Agawam Edges Taconic
PITTSFIELD, Mass. – The Taconic hockey team Saturday night played its best when it was 5-on-5.
Unfortunately for the Thunder, it combined with Agawam for 10 power plays on the night, and Agawam earned a 1-0 win at the Boys and Girls Club.
A.J. Robbins scored midway through the first period to spoil a 35-save performance by Cam LaFerriere as Agawam earned a season sweep of Taconic.
Neither team scored a goal on special teams despite combining for 20 penalty minutes in the 45-minute match. But all that penalty time had an effect on the game.
“That takes the flow out of the game, it takes the rhythm out of the game,” Taconic coach Matt Risley said. “Because you’ve got your special teams players, and then you’ve got your regular players who aren’t special teams players. And it’s kind of broken up there. It’s choppy.
“The power play is something we’ve got to keep working on and get back to the drawing board. We’ve got a busy second half of the schedule.”
Taconic (5-3) had an opportunity to tie the game when it started the second period with 41 seconds of man-up time from a penalty late in the first period. But even with a second penalty early in the second, including 10 seconds of 5-on-3 time, the Thunder could not find a way past Agawam keeper Jake Croteau (18 saves).
In fact, Taconic really did not find its offensive flow at all until about the midway point of the second period.
“What changed was they were getting their heads up and moved the puck quicker,” Risley said. “The quicker you move the puck, the more you’re able to do. I think the beginning of the game, we were a little behind the eight ball, a little slow, not moving the puck as quickly as I would have liked to have seen.
“They picked it up and competed well the rest of the game.”
Taconic was outshot, 13-6, in the first period but ended up nearly even on shots in the second.
And it had its best single chance for the equalizer midway through the third.
Rylan Padelford had a breakaway down the middle of the ice and fired a shot that Croteau turned aside. Brayden Bishop was there to grab the rebound, but Croteau recovered to his right and denied Bishop’s shot to keep his shutout intact.
Taconic had the last two power plays of the game, starting at 8:24 of the third period, but neither yielded good chances on Croteau.
At the other end, LaFerriere was a brick wall all night except for Robbins’ blast from the point that found the top corner of the net.
“Cam has been great the last two games,” Risley said. ‘He’s a very good goalie. He definitely held his own. We just didn’t have the opportunities in front of him today. One goal should be good enough to compete in this league, and it was. Cam’s been great.”
And Taconic was, on balance, better than it showed in a 5-1 loss at Agawam in the second game of the season back on Dec. 17.
“That’s a very good team,” Risley said of the visitors. “We lost 5-1 down there. It was 1-0 here. I think we’re making strides. We’re a good team as well. They beat us by one tonight. A bounce went their way on one goal, and it didn’t go our way down in the offensive zone. That’s really all it was. It was a pretty evenly matched game, I thought.”
Taconic will look to bounce back on Wednesday when it hosts Amherst-Pelham, the first of two straight games against the Hurricanes.