangers and mounted very few quality scoring opportunities themselves. The story of the game was Westbrook’s hustle and tight-knit defensive play. They blocked countless shots on the evening and gave very few open looks to the talented Greely team.

“Overall we just didn’t shoot the puck quickly enough,” said Greely coach Barry Mothes. “We weren’t executing all that well. There wasn’t a lot of space to execute. We must have had 20 shots blocked and not get to the net and we probably missed the net another 10 times. We were having a hard time hitting the net from 15, 20 feet and beyond and we’ve got to get better at that.”

Neither team was able to score in the first period, but Greely made sure to get one early in the second.

Just 50 seconds into the period, a shot from the blue line careened off a Westbrook defender and trickled to Joe Saffian behind the net where he hurried to the other side as the goalie was finding his footing to connect a pass to Senior John Downey, who barely beat Westbrook goalie Ricky Henwood moving across his crease.

The game continued on with Greely dominating possession and stifling anything Westbrook could muster offensively. Westbrook Senior Tommy Lemay played like a rock on defense and was a major reason why Greely was unable to find the back of the net most of the night. He cleared pucks, bodied up forwards, and did a fair amount of skating the puck out of his zone and up the ice.

Ricky Henward also played a great game in the net for the Blazes and had more than a couple fantastic glove saves as the third period wound down.

Greely finally was able to find the net and pad their lead with 1:30 left in the game.

Henward was screened by a slew of Westbrook and Greely jerseys and Kenny Richards found a seam past the blocker of Henward. With under a minute to go Westbrook got their goal with pretty much their only quality scoring chance on the night. Lemay skated up the ice with the puck and carried it into the zone. He retrieved his own rebound and lured Greely goalie Matt Labbe out of his crease. Lemay then passed to Kyle Gadreau who had an empty net to shoot on.

Greely tries to remain unbeaten against Leavitt on Thursday at 7:30 pm and Westbrook will have to wait until Jan. 4 for a chance to turn their season around against Cape Elizabeth.